ANTISTROPHE I. VOICE 1. O son of Jove, in sooth, If thou wilt hear the truth, Robber's thy name! VOICE 2. Thou being young dost overleap the old.[n20] VOICE 1. A suppliant, godless, And bloodstained, I see, And bitter to parents, Harboured by thee. VOICE 2. Apollo's shrine a mother-murderer's hold! VOICE 3. Apollo rewardeth Whom Justice discardeth, And robber's his name! STROPHE II. VOICE 1. A voice of reproach Came through my sleeping, Like a charioteer With his swift lash sweeping. VOICE 2. Thorough my heart, Thorough my liver, Keen as the cold ice Shot through the river. VOICE 3. Harsh as the headsman, Ruthless exacter, When tearless he scourges The doomed malefactor. {146} ANTISTROPHE II. VOICE 1. All blushless and bold The gods that are younger Would rule o'er the old, With the right of the stronger. VOICE 2. The Earth's navel-stone So holy reputed, All gouted with blood, With fresh murder polluted, Behold, O behold! VOICE 3. By the fault of the younger, The holiest holy Is holy no longer. STROPHE III. VOICE 1. Thyself thy hearth with this pollution stained, Thyself, a prophet, free and unconstrained. VOICE 2. O'er the laws of the gods Thou hast recklessly ridden, Dispensing to men Gifts to mortals forbidden; VOICE 3. Us thou hast reft Of our name and our glory, Us and the Fates, The primeval, the hoary. ANTISTROPHE III. VOICE 1. I hate the god. Though underneath the ground He hide my prey, there, too, he shall be found. VOICE 2. I at each shrine Where the mortal shall bend him, Will jealously watch, That no god may defend him. VOICE 3. Go where he will, A blood-guilty ranger, Hotly will hound him still I, the Avenger! APOLLO. Begone! I charge thee, leave these sacred halls! From this prophetic cell avaunt! lest thou A feathered serpent in thy breast receive, Shot from my golden bow; and, inly pained, Thou vomit forth black froth of murdered men, Belching the clotted slaughter by thy maw Insatiate sucked. These halls suit not for thee; {147} But where beheading, eye-out-digging dooms,[n21] Abortions, butcheries, barrenness abound, Where mutilations, flayings, torturings, Make wretches groan, on pointed stakes impaled, There fix your seats; there hold the horrid feasts, In which your savage hearts exultant revel, Of gods abominate--maids whose features foul Speak your foul tempers plainly. Find a home In some grim lion's den sanguinolent, not In holy temples which your breath pollutes. Depart, ye sheep unshepherded, whom none Of all the gods may own! CHORUS. Liege lord, Apollo, Ours now to speak, and thine to hear: thyself Not aided only, but the single cause Wert thou of all thou blamest.