Around the city hovers care;
Not blunted are the oracles;—this deed 840
[The bodies of the brothers are brought in.]
Which ye have wrought, oh lamentable pair,
All credence doth transcend.
Dire woes are come, not by mere rumour taught.
Epode.
Lo, obvious now to sight the herald's tale!
Twofold anxieties, disasters twain
Of pride[1] and mutual slaughter, fraught
With twofold doom.
To their dread issue are these evils brought.
What can I sing? What but the grievous bale
Fixed at the heart of this ill-fated home?
But now, in escort of the dead,
Oh friends! adown grief's sobbing gale,
With measured beat of hands on head, 850
Ply ye the oar-stroke, ply amain,
Which over Charon's river evermore
Wafteth the galley, black of sail,[2]
Unchartered, to the sunless reign,
Untrodden by the god of light,
Invisible to mortal sight,
The all-receiving shore.
