PHI. O cavern of the hollow rock, I 1
Frosty and stifling in the seasons' change!
How I seem fated never more to range
From thy sad covert, that hath felt the shock
Of pain on pain, steeped with my wretchedness.
Now thou wilt be my comforter in death!
Grief haunted harbour, choked with my distress!
Tell me, what hope is mine of daily food,
Who will be careful for my good?
I fail. Ye cowering creatures of the sky,
Oh, as ye fly,
Snatch me, borne upward on the blast's sharp breath!
CH. 1. Thou child of misery!
No mightier power hath this decreed,
But thine own will and deed
Hath bound thee thus in grief,
Since, when kind Heaven had sent relief
And shown the path of wisdom firm and sure,
Thou still hast chosen this evil to endure.
PHI. O hapless life, sore bruised with pain! I 2
No more with living mortal may I dwell,
But ever pining in this desert cell
With lonely grief, all famished must remain
And perish; for what food is mine to share,
When this strong arm no longer wields my bow,
Whose fleet shafts flew to smite the birds of air
I was o'erthrown by words, words dark and blind,
Low-creeping from a traitorous mind!
O might I see him, whose unrighteous thought
This ruin wrought,
Plagued for no less a period with like woe!
CH. 2. Not by our craft thou art caught,
But Destiny divine hath wrought
The net that holds thee bound.
Aim not at us the sound
Of thy dread curse with dire disaster fraught.
On others let that light! 'Tis our true care
Thou should'st not scorn our love in thy despair.
PHI. Now, seated by the shore II 1
Of heaving ocean hoar,
He mocks me, waving high
The sole support of my precarious being,
The bow which none e'er held but I.
O treasure of my heart, torn from this hand,
That loved thy touch,--if thou canst understand,
How sad must be thy look in seeing
Thy master destined now no more,
Like Heracles of yore,
To wield thee with an archer's might!
But in the grasp of an all-scheming wight,
O bitter change! thou art plied;
And swaying ever by his side,
Shalt view his life of dark malignity,
Teeming with guileful shames, like those he wrought on me.
CH. 3. Nobly to speak for the right
Is manly and strong;
But not with an envious blight
To envenom the tongue;
He to serve all his friends of the fleet,
One obeying a many-voiced word,
Through the minist'ring craft of our lord
Hath but done what was meet.
PHI. Come, legions of the wild, II 2
Of aspect fierce or mild,
Fowl from the fields of air,
And beasts that roam with bright untroubled gaze,
No longer bounding from my lair
Fly mine approach! Now freely without fear
Ye may surround my covert and come near,
Treading the savage rock-strewn ways.
The might I had is no more mine,
Stolen with those arms divine.
This fort hath no man to defend.
Come satisfy your vengeful jaws, and rend
These quivering tainted limbs!
Already hovering death bedims
My fainting sense. Who thus can live on air,
Tasting no gift of earth that breathing mortals share?
CH. 4. Ah! do not shrink from thy friend,
If love thou reverest,
But know 'tis for thee to forfend
The fate which thou fearest.
The lot thou hast here to deplore,
Is sad evermore to maintain,
And hardship in sickness is sore,
But sorest in pain.
PHI. Kindest of all that e'er before III
Have trod this shore,
Again thou mind'st me of mine ancient woe!
Why wilt thou ruin me? What wouldst thou do?
CH. 5. How mean'st thou?
PHI. If to Troy, of me abhorred
Thou e'er hast hoped to lead me with thy lord.
CH. 6. So I judge best.
PHI. Begone at once, begone!
CH. 7. Sweet is that word, and swiftly shall be done!
Let us be gone, each to his place on board.
[The Chorus _make as if they were going_
PHI. Nay, by dear Zeus, to whom all suppliants moan
Leave me not yet!
CH. 8. Keep measure in thy word.
PHI. Stay, by Heaven, stay!
CH. 9. What wilt thou say?
PHI. O misery! O cruel power
That rul'st this hour!
I am destroyed. Ah me!
O poor torn limb, what shall I do with thee
Through all my days to be?
Ah, strangers, come, return, return!
CH. 10. What new command are we to learn
Crossing thy former mind?
PHI. Ah! yet be kind.
Reprove not him, whose tongue, with grief distraught,
Obeys not, in dark storms, the helm of thought!
CH. 11. Come, poor friend, the way we call.
PHI. Never, learn it once for all!
Not though he, whom Heaven obeys,
Blast me with fierce lightning's blaze!
Perish Troy, and all your host,
That have chosen, to their cost,
To despise and cast me forth,
Since my wound obscured my worth!
Ah, but, strangers, if your sense
Hath o'er-mastered this offence,
Yield but one thing to my prayer!
CH. 12. What wouldst thou have?
PHI. Some weapon bare,
Axe or sword or sharpened dart,
Bring it to content my heart.
CH. 13. What is thy new intent?
PHI. To sever point by point
This body, joint from joint.
On bloody death my mind is bent.
CH. 14. Wherefore?
PHI. To see my father's face.
CH. 15. Where upon earth?
PHI. He hath no place
Where sun doth shine, but in the halls of night.
O native country, land of my delight,
Would I were blest one moment with thy sight!
Why did I leave thy sacred dew
And loose my vessels from thy shore,
To join the hateful Danaän crew
And lend them succour? Oh, I am no more!
LEADER OF CH.
Long since thou hadst seen me nearing yonder ship,
Had I not spied Odysseus and the son
Of great Achilles hastening to our side.
OD. Wilt thou not tell me why thou art hurrying
This backward journey with reverted speed?
NEO. To undo what I have wrongly done to-day.
OD. Thy words appal me. What is wrongly done?