By woman's craft, and now below the earth . . . .
Elec. [Sobbing.] Ah me! ah me!840
Chor. He reigns in fullest life.
Elec. Fie on it, fie.
Chor. Yes, fie indeed; for she,
Fell traitress . . . .
Elec. Perished, you would say?
Chor. E'en so.
Elec. I know, I know it. One was left to care[1]
For him who suffered. None is left to me;
For he who yet remained is snatched away.
Chor. Most piteous thou, and piteous is thy lot.
Elec. That know I well, too well,850
In this my life, which through the months runs on,
Filled full of grievous fears,
And bitter, hateful ills.
Chor. We saw what thou dost mourn.
Elec. Cease, cease, to lead me on
Where now not one is left . . . .
Chor. What say'st thou? What?
Elec. Where not one helper comes,
From all the hopes of common fatherhood
And stock of noble sire.
Chor. Death is the lot of all.860
Elec. What? Is it all men's lot
In that fierce strife of speed,
To fall, as he fell, by an evil fate,
In severed reins entangled?
Chor. Wondrous and dark that doom.
Elec. I trow it was, if in a strange land, he,
- ↑ Amphiaraos, before leaving Argos, had charged his sons, Alcmæon and Amphilochos, to take vengeance on their mother, and this Alcmæon did. Here, as before, Sophocles refers to a subject that he himself had dramatised in his tragedy of Eriphyle.
