O children, who begat and gave you birth—

Your father—has destroyed you! naught you gain

By those fair deeds of mine I laid you up,

As by main-force I labored glory out

To give you,—that fine gift of fatherhood!

And thee, too, O my poor one, I destroyed.

Not rendering like for like, as when thou kept'st

My marriage-bed inviolate,—those long

Household-seclusions draining to the dregs

Inside my house! O me, my wife, my boys—