PHI. Come, legions of the wild,
II 2
Of aspect fierce or mild,
Fowl from the fields of air,
And beasts that roam with
bright untroubled gaze,
No longer bounding from my
lair
Fly mine approach! Now
freely without fear
Ye may surround my covert
and come near,
Treading the savage rock-strewn
ways.
The might I had is no more
mine,
Stolen with those arms divine.
This fort hath no man to defend.
Come satisfy your vengeful
jaws, and rend
These quivering tainted limbs!
Already hovering death bedims
My fainting sense. Who
thus can live on air,
Tasting no gift of earth that
breathing mortals share?
CH. 4. Ah! do not shrink from thy friend,
If
love thou reverest,
But
know ’tis for thee to forfend
The
fate which thou fearest.
The
lot thou hast here to deplore,
Is
sad evermore to maintain,
And
hardship in sickness is sore,
But
sorest in pain.
PHI. Kindest of all that e’er before
III
Have trod this shore,
Again thou mind’st me of mine ancient woe!
Why wilt thou ruin me? What wouldst thou do?
CH. 5. How mean’st thou?
PHI. If to Troy, of me abhorred
Thou e’er hast hoped to lead me with thy lord.
CH. 6. So I judge best.
PHI. Begone at once, begone!
CH. 7. Sweet is that word, and swiftly shall
be done!
Let us be gone, each to his place on board.
[The
Chorus make as if they were going
PHI. Nay, by dear Zeus, to whom all suppliants
moan
Leave me not yet!
CH. 8. Keep measure in thy word.
PHI. Stay, by Heaven, stay!
CH. 9. What wilt thou say?
PHI. O misery! O cruel power
That rul’st this hour!
I am destroyed. Ah me!
O poor torn limb, what shall I do with thee
Through all my days to be?
Ah, strangers, come, return, return!
CH. 10. What new command are we to learn
Crossing thy former mind?
PHI. Ah! yet be kind.
Reprove not him, whose tongue, with grief distraught,
Obeys not, in dark storms, the helm of thought!
CH. 11. Come, poor friend, the way we call.
PHI. Never, learn it once for all!
Not though he, whom Heaven obeys,
Blast me with fierce lightning’s blaze!
Perish Troy, and all your host,
That have chosen, to their cost,
To despise and cast me forth,
Since my wound obscured my worth!
Ah, but, strangers, if your sense
Hath o’er-mastered this offence,
Yield but one thing to my prayer!
CH. 12. What wouldst thou have?
PHI. Some weapon bare,
Axe or sword or sharpened dart,
Bring it to content my heart.