Fragment of a Greek Tragedy

by A. E. Housman

Chorus	O suitably-attired-in-leather-boots Head of a traveller, wherefore seeking whom Whence by what way how purposed art thou come To this well-nightingaled vicinity? My object in enquiring is to know, But if you happen to be deaf and dumb And do not understand a word I say, Then wave your hand to signify as much.
Alcmaeon	I journeyed hither a Boeotian road.
Chorus	Sailing on horseback, or with feet for oars?
Alcmaeon	Plying with speed my partnership of legs.
Chorus	Beneath a shining or a rainy Zeus?
Alcmaeon	Mud's sister, not himself, adorns my shoes.
Chorus	To learn your name would not displease me much.
Alcmaeon	Not all that men desire do they obtain.
Chorus	Might I then hear at what your presence shoots?
Alcmaeon	A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that -
Chorus	What? for I know not yet what you will say -
Alcmaeon	Nor will you ever, if you interrupt.
Chorus	Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue.
Alcmaeon	- This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's.
Chorus	Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies.
Alcmaeon	May I then enter, passing through the door?
Chorus	Go chase into the house a lucky foot, And, O my son, be, on the one hand good, And do not, on the other hand, be bad; For that is very much the safest plan.
Alcmaeon	I go into the house with heels and speed.
Chorus	In speculation I would not willingly acquire a name For ill-digested thought But after pondering much To this conclusion I at last have come: Life is uncertain. This truth I have written deep In my reflective midriff On tablets not of wax, Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there, For many reasons: Life, I say, is not A stranger to uncertainty. Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls This fact did I discover. Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out, Nor yet Dodona. Its native ingenuity sufficed My self-taught diaphragm.	Strophe
	Why should I mention The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus? Her whom of old the gods, More provident than kind, Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail, A gift not asked for, And sent her forth to learn The unfamiliar science Of how to chew the cud. She therefore, all about the Argive fields, Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops, Nor did they disagree with her. But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts I do not hanker after: Never may Cypris for her seat select My dappled liver! Why should I mention Io? Why indeed? I have no notion why.	Antistrophe
	But now does my boding heart, Unhired, unaccompanied, sing A strain not meet for the dance. Yes even the palace appears To my yoke of circular eyes (The right, nor omit I the left) Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak, Garnished with woolly deaths And many sphipwrecks of cows. I therefore in a Cissian strain lament; And to the rapid, Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest Resounds in concert The battering of my unlucky head.	Epode
Eriphyle (within)	O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw; And that in deed and not in word alone.
Chorus	I thought I heard a sound within the house Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
Eriphyle	He splits my skull, not in a friendly way, One more: he purposes to kill me dead.
Chorus	I would not be reputed rash, but yet I doubt if all be gay within the house.
Eriphyle	O! O! another stroke! that makes the third. He stabs me to the heart against my wish.
Chorus	If that be so, thy state of health is poor; But thine arithmetic is quite correct.