Aye, and it had succeeded, but for me.

How could he venture such fool-hardiness?

He schemed a night attack, by stealth, alone.

And did he reach us and arrive his goal?

At the tent door of the two chiefs he stood.

What then arrested him athirst for blood?

I, by the strong delusion that I sent,

A vision of the havoc he should make.

I turned his wrath aside upon the flocks

And the promiscuous cattle in the charge

Of drovers, booty not apportioned yet.

On them he fell and hewing right and left

Dealt death among the hornèd herd; and now

It was the two Atridae whom he slew,

And now a third, and now some other chief.

’Twas I that goaded him while thus distraught,

And thrust him deeper in the coils of fate.

Then pausing in this toil he turned to bind

The oxen left alive with all the sheep,

And drave them home, as if his spoil were men,

And not poor innocent beasts with hoofs and horns,

And now is mangling them fast bound within,