THE BOOK WAS DRENCHED - OUDL Home

188 Aeschylus [622-648]
LEADER
Speak joy, if truth be joy, but truth, at worst—
Too plainly, truth and joy are here divorced.
HERALD
The hero and his bark were rapt away
Far from the Grecian fleet; 'tis truth I say.
LEADER
Whether in all men's sight from Ilion borne,
Or from the fleet by stress of weather torn?
HERALD
Full on the mark thy shaft of speech doth light,
And one short word hath told long woes aright.
LEADER
But say, what now of him each comrade saith?
What their forebodings, of his life or death?
HERALD
Ask me no more: the truth is known to none,
Save the earth-fostering, all-surveying Sun.
LEADER
Say, by what doom the fleet of Greece was driven?
How rose, how sank the storm, the wrath of heaven?
HERALD
Nay, ill it were to mar with sorrow's tale
The day of blissful news. The gods demand
Thanksgiving sundered from solicitude.
If one as herald came with rueful face
To say, The curse has fallen, and the host
Gone down to death; and one wide wound has reached
The city's heart, and out of many homes
Many are cast and consecrate to death,
Beneath the double scourge, that Ares loves,
The bloody pair, the fire and sword of doom—
If such sore burden weighed upon my tongue,
'Twere fit to speak such words as gladden fiends.
But—coming as he comes who bringeth news
Of safe return from toil, and issues fair,
To men rejoicing in a weal restored—
Dare I to dash good words with ill, and say ,