In shame, and, skulking, tiers the shadowy throng, 620
And hides himself away; but still the seer,
With unrelenting purpose pressing on,
Repeats his strong compelling exorcisms,
Until he brings the ghost to open view.
I shudder as I tell it. There he stood,
A fearful sight, his body drenched with blood,
His matted locks o'erspread with horrid filth. 625
And now, with raging tongue, the specter spoke:
"O wild and savage house of Cadmus, thou
Who ever dost rejoice in brother's blood!
The thyrsus wave, in madness rend thy sons.
The greatest crime of Thebes is mother's love.
O fatherland, 'tis not the wrath of heaven, 630
But sin of man by which thou art undone.
No plague-fraught south wind with its deadly blast,
Nor yet the parchéd earth with its dry breath,
Is harming thee; but 'tis thy bloody king,
Who, as the prize of savage murder done,
Hath seized his father's scepter and his bed. 635
An impious son (but far more impious,
The mother who in most unhallowed womb
Bore children once again), he forced his way
Back to his source of life, and there begot
Upon his mother offspring horrible,
Got brothers to himself, a custom base,
Whence e'en the very beasts of prey are free. 640
Oh, base entanglement, more monstrous far
Than that fell Sphinx which he himself hath slain.
Thee, thee, who dost the bloody scepter hold,
Thee will thy sire, still unavenged, pursue,
With all thy town; and with me will I bring
Th' attendant fury of my wedding night—
I'll bring her with her loud-resounding[1] lash! 645
Thy house, polluted, will I overthrow,
And thy Penates will I trample down
In fratricidal strife! Then quickly drive
Thy king, O Thebes, from out thy boundaries!
- ↑ Reading, sonantem.
