ubt that they will send forth a
fitting wail from their lovely deep-cinctured bosoms. And right it is
that we, before the sound of their wailing reach us, both ejaculate the
dismal-sounding chaunt of Erinnys, and sing a hateful paean to Pluto.
Alas! ye that are the most hapless in your sisterhood of all women that
fling the zone around their robes, I weep, I mourn, and there is no
guile about so as not to be truly wailing from my very soul.

SEMI-CHORUS. Alas! alas! ye frantic youths, distrustful of friends, and
unsubdued by troubles, have wretched seized on your paternal dwelling
with the spear.

SEMI-CH. Wretched in sooth were they who found a wretched death to the
bane of their houses.

SEMI-CH. Alas! alas! ye that overthrew the walls of your palace, and
having cast an eye on bitter monarchy, how have ye now settled your
claims with the steel?

SEMI-CH. And too truly hath awful Erinnys brought [the curses] of their
father OEdipus to a consummation.

SEMI-CH. Smitten through your left--Smitten in very truth, and through
sides that sprung from a common womb.

SEMI-CH. Alas for them, wretched! Alas! for the imprecations of death
which avenged murder by murder.

SEMI-CH. Thou speakest of the stroke that pierced through and through
those that were smitten in their houses and in their persons with
speechless rage, and the doom of discord brought upon them by the curses
of their father.

SEMI-CH. And moreover, sighing pervades the city, the towers sigh, the
land that loved her heroes sighs; and for posterity remains the
substance by reason of which, by reason of which,[172] contention came
upon them whom evil destiny, and the issue of death.

SEMI-CH. In the fierceness of their hearts they divided between them
the possessions, so as to have an equal share; but the arbiter[173]
escapes not censure from their friends, and joyless was their warfare.

SEMI-CH. Smitten by the steel, here they lie; and smitten by the
steel[174] there await them--one may perchance ask what?--the
inheritance of the tombs of their fathers.

SEMI-CH. From the house the piercing groan sends forth its sound loudly
over them, mourning with a sorrow sufferings as o'er its own,
melancholy, a foe to mirth, sincerely weeping from the very soul, which
is worn down while I wail for these two princes.

SEMI-CH. We may say too of these happy men that they both wrought many
mischiefs to their countrymen, and to the ranks of all the strangers,
tha