Oresteia

sacrifice, wards off the cankering care of the sorrow that eateth my heart.

Power is mine to proclaim the augury of triumph given on their way to princely men—since still my age, original: "σύμφυτος αἰών" literally “life that has grown with me,” “time of life,” here “old age,” as the Scholiast takes it, inspired of the gods, breatheth upon me Persuasion, the strength of song—how that the twin-throned command of the Achaeans, the concordant captains of the youth of Hellas, was sped with avenging spear and arm against the Teucrian land by the inspiriting omen appearing to the kings of the ships—the kingly birds, one black, one white of tail, hard by the palace, on the spear-hand, The right hand in a station full conspicuous, devouring a hare with brood unborn checked in the last effort to escape. The Scholiast, followed by Hermann and some others, takes "laiginan gennan" as a periphrasis for a hare, with which "blabenta" agrees. With Hartung’s "phermata," the meaning is “the brood of a hare, the burthen of her womb, thwarted of their final course.” "Loisthion dromon," on this interpretation, has been thought to mean “their final course” (towards birth) or even their “future racings.”

Sing the song of woe, the song of woe, but may the good prevail !

Then the goodly seer of the host, marking how that the two warlike sons of Atreus were twain in temper, knew the devourers of the hare for the leaders of the armament, and thus interpreted the portent