LONG LIFE NOT TO BE DESIRED (from "Oedipus at Colonus")
by: Sophocles
- HO, loving
life, hath sought
- To outrun the appointed span,
- Shall be arraigned before my thought
- For an infatuate man.
- Since the added years entail
- Much that is bitter; -- joy
- Flies out of ken, desire doth fail,
- The wished-for moments cloy.
- But when the troublous life,
- Be it less or more, is past,
- With power to end the strife
- Comes rescuing Death at last.
- Lo! the dark bridegroom waits! No festal choir
- Shall grace his destined hour, no dance, no lyre!
-
- Far best were ne'er to be;
- But, once he hath seen the day,
- Next best by far for each to flee
- As swiftly as each may,
- Yonder from whence he came;
- For let but Youth be there
- With her light fooleries, who shall name
- The unnumbered brood of Care?
- No trial spared, no fall!
- Feuds, battles, murders, rage,
- Envy, and last of all,
- Despised, dim, friendless age!
- Ay, there all evils, crowded in one room.
- Each at his worst of ill, augments of gloom.
-
- Such lot is mine, and round this man of woe,
- As some gray headland of a northward shore
- Bears buffets of all wintry winds that blow,
- Fresh storms of Fate are bursting evermore
- In thunderous billows, borne
- Some from the waning light,
- Some through mid-noon, some from the rising morn,
- Some from the stars of Night.
This English translation, by Lewis
Campbell, of 'Long Life Not to be Desired' is reprinted from
Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton.
Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893. |
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