y helpers, awful Powers,
Who know no blandishments, but still perceive
All wicked deeds i' the world--strong, swift, and sure,
Avenging Furies, understand my wrong,
See how my life is ruined, and by whom.
Come, ravin on Achaean flesh--spare none;
Rage through the camp!--Last, thou that driv'st thy course
Up yon steep Heaven, thou Sun, when thou behold'st
My fatherland, checking thy golden rein,
Report my fall, and this my fatal end,
To my old sire, and the poor soul who tends him.
Ah, hapless one! when she shall hear this word,
How she will make the city ring with woe!
'Twere from the business idly to condole.
To work, then, and dispatch. O Death! O Death!
Now come, and welcome! Yet with thee, hereafter,
I shall find close communion where I go.
But unto thee, fresh beam of shining Day,
And thee, thou travelling Sun-god, I may speak
Now, and no more for ever. O fair light!
O sacred fields of Salamis my home!
Thou, firm set natal hearth: Athens renowned,
And ye her people whom I love; O rivers,
Brooks, fountains here--yea, even the Trojan plain
I now invoke!--kind fosterers, farewell!
This one last word from Aias peals to you:
Henceforth my speech will be with souls unseen. [_Falls on his sword_

CHORUS (_re-entering severally_).

CH. A. Toil upon toil brings toil,
And what save trouble have I?
Which path have I not tried?
And never a place arrests me with its tale.
Hark! lo, again a sound!

CH. B. 'Tis we, the comrades of your good ship's crew.

CH. A. Well, sirs?

CH. B. We have trodden all the westward arm o' the bay.

CH. A. Well, have ye found?

CH. B. Troubles enow, but nought to inform our sight.

CH. A. Nor yet along the road that fronts the dawn
Is any sign of Aias to be seen.

CH. Who then will tell me, who? What hard sea-liver, 1
What toiling fisher in his sleepless quest,
What Mysian nymph, what oozy Thracian river,
Hath seen our wanderer of the tameless breast?
Where? tell me where!
'Tis hard that I, far-toiling voyager,
Crossed by some evil wind,
Cannot the haven find,
Nor catch his form that flies me, where? ah! where?

TEC. (_behind_). Oh, woe is me! woe, woe!

CH. A. Who cries there from the covert of the grove?

TEC. O boundless misery!

CH. B. Steeped in this audible sorrow I behold
Tecmessa, poor fate-burdened bride of war.

TEC. Friends, I am spoi