Epeisodion 2
CHOROS.
So that now, — late thy word, — much joy were — dying!
550
HERALD.
For well have things been worked out: these, — in much time,
Some of them, one might say, had luck in falling,
While some were faulty: since who, gods excepted,
Goes, through the whole time of his life, ungrieving?
For labours should I tell of, and bad lodgments,
555
Narrow deckways ill-strewn, too, — what the day’s woe
We did not groan at getting for our portion?
As for land-things, again, on went more hatred!
Since beds were ours hard by the foemen’s ramparts,
And, out of heaven and from the earth, the meadow
560
Dews kept a-sprinkle, an abiding damage
Of vestures, making hair a wild-beast matting.
Winter, too, if one told of it — bird-slaying —
Such as, unbearable, Idaian snow brought —
Or heat, when waveless, on its noontide couches
565
Without a wind, the sea would slumber falling
— Why must one mourn these? O’er and gone is labour:
O’er and gone is it, even to those dead ones,
So that no more again they mind uprising.
