Storm-battered? What trespass hath thee
Thus doomed to destruction? Oh, say,
To what region of earth have I wandered, forlorn?
Ah me! The dire anguish! Ah me!
Again the barbed pest doth assail!
Thou phantom of Argos,[1] earth-born;
Avert him, O earth! Ah, I quail, 580
The herdsman beholding with myriad eyes.
With crafty look, onward, still onward he hies;
Not even in death is he hid 'neath the earth;
But, e'en from the shades coming back,
He hounds me, forlorn one, in anguish of dearth,
To roam by the sea-waves' salt track.
Strophe.
Still droneth the wax-moulded reed,
Shrill-piping, a sleep-breathing strain. 590
Ah me! The dire anguish! Woe! Woe!
Ah, whither on earth do these far-roamings lead?
What trespass canst find, son of Kronos, in me,
That thou yokest me ever to pain?
Woe! Ah, woe!
And wherefore with brize-driven fear torture so
A wretchèd one, phrenzied in brain?
Oh burn me with fire, or o'erwhelm 'neath the soil,
Or fling me to ravenous beasts of the sea.
- ↑ Argos Panôptes, according to modern mythologists, is the star-illumined sky watching over the moon as she wanders—
"pale for very weariness
Of climbing heaven."
Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations.
