_Clytæm._ Thou, phantom-like,[485] dost hunt thy prey, and criest, Like hound that never rests from care of toil. What dost thou? (_to one Erinnys._) Rise and let not toil o'ercome thee, Nor, lulled to sleep, lose all thy sense of loss. Let thy soul (_to another_) feel the pain of just reproach: 130 The wise of heart find that their goad and spur. And thou (_to a third_), breathe on him with thy blood-flecked breath, And with thy vapour, thy maw's fire, consume him; Chase him, and wither with a fresh pursuit. _Leader of the Chor._ Wake, wake, I say; wake her, as I wake thee. Dost slumber? Rise, I say, and shake off sleep. Let's see if this our prelude be in vain. STROPHE I Pah! pah! Oh me! we suffered, O my friends.... Yea, many mine own sufferings undeserved.... We suffered a great sorrow, full of woe, 140 An evil hard to bear. Out of the nets he's slipped, our prey is gone: O'ercome by sleep I have my quarry lost. ANTISTROPHE I Ah, son of Zeus, a very robber thou, Though young, thou didst old Goddesses ride down,[486] Honouring thy suppliant, godless though he be, One whom his parents loathe: Thou, though a God, a matricide hast freed: Of which of these acts can one speak as just? STROPHE II Yea, this reproach that came to me in dreams 150 Smote me, as charioteer Smites with a goad he in the middle grasps, Beneath my breast, my heart; 'Tis ours to feel the keen, the o'er keen smart, As by the public scourger fiercely lashed. ANTISTROPHE II Such are the doings of these younger Gods, Beyond all bounds of right Stretching their power.... A clot of blood besmeared Upon the base, the head,... Earth's central shrine itself we now may see 160 Take to itself pollution terrible. STROPHE III And thou, a seer, with guilt that stains thy hearth Hast fouled thy shrine, self-prompted, self-impelled, Against God's laws a mortal honouring, And bringing low the Fates Born in the hoary past. ANTISTROPHE III Me he may vex, but shall not rescue him; Though 'neath the earth he flee, he is not freed For he, blood-stained, shall find upon his head Another after me, Destroyer foul and dread. [APOLLO _advances from the adytum and confronts them_