Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 104

How blest is he who his progenitors

With pride remembers, to the listener tells

The story of their greatness, of their deeds,

And, silently rejoicing, sees himself

The latest link of this illustrious chain!

For seldom does the selfsame stock produce

The monster and the demigod: a line

Of good or evil ushers in, at last,

The glory or the terror of the world.—

After the death of Pelops, his two sons

Rul'd o'er the city with divided sway.

But such an union could not long endure.

His brother's honor first Thyestes wounds.

In vengeance Atreus drove him from the realm.

Thyestes, planning horrors, long before

Had stealthily procur'd his brother's son,

Whom he in secret nurtur'd as his own.

Revenge and fury in his breast he pour'd,

Then to the royal city sent him forth,

That in his uncle he might slay his sire.

The meditated murder was disclos'd,

And by the king most cruelly aveng'd,

Who slaughter'd as he thought, his brother's son.

Too late he learn'd whose dying tortures met

His drunken gaze; and seeking to assuage

The insatiate vengeance that possess'd his soul,

He plann'd a deed unheard of. He assum'd

A friendly tone, seem'd reconcil'd, appeas'd,

And lur'd his brother, with his children twain,

Back to his kingdom; these he seiz'd and slew;

Then plac'd the loathsome and abhorrent food

At his first meal before the unconscious sire.

And when Thyestes had his hunger still'd

With his own flesh, a sadness seiz'd his soul;

He for his children ask'd—their steps, their voice

Fancied he heard already at the door;

And Atreus, grinning with malicious joy,

Threw in the members of the slaughter'd boys.—

Shudd'ring, O king, thou dost avert thy face:

So did the sun his radiant visage hide,

And swerve his chariot from the eternal path.

These, monarch, are thy priestess' ancestors,

And many a dreadful fate of mortal doom,

And many a deed of the bewilder'd brain,

Dark night doth cover with her sable wing,

Or shroud in gloomy twilight.