Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/365

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A hundred did he offer. First, poor wretch,
With soul serene, rejoicing to be decked
In that apparel, thus he made his prayers.
But, when the blood-fed flame from resinous pine
And from the holy things began to blaze,
There came a sweat upon his flesh, and lo!
As though fresh glued by some artificer,
The tunic folds around his every joint,
And through his bones there went convulsive starts;
And when the venom of the hateful snake770
Devoured his flesh, he called poor Lichas to him,
In nothing guilty of this crime of thine,
And asked with what device he brought the robe.
And he, poor wretch, nought knowing, said the gift
Was thine alone, as thou did'st bid him say.
And when he heard it, and a spasm of pain
Had seized his chest, he grasped him by the foot,
Just where the ancle hinges on its joint,
And hurled him on the rock, on either side
Washed by the waters; then from curling locks780
The white brain gushed, his skull being split in twain,^[1]
With blood commingled. And a cry went up,
A cry of all the people, as they saw
So tortured one, and one so foully slain.
And no one dared to go and face the man,
For strange convulsions drew him, now to earth,
Now lifted up, with cries of agony,
And all the rocks re-echoed his complaints,
The Locrian headlands and Eubœan capes.
And, when his spirit failed, full oft he dashed

1. Popular tradition in the time of Æschylos, (p. 29,) pointed to a rock in the Eubœan gulf as the grave of Lichas. Later legends found a human form in the rock, and told that the victim had been transformed into the rock, Ovid, Metap., ix. 226.)