The Cornhill Magazine/Volume 10/Issue 58/Fragment of a Greek Tragedy
For other versions of this work, see Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy.
| Alcmæon. Chorus. | |
| Cho. | O suitably-attired-in-leather-bootsHead of a traveller, wherefore seeking whomWhence by what way how purposed art thou comeTo this well-nightingaled vicinity?My object in inquiring is to know.But if you happen to be deaf and dumbAnd do not understand a word I say,Then wave your hand, to signify as much. |
| Alc. | I journeyed hither a Bœotian road. |
| Cho. | Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars? |
| Alc. | Plying with speed my partnership of legs. |
| Cho. | Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus? |
| Alc. | Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes. |
| Cho. | To learn your name would not displease me much. |
| Alc. | Not all that men desire do they obtain. |
| Cho. | Might I then hear at what your presence shoots? |
| Alc. | A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that— |
| Cho. | What? for I know not yet what you will say. |
| Alc. | Nor will you ever, if you interrupt. |
| Cho. | Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue. |
| Alc. | —This house was Eriphyla's, no one's else. |
| Cho. | Nor did he shame his throat with hateful lies. |
| Alc. | May I then enter, passing through the door? |
| Cho. | Go, chase into the house a lucky foot.And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good,And do not, on the other hand, be bad;For that is very much the safest plan. |
| Alc. | I go into the house with heels and speed. |
| Chorus. | |
Strophe. In speculationI would not willingly acquire a name For ill-digested thought; But after pondering muchTo this conclusion I at last have come: Life is uncertain. This truth I have written deep In my reflective midriff On tablets not of wax,Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there,For many reasons: Life, I say, is not A stranger to uncertainty.Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls This fact did I discover,Nor did the Delphic tripod bark it out, Nor yet Dodona.Its native ingenuity sufficed My self-taught diaphragm. Antistrophe. Why should I mentionThe Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus? Her whom of old the gods, More provident than kind,Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail, A gift not asked for, And sent her forth to learn The unfamiliar scienceO:f how to chew the cud.She therefore, all about the Argive fields,Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops, Nor did they disagree with her.But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts I do not hanker after:Never may Cypris for her seat select My dappled liver! Why should I mention Io? Why indeed? I have no notion why. Epode. But now does my boding heart, Unhired, unaccompanied, sing A strain not meet for the dance. Yea even the palace appears To my yoke of circular eyes (The right, nor omit I the left) Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak, Garnished with woolly deaths And many shipwrecks of cows.I therefore in a Cissian strain lament; And to the rapid,Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest Resounds in concertThe battering of my unlucky head. | |
| Eriphyla (within). | O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw;And that in deed and not in word alone. |
| Cho. | I thought I heard a sound within the houseUnlike the voice of one that jumps for joy. |
| Eri. | He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,Once more: he purposes to kill me dead. |
| Cho. | I would not be reputed rash, but yetI doubt if all be gay within the house. |
| Eri. | O! O! another stroke! that makes the third.He stabs me to the heart against my wish. |
| Cho. | If that be so, thy state of health is poor;But thine arithmetic is quite correct. |
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*** A. E. Housman.
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