And it is planted in the soil of Troy,
That hostile soil, fresh whetted for its work.
Carefully have I fixed it where it stands,
That quickly I may die, and painlessly.
So far all's well; in what comes now, O Zeus,
On thee for aid, and with good right, I call.
'Tis no great favour that I crave of thee:
Let some one bear to Teucer the ill news,
That he may be the first to lift my corpse
From off the sword, fresh streaming with my blood.
Let me not, by some foeman first espied,
Be cast a prey to carrion fowl and dogs.
This, Zeus, I ask of thee, and I invoke
Hermes, who leads the dead, that at one bound
Pierced through, and with no lingering agony
I may be laid in my eternal sleep.
Last on the dread Erinnyes I call,
That ever-virgin sisterhood, who see
All that is done among mankind, to mark
How the Atridae have my ruin wrought.
Come, ye swift powers of retribution, come,
And flesh you on the whole Achaean host.
Thou sun, whose chariot traverses the sky,
When on my native land thou lookest down,
Draw for a while thy glittering rein, and tell
The story of my madness and my doom
To my grey-headed father, and to her
That bare me, and that when she hears this news
Will make the city echo with her wail.
But to no purpose are these weak laments;