Epode.
And here this woe-worn one
(Not I alone) is found;
As some far northern shore,1240
Smitten by ceaseless waves,
Is lashed by every wind;
So ever-haunting woes,
Surging in billows fierce,
Lash him from crown to base;
Some from the westering sun,
Some from the eastern dawn,
These, from the noontide south,
Those, from the midnight of Rhipæan hills.[1]
Antig. And here, my father, so it seems, he comes,
The stranger, all alone, and, as he walks,1250
He sheds a flood of tears incessantly.
Œdip. Who is this man?
Antig. He, who this long time past
We thought and spoke of, Polyneikes, comes.
Enter Polyneikes.
Polyn. What shall I do, ah me! . . . mine ills bewail,
My sisters, or shed tears for what I see
My aged father suffering? I have found
Both him and you in strange land wandering;
And this his garb, whose time-worn squalidness
Matches the time-worn face, and makes the form1260
All foul to look on, and his uncombed hair,
Tossed by the breeze, falls o'er his sightless brow.
And she, my sister, as it seems, provides
For this poor life its daily sustenance.
- ↑ The Rhipæan hills, thought of as in the far north of Skythia, were to the Greeks as a region of clouds and thick darkness, sending forth the chilling blasts (ῥιπαὶ) of the North.
