Semi-chorus I. Strophe III.
Steel-smitten, hapless pair!
Steel-smitten, lie they there.
What fortune, one perchance may ask,
Awaiteth them?—A share
In their ancestral tomb.
Semi-chorus II.
Grief, with heart-piercing groan,
Escorts them from their home—sad task;—
Sorrow unfeigned and unfeignèd moan,
Distressful, joyless, din! 910
Wasteth my heart as from its depths within
True tears I shed, weeping those princes' doom.
Semi-chorus I. Antistrophe III.
This o'er them one may say,
O'er that unhappy twain;—
That to their friends much bale they wrought
And to the alien host,
Slaughtered in deadly fray.
Semi-chorus II.
Of womankind on earth,
Of all, the mother's name who boast, 920
Most wretched she who gave them birth;—
Wedding her son these forth she brought,
By kindred hands and mutual murder slain.
Semi-chorus I. Strophe IV.
Brothers indeed together reft of life,