Antistrophe.
"And phantasms, from his deep distress unfolding,
Are ever present with their idle charms.
And when that beauteous form he seems beholding,
It slides away from out his clasping arms.
The vision! in an instant it is gone,
On light wing down the silent paths of sleep!
Around that widowed heart, so mute, so lone.
Such are the griefs, and griefs than these more deep
To all from Greece that part
For the dread warfare: Patient in her gloom,
Sits Sorrow, guardian god of each sad home,
And many woes pierce rankling every heart.
Oh, well each knew the strong, the brave, the just,
Whom they sent forth on the horrid track
Of battle; and what now comes back?
Their vacant armour, and a little dust!"
And the sorrow for friends thus lost rises in an ominous murmur against the sons of Atreus, who led the flower of Greece to die in a strange land, in a woman's quarrel. The heavy burden of a people's curse suggests fears that may not be spoken. And again and again in new words the old burden is repeated:—when men are highest in pride, then Erinnys comes, and heaven's thunder bursts first on the over-glorious:—
"Mine be the unenvied fate,
Not too wealthy, not too great.
I covet not, not I, the bad renown
To be the sacker of another's town,
Or see, a wretched slave, the sacking of mine own."
