Sophocles' TRACHINIAE Complete

Translated by R. Jebb.

Sophocles Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Sophocles in Print

57 Pages

Page 48

O thou lord of the dark realm, receive me! Smite me, O fire of Zeus!
Hurl down thy thunderbolt, O King, send it, O father, upon my head!
For again the pest is consuming me; it hath blazed forth, it hath
started into fury! O hands, my hands, O shoulders and breast and trusty
arms, ye, now in this plight, are the same whose force of old subdued
the dweller in Nemea, the scourge of herdsmen, the lion, a creature
that no man might approach or confront; ye tamed the Lernaean Hydra,
and that monstrous host of double form, man joined to steed, a race
with whom none may commune, violent, lawless, of surpassing might;
ye tamed the Erymanthian beast, and the three-headed whelp of Hades
underground, a resistless terror, offspring of the dread Echidna;
ye tamed the dragon that guarded the golden fruit in the utmost places
of the earth.

These toils and countless others have I proved, nor hath any man vaunted
a triumph over my prowess. But now, with joints unhinged and with
flesh torn to shreds, I have become the miserable prey of an unseen
destroyer,- I, who am called the son of noblest mother,- I, whose
reputed sire is Zeus, lord of the starry sky.

But ye may be sure of one thing:- though I am as nought, though I
cannot move a step, yet she who hath done this deed shall feel my
heavy hand even now: let her but come, and she shall learn to proclaim
this message unto all, that in my death, as in my life, I chastised
the wicked!

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