{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8714/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8714","id":"gutenberg_8714","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8714","summary":null,"tags":["Aeschylus -- Translations into English","Category: Classics of Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Plays/Films/Dramas","Classical Antiquity","Mythology, Greek -- Drama"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n_Hera and Prometheus\nFrom a red figure vase. No 78 in the British Museum_\n\n\n\n\nFour Plays of Aeschylus\n\nThe Suppliant Maidens\nThe Persians\nThe Seven Against Thebes\nThe Prometheus Bound\n\nby Aeschylus\n\nTranslated Into English Verse By E.D.A. Morshead, MA.\n\nContents\n\n INTRODUCTION\n THE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS\n THE PERSIANS\n THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES\n PROMETHEUS BOUND\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nThe surviving dramas of Aeschylus are seven in number, though he is\nbelieved to have written nearly a hundred during his life of sixty-nine\nyears, from 525 B.C. to 456 B.C. That he fought at Marathon in 490, and\nat Salamis in 480 B.C. is a strongly accredited tradition, rendered\nalmost certain by the vivid references to both battles in his play of\n_The Persians_, which was produced in 472. But his earliest extant play\nwas, probably, not _The Persians_ but _The Suppliant Maidens_\u2014a\nmythical drama, the fame of which has been largely eclipsed by the\nhistoric interest of _The Persians_, and is undoubtedly the least known\nand least regarded of the seven. Its topic\u2014the flight of the daughters\nof Danaus from Egypt to Argos, in order to escape from a forced bridal\nwith their first-cousins, the sons of Aegyptus\u2014is legendary, and the\nlyric element predominates in the play as a whole. We must keep\nourselves reminded that the ancient Athenian custom of presenting\ndramas in _Trilogies_\u2014that is, in three consecutive plays dealing with\ndifferent stages of one legend\u2014was probably not uniform: it survives,\nfor us, in one instance only, viz. the Orestean Trilogy, comprising the\n_Agamemnon_, the _Libation-Bearers_, and the _Eumenides_, or _Furies_.\nThis Trilogy is the masterpiece of the Aeschylean Drama: the four\nremaining plays of the poet, which are translated in this volume, are\nall fragments of lost Trilogies\u2014that is to say, the plays are complete\nas _poems_, but in regard to the poet\u2019s larger design they are\nfragments; they once had predecessors, or sequels, of which only a few\nwords, or lines, or short paragraphs, survive. It is not certain, but\nseems probable, that the earliest of these single completed plays is\n_The Suppliant Maidens_, and on that supposition it has been placed\nfirst in the present volume. The maidens, accompanied by their father\nDanaes, have fled from Egypt and arrived at Argos, to take sanctuary\nthere and to avoid capture by their pursuing kinsmen and suitors. In\nthe course of the play, the pursuers\u2019 ship arrives to reclaim the\nmaidens for a forced wedlock in Egypt. The action of the drama turns on\nthe attitude of the king and people of Argos, in view of this intended\nabduction. The king puts the question to the popular vote, and the\ndemand of the suitors is unanimously rejected: the play closes with\nthanks and gratitude on the part of the fugitives, who, in lyrical\nstrains of quiet beauty, seem to refer the whole question of their\nmarriage to the subsequent decision of the gods, and, in particular, of\nAphrodite.\n\nOf the second portion of the Trilogy we can only speak conjecturally.\nThere is a passage in the _Prometheus Bound_ (ll. 860-69), in which we\nlearn that the maidens were somehow reclaimed by the suitors, and that\nall, except one, slew their bridegrooms on the wedding night. There is\na faint trace, among the Fragments of Aeschylus, of a play called\n_Thalamopoioi_,\u2014i.e. _The Preparers of the Chamber_,\u2014which may well\nhave referred to this tragic scene. Its grim title will recall to all\nclassical readers the magnificent, though terrible, version of the\nlegend, in the final stanzas of the eleventh poem in the third book of\nHorace\u2019s _Odes_. The final play was probably called _The Danaides_, and\ndescribed the acquittal of the brides through some intervention of\nAphrodite: a fragment of it survives, in which the goddess appears to\nbe pleading her special prerogative. The legends which commit the\ndaughters of Danaus to an eternal penalty in Hades are, apparently, of\nlater origin. Homer is silent on any such penalty; and Pindar,\nAeschylus\u2019 contemporary, actually describes the once suppliant maidens\nas honourably enthroned (_Pyth_. ix. 112: _Nem_. x. ll. 1-10). The\nTartarean part of the story is, in fact, post-Aeschylean.\n\n_The Suppliant Maidens_ is full of charm, though the text of the part\nwhich describes the arrival of the pursuers at Argos is full of\nuncertainties. It remains a fine, though archaic, poem, with this\nspecial claim on our interest, that it is, probably, the earliest\nextant poetic drama. We see in it the _tendency_ to grandiose language,\nnot yet fully developed as in the _Prometheus_: the inclination of\nyouth to simplicity, and even platitude, in religious and general\nspeculation: and yet we recognize, as in the germ, the profound\ntheology of the _Agamemnon_, and a touch of the political vein which\nappears more fully in the _Furies_. If the precedence in time here\nascribed to it is correct, the play is perhaps worth more recognition\nthan it has received from the countrymen of Shakespeare.\n\n_The Persians_ has been placed second in this volume, as the oldest\nplay whose date is certainly known. It was brought out in 472 B.C.,\neight years after the sea-fight of Salamis which it commemorates, and\nfive years before the _Seven against Thebes_ (467 B.C.). It is thought\nto be the second play of a Trilogy, standing between the _Phineus_ and\nthe _Glaucus_. Phineus was a legendary seer, of the Argonautic\nera\u2014\u201cTiresias and Phineus, prophets old\u201d\u2014and the play named after him\nmay have contained a prophecy of the great conflict which is actually\ndescribed in _The Persae_: the plot of the _Glaucus_ is unknown. In any\ncase, _The Persians_ was produced before the eyes of a generation which\nhad seen the struggles, West against East, at Marathon and Thermopyl\u00e6,\nSalamis and Plataea. It is as though Shakespeare had commemorated,\nthrough the lips of a Spanish survivor, in the ears of old councillors\nof Philip the Second, the dispersal of the Armada.\n\nAgainst the piteous want of manliness on the part of the returning\nXerxes, we may well set the grave and dignified patriotism of Atossa,\nthe Queen-mother of the Persian kingdom; the loyalty, in spite of their\nbewilderment, of the aged men who form the Chorus; and, above all, the\nroyal phantom of Darius, evoked from the shadowland by the libations of\nAtossa and by the appealing cries of the Chorus. The latter, indeed,\nhardly dare to address the kingly ghost: but Atossa bravely narrates to\nhim the catastrophe, of which, in the lower world, Darius has known\nnothing, though he realizes that disaster, soon or late, is the lot of\nmortal power. As the tale is unrolled, a spirit of prophecy possesses\nhim, and he foretells the coming slaughter of Plataea; then, with a\nlast royal admonition that the defeated Xerxes shall, on his return, be\nreceived with all ceremony and observance, and with a characteristic\nwarning to the aged men, that they must take such pleasures as they\nmay, in their waning years, he returns to the shades. The play ends\nwith the undignified reappearance of Xerxes, and a melancholy\nprocession into the palace of Susa. It was, perhaps, inevitable that\nthis close of the great drama should verge on the farcical, and that\nthe poltroonery of Xerxes should, in a measure, obscure Aeschylus\u2019\ngenerous portraiture of Atossa and Darius. But his magnificent picture\nof the battle of Salamis is unequalled in the poetic annals of naval\nwar. No account of the flight of the Armada, no record of Lepanto or\nTrafalgar, can be justly set beside it. The Messenger might well, like\nProspero, announce a tragedy by one line\u2014\n\nSit still, and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.\n\n\nFive years after _The Persians_, in 467 B. C., the play which we call\nthe _Seven against Thebes_ was presented at Athens. It bears now a\ntitle which Aeschylus can hardly have given to it for, though the scene\nof the drama overlooks the region where the city of Thebes afterwards\ncame into being, yet, in the play itself, Thebes is _never_ mentioned.\nThe scene of action is the Cadmea, or Citadel of Cadmus, and we know\nthat, in Aeschylus\u2019 lifetime, that citadel was no longer a mere\nfastness, but had so grown outwards and enlarged itself that a new\nname, Thebes, was applied to the collective city. (All this has been\nmade abundantly clear by Dr. Verrall in his Introduction to the _Seven\nagainst Thebes_, to which every reader of the play itself will\nnaturally and most profitably refer.) In the time of Aeschylus, Thebes\nwas, of course, a notable city, his great contemporary Pindar was a\ncitizen of it. But the Thebes of Aeschylus\u2019 date is one thing, the\nfortress represented in Aeschylus\u2019 play is quite another, and is never,\nby him, called Thebes. That the play received, and retains, the name,\n_The Seven against Thebes_, is believed to be due to two lines of\nAristophanes in his _Frogs_ (406 B.C.), where he describes Aeschylus\u2019\nplay as \u201cthe Seven against Thebes, a drama instinct with War, which any\none who beheld must have yearned to be a warrior.\u201d This is rather an\nexcellent _description_ of the play than the title of it, and could not\nbe its Aeschylean name, for the very sufficient reason that Thebes is\nnot mentioned in the play at all. Aeschylus, in fact, was poetizing an\nearlier legend of the fortress of Cadmus. This being premised, we may\nadopt, under protest as it were, the Aristophanic name which has\naccrued to the play. It is the third part of a Trilogy which might have\nbeen called, collectively, _The House of Laius_. Sophocles and\nEuripides give us _their_ versions of the legend, which we may\nepitomize, without, however, affirming that they followed exactly the\nlines of Aeschylus\u2019 Trilogy\u2014they, for instance, speak freely of\n_Thebes_. Laius, King of Thebes, married Iokaste; he was warned by\nApollo that if he had any children ruin would befall his house. But a\nchild was born, and, to avoid the threatened catastrophe, without\nactually killing the child he exposed it on Mount Cithaeron, that it\nshould die. Some herdsmen saved it and gave it over to the care of a\nneighbouring king and queen, who reared it. Later on, learning that\nthere was a doubt of his parentage, this child, grown now to maturity,\nleft his foster parents and went to Delphi to consult the oracle, and\nreceived a mysterious and terrible warning, that he was fated to slay\nhis father and wed his mother. To avoid this horror, he resolved never\nto approach the home of his supposed parents. Meantime his real father,\nLaius, on _his_ way to consult the god at Delphi, met his unknown son\nreturning from that shrine\u2014a quarrel fell out, and the younger man slew\nthe elder. Followed by his evil destiny, he wandered on, and found the\nnow kingless Thebes in the grasp of the Sphinx monster, over whom he\ntriumphed, and was rewarded by the hand of Iokaste, his own mother! Not\ntill four children\u2014two sons and two daughters\u2014had been born to them,\nwas the secret of the lineage revealed. Iokaste slew herself in horror,\nand the wretched king tore out his eyes, that he might never again see\nthe children of his awful union. The two sons quarrelled over the\nsuccession, then agreed on a compromise; then fell at variance again,\nand finally slew each other in single combat. These two sons, according\nto one tradition, were twins: but the more usual view is that the elder\nwas called Eteocles, the younger, Polynices.\n\nTo the point at which the internecine enmity between Eteocles and\nPolynices arose, we have had to follow Sophocles and Euripides, the\nfirst two parts of Aeschylus\u2019 Trilogy being lost. But the third part,\nas we have said, survives under the name given to it by Aristophanes,\nthe _Seven against Thebes_: it opens with an exhortation by Eteocles to\nhis Cadmeans that they should \u201cquit them like men\u201d against the\nonslaught of Polynices and his Argive allies: the Chorus is a bevy of\nscared Cadmean maidens, to whom the very sound of war and tramp of\nhorsemen are new and terrific. It ends with the news of the death of\nthe two princes, and the lamentations of their two sisters, Antigone\nand Ismene. The onslaught from without has been repulsed, but the male\nline of the house of Laius is extinct. The Cadmeans resolve that\nEteocles shall be buried in honour, and Polynices flung to the dogs and\nbirds. Against the latter sentence Antigone protests, and defies the\ndecree: the Chorus, as is natural, are divided in their sentiments.\n\nIt is interesting to note that, in combination with the _Laius_ and the\n_Oedipus_, this play won the dramatic crown in 467 B.C. On the other\nhand, so excellent a judge as Mr. Gilbert Murray thinks that it is\n\u201cperhaps among Aeschylus\u2019 plays the one that bears least the stamp of\ncommanding genius.\u201d Perhaps the daring, practically atheistic,\ncharacter of Eteocles; the battle-fever that burns and thrills through\nthe play; the pathetic terror of the Chorus\u2014may have given it favour,\nin Athenian eyes, as the work of a poet who\u2014though recently (468 B.C.)\ndefeated in the dramatic contest by the young Sophocles\u2014was yet present\nto tell, not by mere report, the tale of Marathon and Salamis. Or the\npreceding plays, the _Laius_ and the _Oedipus_, may have been of such\nhigh merit as to make up for defects observable in the one that still\nsurvives. In any case, we can hardly err in accepting Dr. Verral\u2019s\njudgment that \u201cthe story of Aeschylus may be, and in the outlines\nprobably is, the genuine epic legend of the Cadmean war.\u201d\n\nThere remains one Aeschylean play, the most famous\u2014unless we except the\n_Agamemnon_\u2014in extant Greek literature, the _Prometheus Bound_. That it\nwas the first of a Trilogy, and that the second and third parts were\ncalled the _Prometheus Freed_, and _Prometheus the Fire-Bearer_,\nrespectively, is accepted: but the date of its performance is unknown.\n\nThe _Prometheus Bound_ is conspicuous for its gigantic and strictly\nsuperhuman plot. The _Agamemnon_ is human, though legendary the\n_Prometheus_ presents to us the gods of Olympus in the days when\nmankind crept like emmets upon the earth or dwelt in caves, scorned by\nZeus and the other powers of heaven, and\u2014still aided by Prometheus the\nTitan\u2014wholly without art or science, letters or handicrafts. For his\nbenevolence towards oppressed mankind, Prometheus is condemned by Zeus\nto uncounted ages of pain and torment, shackled and impaled in a lonely\ncleft of a Scythian precipice. The play opens with this act of divine\nresentment enforced by the will of Zeus and by the handicraft of\nHephaestus, who is aided by two demons, impersonating Strength and\nViolence. These agents of the ire of Zeus disappear after the first\nscene, the rest of the play represents Prometheus in the mighty\nsolitude, but visited after a while by a Chorus of sea nymphs who, from\nthe distant depths of ocean, have heard the clang of the demons\u2019\nhammers, and arrive, in a winged car, from the submarine palace of\ntheir father Oceanus. To them Prometheus relates his penalty and its\ncause: viz., his over tenderness to the luckless race of mankind.\nOceanus himself follows on a hippogriff, and counsels Prometheus to\nsubmit to Zeus. But the Titan who has handled the sea nymphs with all\ngentleness, receives the advice with scorn and contempt, and Oceanus\nretires. But the courage which he lacks his daughters possess to the\nfull; they remain by Prometheus to the end, and share his fate,\nliterally in the crack of doom. But before the end, the strange half\nhuman figure of Io, victim of the lust of Zeus and the jealousy of\nHera, comes wandering by, and tells Prometheus of her wrongs. He, by\nhis divine power, recounts to her not only the past but also the future\nof her wanderings. Then, in a fresh access of frenzy, she drifts away\ninto the unknown world. Then Prometheus partly reveals to the sea\nmaidens his secret, and the mysterious cause of Zeus\u2019 hatred against\nhim\u2014a cause which would avail to hurl the tyrant from his power. So\ndeadly is this secret, that Zeus will, in the lapse of ages, be forced\nto reconcile himself with Prometheus, to escape dethronement. Finally,\nHermes, the messenger of Zeus, appears with fresh threats, that he may\nextort the mystery from the Titan. But Prometheus is firm, defying both\nthe tyrant and his envoy, though already the lightning is flashing, the\nthunder rolling, and sky and sea are mingling their fury. Hermes can\nsay no more; the sea nymphs resolutely refuse to retire, and wait their\ndoom. In this crash of the world, Prometheus flings his final defiance\nagainst Zeus, and amid the lightnings and shattered rocks that are\noverwhelming him and his companions, speaks his last word, \u201c_It is\nunjust!_\u201d\n\nAny spectacular representation of this finale must, it is clear, have\nroused intense sympathy with the Titan and the nymphs alike. If,\nhowever, the sequel-plays had survived to us, we might conceivably have\nfound and realized another and less intolerable solution. The name\n_Zeus_, in Greek, like that of _God_, in English, comprises very\ndiverse views of divine personality. The Zeus in the _Prometheus_ has\nlittle but the name in common with the Zeus in the first chorus of the\n_Agamemnon_, or in _The Suppliant Maidens_ (ll. 86-103): and parallel\nreflections will give us much food for thought. But, in any case, let\nus realize that the _Prometheus_ is not a human play: with the possible\nexception of Io, every character in it is an immortal being. It is not\nas a vaunt, but as a fact, that Prometheus declares, as against Zeus\n(l. 1053), that \u201cMe at least He shall never give to death.\u201d\n\nA stupendous theological drama of which two-thirds has been lost has\nleft an aching void, which now can never be filled, in our minds. No\nreader of poetry needs to be reminded of the glorious attempt of\nShelley to work out a possible and worthy sequel to the _Prometheus_.\nWho will not echo the words of Mr. Gilbert Murray, when he says that\n\u201cno piece of lost literature has been more ardently longed for than the\n_Prometheus Freed_\u201d?\n\nBut, at the end of a rather prolonged attempt to understand and\ntranslate the surviving tragedies of Aeschylus, one feels inclined to\nrepeat the words used by a powerful critic about one of the greatest of\nmodern poets\u2014\u201cFor man, it is a weary way to God, but a wearier far to\nany demigod.\u201d We shall not discover the full sequel of Aeschylus\u2019\nmighty dramatic conception: we \u201cknow in part, and we prophesy in part.\u201d\nThe Introduction (pp. xvi.-xviii.) prefixed by Mr. A. O. Prickard to\nhis edition of the _Prometheus_ is full of persuasive grace, on this\ntopic: to him, and to Dr. Verrall of Cambridge\u2014_lucida sidera_ of help\nand encouragement in the study of Aeschylus\u2014the translator\u2019s thanks are\ndue, and are gratefully and affectionately rendered.\n\n       E. D. A. M.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS\n\nDEDICATION\n\n\nTake thou this gift from out the grave of Time.\nThe urns of Greece lie shattered, and the cup\nThat for Athenian lips the Muses filled,\nAnd flowery crowns that on Athenian hair\nHid the cicala, freedom\u2019s golden sign,\nDust in the dust have fallen. Calmly sad,\nThe marble dead upon Athenian tombs\nSpeak from their eyes \u201cFarewell\u201d: and well have fared\nThey and the saddened friends, whose clasping hands\nWin from the solemn stone eternity.\nYea, well they fared unto the evening god,\nPassing beyond the limit of the world,\nWhere face to face the son his mother saw,\nA living man a shadow, while she spake\nWords that Odysseus and that Homer heard,\u2014\n_I too, O child, I reached the common doom,\nThe grave, the goal of fate, and passed away_.\n\u2014Such, Anticleia, as thy voice to him,\nAcross the dim gray gulf of death and time\nIs that of Greece, a mother\u2019s to a child,\u2014\nMother of each whose dreams are grave and fair\u2014\nWho sees the Naiad where the streams are bright\nAnd in the sunny ripple of the sea\nCymodoce with floating golden hair:\nAnd in the whisper of the waving oak\nHears still the Dryad\u2019s plaint, and, in the wind\nThat sighs through moonlit woodlands, knows the horn\nOf Artemis, and silver shafts and bow.\nTherefore if still around this broken vase,\nBorne by rough hands, unworthy of their load,\nFar from Cephisus and the wandering rills,\nThere cling a fragrance as of things once sweet,\nOf honey from Hymettus\u2019 desert hill,\nTake thou the gift and hold it close and dear;\nFor gifts that die have living memories\u2014\nVoices of unreturning days, that breathe\nThe spirit of a day that never dies.\n\n\nARGUMENT\n\nIo, the daughter of Inachus, King of Argos, was beloved of Zeus. But\nHera was jealous of that love, and by her ill will was Io given over to\nfrenzy, and her body took the semblance of a heifer: and Argus, a\nmany-eyed herdsman, was set by Hera to watch Io whithersoever she\nstrayed. Yet, in despite of Argus, did Zeus draw nigh unto her in the\nshape of a bull. And by the will of Zeus and the craft of Hermes was\nArgus slain. Then Io was driven over far lands and seas by her madness,\nand came at length to the land of Egypt. There was she restored to\nherself by a touch of the hand of Zeus, and bare a child called\nEpaphus. And from Epaphus sprang Libya, and from Libya, Belus; and from\nBelus, Aegyptus and Danaus. And the sons of Aegyptus willed to take the\ndaughters of Danaus in marriage. But the maidens held such wedlock in\nhorror, and fled with their father over the sea to Argos; and the king\nand citizens of Argos gave them shelter and protection from their\npursuers.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUPPLIANT MAIDENS\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nDANAUS.\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n\n_Chorus of the Daughters of Danaus.\nAttendants_.\n\n_Scene.\u2014A sacred precinct near the gates of Argos: statue and shrines\nof Zeus and other deities stand around_.\n\n\nCHORUS.\nZeus! Lord and guard of suppliant hands!\n  Look down benign on us who crave\n  Thine aid\u2014whom winds and waters drave\nFrom where, through drifting shifting sands,\n  Pours Nilus to the wave.\nFrom where the green land, god-possest,\nCloses and fronts the Syrian waste,\nWe flee as exiles, yet unbanned\nBy murder\u2019s sentence from our land;\nBut\u2014since Aegyptus had decreed\nHis sons should wed his brother\u2019s seed,\u2014\nOurselves we tore from bonds abhorred,\nFrom wedlock not of heart but hand,\nNor brooked to call a kinsman lord!\n\nAnd Danaus, our sire and guide,\nThe king of counsel, pond\u2019ring well\nThe dice of fortune as they fell,\nOut of two griefs the kindlier chose,\nAnd bade us fly, with him beside,\nHeedless what winds or waves arose,\nAnd o\u2019er the wide sea waters haste,\nUntil to Argos\u2019 shore at last\n  Our wandering pinnace came\u2014\nArgos, the immemorial home\nOf her from whom we boast to come\u2014\nIo, the ox-horned maiden, whom,\nAfter long wandering, woe, and scathe,\nZeus with a touch, a mystic breath,\n  Made mother of our name.\nTherefore, of all the lands of earth,\nOn this most gladly step we forth,\nAnd in our hands aloft we bear\u2014\nSole weapon for a suppliant\u2019s wear\u2014\nThe olive-shoot, with wool enwound!\n  City, and land, and waters wan\nOf Inachus, and gods most high,\nAnd ye who, deep beneath the ground,\nBring vengeance weird on mortal man,\nPowers of the grave, on you we cry!\nAnd unto Zeus the Saviour, guard\nOf mortals\u2019 holy purity!\nReceive ye us\u2014keep watch and ward\nAbove the suppliant maiden band!\nChaste be the heart of this your land\nTowards the weak! but, ere the throng,\nThe wanton swarm, from Egypt sprung,\nLeap forth upon the silted shore,\nThrust back their swift-rowed bark again,\nRepel them, urge them to the main!\nAnd there, \u2019mid storm and lightning\u2019s shine,\nAnd scudding drift and thunder\u2019s roar,\nDeep death be theirs, in stormy brine!\nBefore they foully grasp and win\nUs, maiden-children of their kin,\nAnd climb the couch by law denied,\nAnd wrong each weak reluctant bride.\n  And now on her I call,\n\nMine ancestress, who far on Egypt\u2019s shore\n    A young cow\u2019s semblance wore,\u2014\nA maiden once, by Hera\u2019s malice changed!\n    And then on him withal,\nWho, as amid the flowers the grazing creature ranged,\nWas in her by a breath of Zeus conceived;\n    And, as the hour of birth drew nigh,\nBy fate fulfilled, unto the light he came;\n    And Epaphus for name,\nBorn from the touch of Zeus, the child received.\n    On him, on him I cry,\n    And him for patron hold\u2014\n  While in this grassy vale I stand,\n    Where Io roamed of old!\nAnd here, recounting all her toil and pain,\nSigns will I show to those who rule the land\nThat I am child of hers; and all shall understand,\nHearing the doubtful tale of the dim past made plain.\n      And, ere the end shall be,\nEach man the truth of what I tell shall see.\n      And if there dwell hard by\nOne skilled to read from bird-notes augury,\nThat man, when through his ears shall thrill our tearful wail,\nShall deem he hears the voice, the plaintive tale\nOf her, the piteous spouse of Tereus, lord of guile\u2014\nWhom the hawk harries yet, the mourning nightingale.\nShe, from her happy home and fair streams scared away,\n  Wails wild and sad for haunts beloved erewhile.\n  Yea, and for Itylus\u2014ah, well-a-day!\n    Slain by her own, his mother\u2019s hand,\nMaddened by lustful wrong, the deed by Tereus planned.\nLike her I wail and wail, in soft Ionian tones,\n    And as she wastes, even so\nWastes my soft cheek, once ripe with Nilus\u2019 suns\nAnd all my heart dissolves in utter woe\n    Sad flowers of grief I cull,\n\nFleeing from kinsmen\u2019s love unmerciful\u2014\nYea, from the clutching hands, the wanton crowd,\nI sped across the waves, from Egypt\u2019s land of cloud[1]\n\n  Gods of the ancient cradle of my race,\n  Hear me, just gods! With righteous grace\n      On me, on me look down!\n Grant not to youth its heart\u2019s unchaste desire,\n But, swiftly spurning lust\u2019s unholy fire,\n  Bless only love and willing wedlock\u2019s crown\n  The war-worn fliers from the battle\u2019s wrack\n  Find refuge at the hallowed altar-side,\n      The sanctuary divine,\u2014\n  Ye gods! such refuge unto me provide\u2014\n      Such sanctuary be mine!\n  Though the deep will of Zeus be hard to track,\n      Yet doth it flame and glance,\n  A beacon in the dark, \u2019mid clouds of chance\n        That wrap mankind\n Yea, though the counsel fall, undone it shall not be,\n Whate\u2019er be shaped and fixed within Zeus\u2019 ruling mind\u2014\n Dark as a solemn grove, with sombre leafage shaded,\n    His paths of purpose wind,\n    A marvel to man\u2019s eye\n\n Smitten by him, from towering hopes degraded,\n    Mortals lie low and still\n Tireless and effortless, works forth its will\n      The arm divine!\n God from His holy seat, in calm of unarmed power,\n Brings forth the deed, at its appointed hour!\n    Let Him look down on mortal wantonness!\n  Lo! how the youthful stock of Belus\u2019 line\n      Craves for me, uncontrolled\u2014\n      With greed and madness bold\u2014\n    Urged on by passion\u2019s sunless stress\u2014\n And, cheated, learns too late the prey has \u2019scaped their hold!\n  Ah, listen, listen to my grievous tale,\n  My sorrow\u2019s words, my shrill and tearful cries!\n        Ah woe, ah woe!\n    Loud with lament the accents use,\n And from my living lips my own sad dirges flow!\n       O Apian land of hill and dale,\n Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail\u2014\n       Have mercy, hear my prayer!\n  Lo, how again, again, I rend and tear\n  My woven raiment, and from off my hair\n       Cast the Sidonian veil!\n\n Ah, but if fortune smile, if death be driven away,\n Vowed rites, with eager haste, we to the gods will pay!\n      Alas, alas again!\n O wither drift the waves? and who shall loose the pain?\n\n          O Apian land of hill and dale,\n Thou kennest yet, O land, this faltered foreign wail!\n          Have mercy, hear my prayer!\n  Lo, how again, again, I rend and tear\n  My woven raiment, and from off my hair\n          Cast the Sidonian veil!\n\n  The wafting oar, the bark with woven sail,\n          From which the sea foamed back,\n  Sped me, unharmed of storms, along the breeze\u2019s track\u2014\n          Be it unblamed of me!\n  But ah, the end, the end of my emprise!\n  May He, the Father, with all-seeing eyes,\n          Grant me that end to see!\n  Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore\n    I may escape the forced embrace\n    Of those proud children of the race\n          That sacred Io bore.\n\n  And thou, O maiden-goddess chaste and pure\u2014\n          Queen of the inner fane,\u2014\n  Look of thy grace on me, O Artemis,\n    Thy willing suppliant\u2014thine, thine it is,\n  Who from the lustful onslaught fled secure,\n    To grant that I too without stain\n  The shelter of thy purity may gain!\n\n  Grant that henceforth unstained as heretofore\n    I may escape the forced embrace\n    Of those proud children of the race\n           That sacred Io bore!\n\n           Yet if this may not be,\n    We, the dark race sun-smitten, we\n    Will speed with suppliant wands\n  To Zeus who rules below, with hospitable hands\n  Who welcomes all the dead from all the lands:\n Yea by our own hands strangled, we will go,\n Spurned by Olympian gods, unto the gods below!\n\n    Zeus, hear and save!\n The searching, poisonous hate, that Io vexed and drave,\n  Was of a goddess: well I know\n  The bitter ire, the wrathful woe\n    Of Hera, queen of heaven\u2014\n A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!\n    Bethink thee, what dispraise\n  Of Zeus himself mankind will raise,\n If now he turn his face averted from our cries!\n If now, dishonoured and alone,\n The ox-horned maiden\u2019s race shall be undone,\n Children of Epaphus, his own begotten son\u2014\n Zeus, listen from on high!\u2014to thee our prayers arise.\n\n    Zeus, hear and save!\n The searching poisonous hate, that Io vexed and drave,\n  Was of a goddess: well I know\n  The bitter ire, the wrathful woe\n    Of Hera, queen of heaven\u2014\n A  storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Children, be wary\u2014wary he with whom\n  Ye come, your trusty sire and steersman old:\n  And that same caution hold I here on land,\n  And bid you hoard my words, inscribing them\n  On memory\u2019s tablets. Lo, I see afar\n  Dust, voiceless herald of a host, arise;\n  And hark, within their grinding sockets ring\n  Axles of hurrying wheels! I see approach,\n  Borne in curved cars, by speeding horses drawn,\n  A speared and shielded band. The chiefs, perchance,\n  Of this their land are hitherward intent\n  To look on us, of whom they yet have heard\n  By messengers alone. But come who may,\n  And come he peaceful or in ravening wrath\n  Spurred on his path, \u2019twere best, in any case,\n  Damsels, to cling unto this altar-mound\n  Made sacred to their gods of festival,\u2014\n  A shrine is stronger than a tower to save,\n  A shield that none may cleave. Step swift thereto,\n  And in your left hands hold with reverence\n  The white-crowned wands of suppliance, the sign\n  Beloved of Zeus, compassion\u2019s lord, and speak\n  To those that question you, words meek and low\n  And piteous, as beseems your stranger state,\n  Clearly avowing of this flight of yours\n  The bloodless cause; and on your utterance\n  See to it well that modesty attend;\n  From downcast eyes, from brows of pure control,\n  Let chastity look forth; nor, when ye speak,\n  Be voluble nor eager\u2014they that dwell\n  Within this land are sternly swift to chide.\n  And be your words submissive: heed this well;\n  For weak ye are, outcasts on stranger lands,\n  And froward talk beseems not strengthless hands.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O father, warily to us aware\n  Thy words are spoken, and thy wisdom\u2019s best\n  My mind shall hoard, with Zeus our sire to aid.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Even so\u2014with gracious aspect let him aid.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Fain were I now to seat me by thy side.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Now dally not, but put our thought in act.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Zeus, pity our distress, or e\u2019er we die.\n\nDANAUS.\n  If so he will, your toils to joy will turn.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Lo, on this shrine, the semblance of a bird.[2]\n\nDANAUS.\n  Zeus\u2019 bird of dawn it is; invoke the sign.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Thus I invoke the saving rays of morn.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Next, bright Apollo, exiled once from heaven.\n\nCHORUS.\n  The exiled god will pity our exile.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Yea, may he pity, giving grace and aid.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Whom next invoke I, of these other gods?\n\nDANAUS.\n  Lo, here a trident, symbol of a god.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Who[3] gave sea-safety; may he bless on land!\n\nDANAUS.\n    This next is Hermes, carved in Grecian wise.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Then let him herald help to freedom won.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Lastly, adore this altar consecrate\n  To many lesser gods in one; then crouch\n  On holy ground, a flock of doves that flee,\n  Scared by no alien hawks, a kin not kind,\n  Hateful, and fain of love more hateful still.\n  Foul is the bird that rends another bird,\n  And foul the men who hale unwilling maids,\n  From sire unwilling, to the bridal bed.\n  Never on earth, nor in the lower world,\n  Shall lewdness such as theirs escape the ban:\n  There too, if men say right, a God there is\n  Who upon dead men turns their sin to doom,\n  To final doom. Take heed, draw hitherward,\n  That from this hap your safety ye may win.\n\n Enter the KING OF ARGOS.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Speak\u2014of what land are ye? No Grecian band\n  Is this to whom I speak, with Eastern robes\n  And wrappings richly dight: no Argive maid,\n  No woman in all Greece such garb doth wear.\n  This too gives marvel, how unto this land,\n  Unheralded, unfriended, without guide,\n  And without fear, ye came? yet wands I see,\n  True sign of suppliance, by you laid down\n  On shrines of these our gods of festival.\n  No land but Greece can read such signs aright.\n  Much else there is, conjecture well might guess,\n  But let words teach the man who stands to hear.\n\nCHORUS.\n  True is the word thou spakest of my garb;\n  But speak I unto thee as citizen,\n  Or Hermes\u2019 wandbearer, or chieftain king?\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  For that, take heart and answer without fear.\n  I am Pelasgus, ruler of this land,\n  Child of Palaichthon, whom the earth brought forth;\n  And, rightly named from me, the race who reap\n  This country\u2019s harvests are Pelasgian called.\n  And o\u2019er the wide and westward-stretching land,\n  Through which the lucent wave of Strymon flows\n  I rule; Perrhaebia\u2019s land my boundary is\n  Northward, and Pindus\u2019 further slopes, that watch\n  Paeonia, and Dodona\u2019s mountain ridge.\n  West, east, the limit of the washing seas\n  Restrains my rule\u2014the interspace is mine.\n  But this whereon we stand is Apian land,\n  Styled so of old from the great healer\u2019s name;\n  For Apis, coming from Naupactus\u2019 shore\n  Beyond the strait, child of Apollo\u2019s self\n  And like him seer and healer, cleansed this land\n  From man-devouring monsters, whom the earth,\n  Stained with pollution of old bloodshedding,\n  Brought forth in malice, beasts of ravening jaws,\n  A grisly throng of serpents manifold.\n  And healings of their hurt, by knife and charm,\n  Apis devised, unblamed of Argive men,\n  And in their prayers found honour, for reward.\n  \u2014Lo, thou hast heard the tokens that I give:\n  Speak now thy race, and tell a forthright tale;\n  In sooth, this people loves not many words.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Short is my word and clear. Of Argive race\n  We come, from her, the ox-horned maiden who\n  Erst bare the sacred child. My word shall give\n  Whate\u2019er can \u2019stablish this my soothfast tale.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  O stranger maids, I may not trust this word,\n  That ye have share in this our Argive race.\n  No likeness of our country do ye bear,\n  But semblance as of Libyan womankind.\n  Even such a stock by Nilus\u2019 banks might grow;\n  Yea and the Cyprian stamp, in female forms,\n  Shows to the life, what males impressed the same.\n  And, furthermore, of roving Indian maids\n  Whose camping-grounds by Aethiopia lie,\n  And camels burdened even as mules, and bearing\n  Riders, as horses bear, mine ears have heard;\n  And tales of flesh-devouring mateless maids\n  Called Amazons: to these, if bows ye bare,\n  I most had deemed you like. Speak further yet,\n  That of your Argive birth the truth I learn.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Here in this Argive land\u2014so runs the tale\u2014\n  Io was priestess once of Hera\u2019s fane.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Yea, truth it is, and far this word prevails:\n  Is\u2019t said that Zeus with mortal mingled love?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ay, and that Hera that embrace surmised.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  How issued then this strife of those on high?\n\nCHORUS.\n  By Hera\u2019s will, a heifer she became.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Held Zeus aloof then from the horned beast?\n\nCHORUS.\n  \u2019Tis said, he loved, in semblance of a bull.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  And his stern consort, did she aught thereon?\n\nCHORUS.\n  One myriad-eyed she set, the heifer\u2019s guard.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  How namest thou this herdsman many-eyed?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Argus, the child of Earth, whom Hermes slew.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Still did the goddess vex the beast ill-starred?\n\nCHORUS.\n  She wrought a gadfly with a goading sting.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Thus drave she Io hence, to roam afar?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea\u2014this thy word coheres exact with mine.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Then to Canopus and to Memphis came she?\n\nCHORUS.\n  And by Zeus\u2019 hand was touched, and bare a child.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Who vaunts him the Zeus-mated creature\u2019s son?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Epaphus, named rightly from the saving touch.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  And whom in turn did Epaphus beget?[4]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Libya, with name of a wide land endowed.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  And who from her was born unto the race?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Belus: from him two sons, my father one.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Speak now to me his name, this greybeard wise.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Revere the gods thus crowned, who steer the State.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Awe thrills me, seeing these shrines with leafage crowned.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea, stern the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants\u2019 lord.\n    Child of Palaichthon, royal chief\n      Of thy Pelasgians, hear!\n    Bow down thine heart to my relief\u2014\n      A fugitive, a suppliant, swift with fear,\n    A creature whom the wild wolves chase\n    O\u2019er toppling crags; in piteous case\n      Aloud, afar she lows,\n  Calling the herdsman\u2019s trusty arm to save her from her foes!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Lo, with bowed heads beside our city shrines\n  Ye sit \u2019neath shade of new-plucked olive-boughs.\n  Our distant kin\u2019s resentment Heaven forefend!\n  Let not this hap, unhoped and unforeseen,\n  Bring war on us: for strife we covet not.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Justice, the daughter of right-dealing Zeus,\n  Justice, the queen of suppliants, look down,\n    That this our plight no ill may loose\n      Upon your town!\n    This word, even from the young, let age and wisdom learn:\n    If thou to suppliants show grace,\n    Thou shalt not lack Heaven\u2019s grace in turn,\n  So long as virtue\u2019s gifts on heavenly shrines have place.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Not at my private hearth ye sit and sue;\n  And if the city bear a common stain,\n  Be it the common toil to cleanse the same:\n  Therefore no pledge, no promise will I give,\n  Ere counsel with the commonwealth be held.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay, but the source of sway, the city\u2019s self, art thou,\n    A power unjudged! thine, only thine,\n    To rule the right of hearth and shrine!\n  Before thy throne and sceptre all men bow!\n  Thou, in all causes lord, beware the curse divine!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  May that curse fall upon mine enemies!\n  I cannot aid you without risk of scathe,\n  Nor scorn your prayers\u2014unmerciful it were.\n  Perplexed, distraught I stand, and fear alike\n  The twofold chance, to do or not to do.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Have heed of him who looketh from on high,\n    The guard of woeful mortals, whosoe\u2019er\n      Unto their fellows cry,\n    And find no pity, find no justice there.\n  Abiding in his wrath, the suppliants\u2019 lord\n  Doth smite,  unmoved by cries, unbent by prayerful word.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  But if Aegyptus\u2019 children grasp you here,\n  Claiming, their country\u2019s right, to hold you theirs\n  As next of kin, who dares to counter this?\n  Plead ye your country\u2019s laws, if plead ye may,\n  That upon you they lay no lawful hand.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Let me not fall, O nevermore,\n    A prey into the young men\u2019s hand;\n  Rather than wed whom I abhor,\n    By pilot-stars I flee this land;\n  O king, take justice to thy side,\n  And with the righteous powers decide!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Hard is the cause\u2014make me not judge thereof.\n  Already I have vowed it, to do nought\n  Save after counsel with my people ta\u2019en,\n  King though I be; that ne\u2019er in after time,\n  If ill fate chance, my people then may say\u2014\n  _In aid of strangers thou the state hast slain_.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Zeus, lord of kinship, rules at will\n    The swaying balance, and surveys\n  Evil and good; to men of ill\n    Gives evil, and to good men praise.\n  And thou\u2014since true those scales do sway\u2014\n  Shall thou from justice shrink away?\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  A deep, a saving counsel here there needs\u2014\n  An eye that like a diver to the depth\n  Of dark perplexity can pass and see,\n  Undizzied, unconfused. First must we care\n  That to the State and to ourselves this thing\n  Shall bring no ruin; next, that wrangling hands\n  Shall grasp you not as prey, nor we ourselves\n  Betray you thus embracing sacred shrines,\n  Nor make the avenging all-destroying god,\n  Who not in hell itself sets dead men free,\n  A grievous inmate, an abiding bane.\u2014\n  Spake I not right, of saving counsel\u2019s need?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea, counsel take and stand to aid\n    At Justice\u2019 side and mine.\n  Betray not me, the timorous maid\n    Whom far beyond the brine\n  A godless violence cast forth forlorn.\n    O King, wilt thou behold\u2014\n  Lord of this land, wilt thou behold me torn\n    From altars manifold?\n  Bethink thee of the young men\u2019s wrath and lust,\n    Hold off their evil pride;\n  Steel not thyself to see the suppliant thrust\n    From hallowed statues\u2019 side,\n  Haled by the frontlet on my forehead bound,\n    As steeds are led, and drawn\n  By hands that drag from shrine and altar-mound\n    My vesture\u2019s fringed lawn.\n  Know thou that whether for Aegyptus\u2019 race\n    Thou dost their wish fulfil,\n  Or for the gods and for each holy place\u2014\n    Be thy choice good or ill,\n  Blow is with blow requited, grace with grace\n    Such is Zeus\u2019 righteous will.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Yea, I have pondered: from the sea of doubt\n  Here drives at length the bark of thought ashore;\n  Landward with screw and windlass haled, and firm,\n  Clamped to her props, she lies. The need is stern;\n  With men or gods a mighty strife we strive\n  Perforce, and either hap in grief concludes.\n  For, if a house be sacked, new wealth for old\n  Not hard it is to win\u2014if Zeus the lord\n  Of treasure favour\u2014more than quits the loss,\n  Enough to pile the store of wealth full high;\n  Or if a tongue shoot forth untimely speech,\n  Bitter and strong to goad a man to wrath,\n  Soft words there be to soothe that wrath away:\n  But what device shall make the war of kin\n  Bloodless? that woe, the blood of many beasts,\n  And victims manifold to many gods,\n  Alone can cure. Right glad I were to shun\n  This strife, and am more fain of ignorance\n  Than of the wisdom of a woe endured.\n  The gods send better than my soul foretells!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Of many cries for mercy, hear the end.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Say on, then, for it shall not \u2019scape mine ear.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Girdles we have, and bands that bind our robes.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Even so; such things beseem a woman\u2019s wear.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Know, then, with these a fair device there is\u2014\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Speak, then: what utterance doth this foretell?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Unless to us thou givest pledge secure\u2014\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  What can thy girdles\u2019 craft achieve for thee?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Strange votive tablets shall these statues deck.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Mysterious thy resolve\u2014avow it clear.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Swiftly to hang me on these sculptured gods!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Thy word is as a lash to urge my heart.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Thou seest truth, for I have cleared thine eye\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Yea, and woes manifold, invincible,\n  A crowd of ills, sweep on me torrent-like.\n  My bark goes forth upon a sea of troubles\n  Unfathomed, ill to traverse, harbourless.\n  For if my deed shall match not your demand,\n  Dire, beyond shot of speech, shall be the bane\n  Your death\u2019s pollution leaves unto this land.\n  Yet if against your kin, Aegyptus\u2019 race,\n  Before our gates I front the doom of war,\n  Will not the city\u2019s loss be sore? Shall men\n  For women\u2019s sake incarnadine the ground?\n  But yet the wrath of Zeus, the suppliants\u2019 lord\n  I needs must fear: most awful unto man\n  The terror of his anger. Thou, old man,\n  The father of these maidens, gather up\n  Within your arms these wands of suppliance,\n  And lay them at the altars manifold\n  Of all our country\u2019s gods, that all the town\n  Know, by this sign, that ye come here to sue.\n  Nor, in thy haste, do thou say aught of me.\n  Swift is this folk to censure those who rule;\n  But, if they see these signs of suppliance,\n  It well may chance that each will pity you,\n  And loathe the young men\u2019s violent pursuit;\n  And thus a fairer favour you may find:\n  For, to the helpless, each man\u2019s heart is kind.\n\nDANAUS.\n  To us, beyond gifts manifold it is\n  To find a champion thus compassionate;\n  Yet send with me attendants, of thy folk,\n  Rightly to guide me, that I duly find\n  Each altar of your city\u2019s gods that stands\n  Before the fane, each dedicated shrine;\n  And that in safety through the city\u2019s ways\n  I may pass onwards: all unlike to yours\n  The outward semblance that I wear\u2014the race\n  that Nilus rears is all dissimilar\n   That of Inachus. Keep watch and ward\n   Lest heedlessness bring death: full oft, I ween,\n   Friend hath slain friend, not knowing whom he slew.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Go at his side, attendants,\u2014he saith well.\n  On to the city\u2019s consecrated shrines!\n  Nor be of many words to those ye meet,\n  The while this suppliant voyager ye lead.\n\n [_Exit DANAUS with attendants._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Let him go forward, thy command obeying.\n  But me how biddest, how assurest thou?\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Leave there the new-plucked boughs, thy sorrow\u2019s sign.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Thus beckoned forth, at thy behest I leave them.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Now to this level precinct turn thyself.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Unconsecrate it is, and cannot shield me.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  We will not yield thee to those falcons\u2019 greed.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What help? more fierce they are than serpents fell.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  We spake thee fair\u2014speak thou them fair in turn.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What marvel that we loathe them, scared in soul?\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Awe towards a king should other fears transcend.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Thus speak, thus act, and reassure my mind.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\nNot long thy sire shall leave thee desolate.\nBut I will call the country\u2019s indwellers,\nAnd with soft words th\u2019 assembly will persuade,\nAnd warn your sire what pleadings will avail.\nTherefore abide ye, and with prayer entreat\nThe country\u2019s gods to compass your desire;\nThe while I go, this matter to provide,\nPersuasion and fair fortune at my side.\n\n [_Exit the KING OF ARGOS._]\n\nCHORUS.\n    O King of Kings, among the blest\n    Thou highest and thou happiest,\n        Listen and grant our prayer,\n    And, deeply loathing, thrust\n    Away from us the young men\u2019s lust,\n          And deeply drown\n  In azure waters, down and ever down,\n    Benches and rowers dark,\n    The fatal and perfidious bark!\n  Unto the maidens turn thy gracious care;\n  Think yet again upon the tale of fame,\n  How from the maiden loved of thee there sprung\n  Mine ancient line, long since in many a legend sung!\n    Remember, O remember, thou whose hand\n  Did Io by a touch to human shape reclaim.\n For from this Argos erst our mother came\n        Driven hence to Egypt\u2019s land,\n Yet sprung of Zeus we were, and hence our birth we claim.\n        And now have I roamed back\n        Unto the ancient track\n  Where Io roamed and pastured among flowers,\n        Watched o\u2019er by Argus\u2019 eyes,\n  Through the lush grasses and the meadow bowers.\n    Thence, by the gadfly maddened, forth she flies\n    Unto far lands and alien peoples driven\n    And, following fate, through paths of foam and surge,\n    Sees, as she goes, the cleaving strait divide\n        Greece, from the Eastland riven.\n  And swift through Asian borders doth she urge\n  Her course, o\u2019er Phrygian mountains\u2019 sheep-clipt side;\n  Thence, where the Mysian realm of Teuthras lies\n    Towards Lydian lowlands hies,\n  And o\u2019er Cilician and Pamphylian hills\n    And ever-flowing rills,\n  And thence to Aphrodite\u2019s fertile shore,[5]\n  The land of garnered wheat and wealthy store\n  And thence, deep-stung by wild unrest,\n  By the winged fly that goaded her and drave,\n  Unto the fertile land, the god-possest,\n      (Where, fed from far-off snows,\n      Life-giving Nilus flows,\n  Urged on by Typho\u2019s strength, a fertilizing wave)\n  She roves, in harassed and dishonoured flight\n  Scathed by the  blasting pangs of Hera\u2019s dread despite.\n      And they within the land\n      With terror shook and wanned,\n  So strange the sight they saw, and were afraid\u2014\n  A wild twy-natured thing, half heifer and half maid.\n  Whose hand was laid at last on Io, thus forlorn,\n    With many roamings worn?\n  Who bade the harassed maiden\u2019s peace return?\n    Zeus, lord of time eterne.\n  Yea, by his breath divine, by his unscathing strength,\n      She lays aside her bane,\n  And softened back to womanhood at length\n      Sheds human tears again.\n  Then, quickened with Zeus\u2019 veritable seed,\n      A progeny she bare,\n  A stainless babe, a child of heavenly breed.\n      Of life and fortune fair.\n  _His is the life of life_\u2014so all men say,\u2014\n    _His is the seed of Zeus.\n  Who else had power stern Hera\u2019s craft to stay,\n    Her vengeful curse to loose?_\n\n   Yea, all from Zeus befell!\n   And rightly wouldst thou tell\n That we from Epaphus, his child, were born:\n      Justly his deed was done;\n      Unto what other one,\n Of all the gods, should I for justice turn?\n      From him our race did spring;\n      Creator he and King,\n Ancient of days and wisdom he, and might.\n      As bark before the wind,\n      So, wafted by his mind,\n Moves every counsel, each device aright.\n      Beneath no stronger hand\n      Holds he a weak command,\n No throne doth he abase him to adore;\n      Swift as a word, his deed\n      Acts out what stands decreed\n In counsels of his heart, for evermore.\n\n Re-enter DANAUS.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Take heart, my children:  the land\u2019s heart is kind,\n  And to full issue has their voting come.\n\nCHORUS.\n  All hail, my sire; thy word brings utmost joy.\n  Say, to what issue is the vote made sure,\n  And how prevailed the people\u2019s crowding hands?\n\nDANAUS.\n  With one assent the Argives spake their will,\n  And, hearing, my old heart took youthful cheer,\n  The very sky was thrilled when high in air\n  The concourse raised right hands and swore their oath:\u2014\n  _Free shall the maidens sojourn in this land.\n  Unharried, undespoiled by mortal wight:\n  No native hand, no hand of foreigner\n  Shall drag them hence; if any man use force\u2014\n  Whoe\u2019er of all our countrymen shall fail\n  To come unto their aid, let him go forth,\n  Beneath the people\u2019s curse, to banishment_.\n  So did the king of this Pelasgian folk\n  Plead on behalf of us, and bade them heed\n  That never, in the after-time, this realm\n  Should feed to fulness the great enmity\n  Of Zeus, the suppliants\u2019 guard, against itself!\n  A twofold curse, for wronging stranger-guests\n  Who are akin withal, confrontingly\n  Should rise before this city and be shown\n  A ruthless monster, fed on human doom.\n  Such things the Argive people heard, and straight,\n  Without proclaim of herald, gave assent:\n  Yea, in full conclave, the Pelasgian folk\n  Heard suasive pleas, and Zeus through them resolved.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Arouse we now to chant our prayer\n  For fair return of service fair\n    And Argos\u2019 kindly will.\n  Zeus, lord of guestright, look upon\n  The grace our stranger lips have won.\n  In right and truth, as they begun,\n  Guide them, with favouring hand, until\n  Thou dost their blameless wish fulfil!\n\n    Now may the Zeus-born gods on high\n      Hear us pour forth\n    A votive prayer for Argos\u2019 clan!\u2014\n    Never may this Pelasgian earth,\n  Amid the fire-wrack, shrill the dismal cry\n    On Ares, ravening lord of fight,\n  Who in an alien harvest mows down man!\n    For lo, this land had pity on our plight,\n  And unto us were merciful and leal,\n  To us, the piteous flock, who at Zeus\u2019 altar kneel!\n  They scorn\u00e8d not the pleas of maidenhood,\n  Nor with the young men\u2019s will hath their will stood.\n      They knew right well.\n\n  Th\u2019 unearthly watching fiend invincible,\n  The foul avenger\u2014let him not draw near!\n  For he, on roofs ill-starred,\n  Defiling and polluting, keeps a ghastly ward!\n  They knew his vengeance, and took holy heed\n  To us, the sister suppliants, who cry\n    To Zeus, the lord of purity:\n  Therefore with altars pure they shall the gods revere.\n\n  Thus, through the boughs that shade our lips, fly forth in air,\n      Fly forth, O eager prayer!\n    May never pestilence efface\n      This city\u2019s race,\n    Nor be the land with corpses strewed,\n      Nor stained with civic blood!\n    The stem of youth, unpluckt, to manhood come,\n    Nor Ares rise from Aphrodit\u00e9\u2019s bower,\n  The lord of death and bane, to waste our youthful flower.\n        Long may the old\n    Crowd to the altars kindled to consume\n        Gifts rich and manifold\u2014\n    Offered to win from powers divine\n    A benison on city and on shrine:\n      Let all the sacred might adore\n        Of Zeus most high, the lord\n      Of guestright and the hospitable board,\n  Whose immemorial law doth rule Fate\u2019s scales aright:\n        The garners of earth\u2019s store\n        Be full for evermore,\n  And grace of Artemis make women\u2019s travail light;\n    No devastating curse of fell disease\n        This city seize;\n    No clamour of the State arouse to war\n        Ares, from whom afar\n    Shrinketh the lute, by whom the dances fail\u2014\n        Ares, the lord of wail.\n    Swarm far aloof from Argos\u2019 citizens\n        All plague and pestilence,\n    And may the Archer-God our children spare!\n    May Zeus with foison and with fruitfulness\n        The land\u2019s each season bless,\n    And, quickened with Heaven\u2019s bounty manifold,\n        Teem grazing flock and fold.\n    Beside the altars of Heaven\u2019s hallowing\n        Loud let the minstrels sing,\n  And from pure lips float forth the harp-led strain in air!\n    And let the people\u2019s voice, the power\n    That sways the State, in danger\u2019s hour\n      Be wary, wise for all;\n    Nor honour in dishonour hold,\n    But\u2014ere the voice of war be bold\u2014\n    Let them to stranger peoples grant\n    Fair and unbloody covenant\u2014\n      Justice and peace withal;\n    And to the Argive powers divine\n    The sacrifice of laurelled kine,\n      By rite ancestral, pay.\n    Among three words of power and awe,\n    Stands this, the third, the mighty law\u2014\n    _Your gods, your fathers deified,\n    Ye shall adore_. Let this abide\n      For ever and for aye.\n\nDANAUS.\n  Dear children, well and wisely have ye prayed;\n  I bid you now not shudder, though ye hear\n  New and alarming tidings from your sire.\n  From this high place beside the suppliants\u2019 shrine\n  The bark of our pursuers I behold,\n  By divers tokens recognized too well.\n  Lo, the spread canvas and the hides that screen\n  The gunwale; lo, the prow, with painted eyes\n  That seem her onward pathway to descry,\n  Heeding too well the rudder at the stern\n  That rules her, coming for no friendly end.\n  And look, the seamen\u2014all too plain their race\u2014\n  Their dark limbs gleam from out their snow-white garb;\n  Plain too the other barks, a fleet that comes\n  All swift to aid the purpose of the first,\n  That now, with furled sail and with pulse of oars\n  Which smite the wave together, comes aland.\n  But ye, be calm, and, schooled not scared by fear,\n  Confront this chance, be mindful of your trust\n  In these protecting gods. And I will hence,\n  And champions who shall plead your cause aright\n  Will bring unto your side. There come perchance\n  Heralds or envoys, eager to lay hand\n  And drag you captive hence; yet fear them not;\n  Foiled shall they be. Yet well it were for you\n  (If, ere with aid I come, I tarry long),\n  Not by one step this sanctuary to leave.\n  Farewell, fear nought: soon shall the hour be born\n  When he that scorns the gods shall rue his scorn\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah but I shudder, father!\u2014ah, even now,\n  Even as I speak, the swift-winged ships draw nigh!\n\n  I shudder, I shiver, I perish with fear:\n      Overseas though I fled,\n  Yet nought it avails; my pursuers are near!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Children, take heart; they who decreed to aid\n  Thy cause will arm for battle, well I ween.\n\nCHORUS.\n  But desperate is Aegyptus\u2019 ravening race,\n  With fight unsated; thou too know\u2019st it well.\n\n  In their wrath they o\u2019ertake us; the prow is deep-dark\n      In the which they have sped,\n  And dark is the bench and the crew of the bark!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Yea but a crew as stout they here shall find,\n  And arms well steeled beneath a noon-day sun.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah yet, O father, leave us not forlorn!\n  Alone, a maid is nought, a strengthless arm.\n  With guile they pursue me, with counsel malign,\n      And unholy their soul;\n  And as ravens they seize me, unheeding the shrine!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Fair will befall us, children, in this chance,\n  If thus in wrath they wrong the gods and you.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, nor tridents nor the sanctity\n  Of shrines will drive them, O my sire, from us!\n\n  Unholy and daring and cursed is their ire,\n      Nor own they control\n  Of the gods, but like jackals they glut their desire!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Ay, but _Come wolf, flee jackal_, saith the saw;\n  Nor can the flax-plant overbear the corn.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Lustful, accurs\u00e8d, monstrous is their will\n  As of beasts ravening\u2014\u2019ware we of their power!\n\nDANAUS.\n  Look you, not swiftly puts a fleet to sea,\n  Nor swiftly to its moorings; long it is\n  Or e\u2019er the saving cables to the shore\n  Are borne, and long or e\u2019er the steersmen cry,\n  _The good ship swings at anchor\u2014all is well_.\n  Longest of all, the task to come aland\n  Where haven there is none, when sunset fades\n  In night. _To pilot wise_, the adage saith,\n  _Night is a day of wakefulness and pain_.\n  Therefore no force of weaponed men, as yet\n  Scatheless can come ashore, before the bank\n  Lie at her anchorage securely moored.\n  Bethink thee therefore, nor in panic leave\n  The shrine of gods whose succour thou hast won\n  I go for aid\u2014men shall not blame me long,\n  Old, but with youth at heart and on my tongue.\n\n [_Exit DANAUS._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  O land of hill and dale, O holy land,\n  What shall befall us? whither shall we flee,\n  From Apian land to some dark lair of earth?\n\nO would that in vapour of smoke I might rise to the clouds of the sky,\nThat as dust which flits up without wings I might pass and evanish and\ndie!\nI dare not, I dare not abide: my heart yearns, eager to fly;\nAnd  dark is the cast of my thought;  I shudder and tremble for fear.\nMy father looked forth and beheld:  I die of the sight that draws near.\nAnd for me be the strangling cord, the halter made ready by Fate,\nBefore to my body draws nigh the man of my horror and hate.\nNay,  ere  I will own him as lord, as handmaid to Hades I go!\nAnd oh, that aloft in the sky, where the dark clouds are frozen to\nsnow,\nA refuge for me might be found, or a mountain-top smooth and too high\nFor the foot of the goat, where the vulture sits lonely, and none may\ndescry\nThe  pinnacle veiled in the cloud, the highest and sheerest of all,\nEre to wedlock that rendeth my heart, and love that is loveless, I\nfall!\nYea, a prey to the dogs and the birds of the mount will I give me to\nbe,\u2014\nFrom wailing and curse and pollution it is death, only death, sets me\nfree:\nLet death come upon me before to the ravisher\u2019s bed I am thrust;\nWhat champion, what saviour but death can I find, or what refuge from\nlust?\nI will utter my shriek of entreaty, a prayer that shrills up to the\nsky,\nThat calleth  the gods  to  compassion, a tuneful, a pitiful cry,\nThat is loud to invoke the releaser. O father, look down on the fight;\nLook down in thy wrath on the wronger, with eyes that are eager for\nright.\nZeus, thou that art lord of the world, whose kingdom is strong over\nall,\nHave mercy on us! At thine altar for refuge and safety we call.\nFor the race of Aegyptus is fierce, with greed and with malice afire;\nThey cry as the questing hounds, they sweep with the speed of desire.\nBut thine is the balance of fate, thou rulest the wavering scale,\nAnd without thee no mortal emprise shall have strength to achieve or\nprevail.\n\n    Alack, alack! the ravisher\u2014\n  He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth near!\n    Away, thou plunderer accurst!\n      Death seize thee first,\n  Or e\u2019er thou touch me\u2014off! God, hear our cry,\n      Our maiden agony!\n  Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame.\n      Alas, my maiden fame!\n    O sister, sister, to the altar cling,\n      For he that seizeth me,\n  Grim is his wrath and stern, by land as on the sea.\n      Guard us, O king!\n\n Enter the HERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Hence to my barge\u2014step swiftly, tarry not.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, he rends\u2014he rends my hair! O wound on wound!\n  Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood gush o\u2019er the ground!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Aboard, ye curs\u00e8d\u2014with a new curse, go!\n\nCHORUS.\n    Would God that on the wand\u2019ring brine\n    Thou and this braggart tongue of thine\n      Had sunk beneath the main\u2014\n    Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain!\n    Thee would I drive aboard once more,\n  A slayer and a dastard, from the shore!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n    Be still, thou vain demented soul;\n    My force thy craving shall control.\n  Away, aboard!  What, clingest to the shrine?\n  Away! this city\u2019s gods I hold not for divine.\n\nCHORUS.\n      Aid me, ye gods, that never, never\n        I may again behold\n      The mighty, the life-giving river,\n    Nilus, the quickener of field and fold!\n    Alack, O sire, unto the shrine I cling\u2014\n  Shrine of this land from which mine ancient line did spring!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Shrines, shrines, forsooth!\u2014the ship, the ship be shrine!\n  Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye, go!\n      Or e\u2019er from hands of mine\n  Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow.\n\nCHORUS.\n      Alack, God grant those hands may strive in vain\n        With the salt-streaming wave,\n      When \u2019gainst  the wide-blown  blasts thy bark shall strain\n  To round Sarpedon\u2019s cape, the sandbank\u2019s treach\u2019rous grave.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Shrill ye and shriek unto what gods ye may,\n  Ye shall not leap from out Aegyptus\u2019 bark,\n  How bitterly soe\u2019er ye wail your woe.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, alack my wrong!\n  Stern is thy voice, thy vaunting loud and strong.\n  Thy sire, the mighty Nilus, drive thee hence\n  Turning to death and doom thy greedy violence!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Swift to the vessel of the double prow,\n  Go quickly! let none linger, else this hand\n  Ruthless will hale you by your tresses hence.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, O father! from the shrine\n  Not aid but agony is mine.\n  As a spider he creeps and he clutches his prey,\n  And he hales me away.\n  A spectre of darkness, of darkness. Alas and alas! well-a-day!\n  O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child!\n  Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings wild!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Peace! I fear not this country\u2019s deities.\n  They fostered not my childhood nor mine age.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Like a snake that is human he comes, he shudders and crawls to my\n  side;\n  As an adder that biteth the foot, his clutch on my flesh doth abide.\n  O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child!\n  Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings wild!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Swift each unto the ship; repine no more,\n  Or my hand shall not spare to rend your robe.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O chiefs, O leaders, aid me, or I yield!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Peace! if ye have not ears to hear my words,\n  Lo, by these tresses must I hale you hence.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Undone we are, O king! all hope is gone.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Ay, kings enow ye shall behold anon,\n  Aegyptus\u2019 sons\u2014Ye shall not want for kings.\n\n Enter the KING OF ARGOS.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Sirrah, what dost thou? in what arrogance\n  Darest thou thus insult Pelasgia\u2019s realm?\n  Deemest thou this a woman-hearted town?\n  Thou art too full of thy barbarian scorn\n  For us of Grecian blood, and, erring thus,\n  Thou dost bewray thyself a fool in all!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Say thou wherein my deeds transgress my right.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  First, that thou play\u2019st a stranger\u2019s part amiss.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Wherein?  I do but search and claim mine own.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  To whom of our guest-champions hast appealed?\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  To Hermes, herald\u2019s champion, lord of search.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Yea, to a god\u2014yet dost thou wrong the gods!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  The gods that rule by Nilus I revere.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Hear I aright? our Argive gods are nought?\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  The prey is mine, unless force rend it from me.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  At thine own peril touch them\u2014\u2019ware, and soon!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  I hear thy speech, no hospitable word.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  I am no host for sacrilegious hands.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  I will go tell this to Aegyptus\u2019 sons.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Tell it! my pride will ponder not thy word.\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Yet, that I have my message clear to say\n  (For it behooves that heralds\u2019 words be clear,\n  Be they or ill or good), how art thou named?\n  By whom despoil\u00e8d of this sister-band\n  Of maidens pass I homeward?\u2014speak and say!\n  For lo, henceforth in Ares\u2019 court we stand,\n  Who judges not by witness but by war:\n  No pledge of silver now can bring the cause\n  To issue: ere this thing end, there must be\n  Corpse piled on corpse and many lives gasped forth.\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  What skills it that I tell my name to thee?\n  Thou and thy mates shall learn it ere the end.\n  Know that if words unstained by violence\n  Can change these maidens\u2019 choice, then mayest thou,\n  With full consent of theirs, conduct them hence.\n  But thus the city with one voice ordained\u2014\n\n    _No force shall bear away the maiden band_.\n\n  Firmly this word upon the temple wall\n  Is by a rivet clenched, and shall abide:\n  Not upon wax inscribed and delible,\n  Nor upon parchment sealed and stored away.\u2014\n  Lo, thou hast heard our free mouths speak their will:\n  Out from our presence\u2014tarry not, but go!\n\nHERALD OF AEGYPTUS.\n  Methinks we stand on some new edge of war:\n  Be strength and triumph on the young men\u2019s side!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  Nay but here also shall ye find young men,\n  Unsodden with the juices oozed from grain.[6]\n\n [_Exit HERALD OF AEGYPTUS._]\n\n\n  But ye, O maids, with your attendants true,\n  Pass hence with trust into the fenc\u00e8d town,\n  Ringed with a wide confine of guarding towers.\n  Therein are many dwellings for such guests\n  As the State honours; there myself am housed\n  Within a palace neither scant nor strait.\n  There dwell ye, if ye will to lodge at ease\n  In halls well-thronged: yet, if your soul prefer,\n  Tarry secluded in a separate home.\n  Choose ye and cull, from these our proffered gifts,\n  Whiche\u2019er is best and sweetest to your will:\n  And I and all these citizens whose vote\n  Stands thus decreed, will your protectors be.\n  Look not to find elsewhere more loyal guard.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O godlike chief, God grant my prayer:\n  _Fair blessings on thy proffers fair,\n  Lord of Pelasgia\u2019s race!_\n  Yet, of thy grace, unto our side\n  Send thou the man of courage tried,\n  Of counsel deep and prudent thought,\u2014\n  Be Danaus to his children brought;\n  For his it is to guide us well\n  And warn where it behoves to dwell\u2014\n  What place shall guard and shelter us\n  From malice and tongues slanderous:\n  Swift always are the lips of blame\n  A stranger-maiden to defame\u2014\n  But Fortune give us grace!\n\nTHE KING OF ARGOS.\n  A stainless fame, a welcome kind\n  From all this people shall ye find:\n  Dwell therefore, damsels, loved of us,\n  Within our walls, as Danaus\n  Allots to each, in order due,\n  Her dower of attendants true.\n\n Re-enter DANAUS.\n\nDANAUS\n  High thanks, my children, unto Argos con,\n  And to this folk, as to Olympian gods,\n  Give offerings meet of sacrifice and wine;\n  For saviours are they in good sooth to you.\n  From me they heard, and bitter was their wrath,\n  How those your kinsmen strove to work you wrong,\n  And how of us were thwarted: then to me\n  This company of spearmen did they grant,\n  That honoured I might walk, nor unaware\n  Die by some secret thrust and on this land\n  Bring down the curse of death, that dieth not.\n  Such boons they gave me: it behoves me pay\n  A deeper reverence from a soul sincere.\n  Ye, to the many words of wariness\n  Spoken by me your father, add this word,\n  That, tried by time, our unknown company\n  Be held for honest: over-swift are tongues\n  To slander strangers, over-light is speech\n  To bring pollution on a stranger\u2019s name.\n  Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me\n  Now when man\u2019s eye beholds your maiden prime.\n  Lovely is beauty\u2019s ripening harvest-field,\n  But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot,\n  And birds and creeping things make prey of it.\n  And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice\n  Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad,\n  The while she guards the yet unripened growth.\n  On the fair richness of a maiden\u2019s bloom\n  Each passer looks, o\u2019ercome with strong desire,\n  With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love.\n  Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil\n  Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main:\n  Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy\n  Unto my foes. Behold, a twofold home\u2014\n  One of the king\u2019s and one the people\u2019s gift\u2014\n  Unbought, \u2019tis yours to hold,\u2014a gracious boon.\n  Go\u2014but remember ye your sire\u2019s behest,\n  And hold your life less dear than chastity.\n\nCHORUS.\n  The gods above grant that all else be well.\n  But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befall\n  Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood.\n  So long as Heaven have no new ill devised,\n  From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city who dwell\n  Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial tide.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of Pelasgia swell;\n  Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean doth glide.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush through the city;\n  Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of the plain.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace and with pity\u2014\n  Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no crown but a pain.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of Aphrodite;\n  She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and control.\n  Holy the deeds of her rite,  her craft is secret and mighty,\n  And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her sway of the soul.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth\u2014\n  Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel:\n  Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth\n  The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love\n  well.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Ah, but  I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to reclaim!\n  Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war.\n  Ah, by whose will was it done that o\u2019er the wide ocean they came,\n  Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar?\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come;\n  Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood:\n  Only I pray that whate\u2019er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom,\n  We as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.[7]\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me\u2014\n  Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard!\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Come what come may, \u2019tis Fate\u2019s decree.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Soft is thy word\u2014the doom is hard.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Thou know\u2019st not what the Fates provide.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  How should I scan Zeus\u2019 mighty will,\n  The depth of counsel undescried?\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Pray thou no word of omen ill.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  What timely warning wouldst thou teach?\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Beware, nor slight the gods in speech.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom\n  abhorred!\n    It was thou, it was thou didst release\n  Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that restored,\n    The touch of thine hand gave her peace.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser I\n  pray\u2014\n    The exile that leaveth me pure.\n  May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy find\n  way!\n    For the hands of thy saving are sure.\n\n [_Exeunt omnes._]\n\n\n [1] \u201c\u1f00\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03b3\u1fb6\u03c2.\u201d This epithet may appear strange to modern\n readers accustomed to think of Egypt as a land of cloudless skies and\n pellucid atmosphere. Nevertheless both Pindar (_Pyth_ iv 93) and\n Apollonius Rhodius (iv 267) speak of it in the same way as Aeschylus.\n It has been conjectured that they allude to the fog banks that often\n obscure the low coasts\u2014a phenomenon likely to impress the early\n navigators and to be reported by them.\n\n\n [2] The whole of this dialogue in alternate verses is disarranged in\n the MSS. The re-arrangement which has approved itself to Paley has\n been here followed. It involves, however, a hiatus, instead of the\n line to which this note is appended. The substance of the lost line\n being easily deducible from the context, it has been supplied in the\n translation.\n\n\n [3] Poseidon.\n\n\n [4] Here one verse at least has been lost. The conjecture of Bothe\n seems to be verified, as far as substance is concerned, by the next\n line, and has consequently been adopted.\n\n\n [5] Cyprus.\n\n\n [6] For this curious taunt, strongly illustrative of what Browning\n calls \u201cnationality in drinks,\u201d see Herodotus, ii. 77. A similar\n feeling may perhaps be traced in Tacitus\u2019 description of the national\n beverage of the Germans: \u201cPotui humor ex hordeo aut frumento, _in\n quandam similitudinem vini corruptus_\u201d (_Germania_, chap, xxiii).\n\n\n [7] The ambiguity of these two lines is reproduced from the original.\n The Semi-Chorus appear to pray, in one aspiration, that the threatened\n wedlock may never take place, and, _if_ it does take place, may be for\n weal, not woe.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PERSIANS\n\nARGUMENT\n\n\nXerxes, son of Darius and of his wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus, went\nforth against Hellas, to take vengeance upon those who had defeated his\nfather at Marathon. But ill fortune befell the king and his army both\nby land and sea; neither did it avail him that he cast a bridge over\nthe Hellespont and made a canal across the promontory of Mount Athos,\nand brought myriads of men, by land and sea, to subdue the Greeks. For\nin the strait between Athens and the island of Salamis the Persian\nships were shattered and sunk or put to flight by those of Athens and\nLacedaemon and Aegina and Corinth, and Xerxes went homewards on the way\nby which he had come, leaving his general Mardonius with three hundred\nthousand men to strive with the Greeks by land: but in the next year\nthey were destroyed near Plataea in Boeotia, by the Lacedaemonians and\nAthenians and Tegeans. Such was the end of the army which Xerxes left\nbehind him. But the king himself had reached the bridge over the\nHellespont, and late and hardly and in sorry plight and with few\ncompanions came home unto the Palace of Susa.\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nCHORUS OF PERSIAN ELDERS.\nATOSSA, WIDOW OF DARIUS AND MOTHER OF XERXES.\nA MESSENGER.\nTHE GHOST OF DARIUS.\nXERXES.\n\n_The Scene is laid at the Palace of Susa_.\n\n\nCHORUS.\n  Away unto the Grecian land\n  Hath passed the Persian armament:\n  We, by the monarch\u2019s high command,\n  We are the warders true who stand,\n  Chosen, for honour and descent,\n  To watch the wealth of him who went\u2014\n  Guards of the gold, and faithful styled\n  By Xerxes, great Darius\u2019 child!\n\n  But the king went nor comes again\u2014\n  And for that host, we saw depart\n  Arrayed in gold, my boding heart\n  Aches with a pulse of anxious pain,\n  Presageful for its youthful king!\n  No scout, no steed, no battle-car\n  Comes speeding hitherward, to bring\n  News to our city from afar!\n  Erewhile they went, away, away,\n  From Susa, from Ecbatana,\n  From Kissa\u2019s timeworn fortress grey,\n  Passing to ravage and to war\u2014\n  Some upon steeds, on galleys some,\n  Some in close files, they passed from home,\n  All upon warlike errand bent\u2014\n  Amistres, Artaphernes went,\n  Astaspes, Megabazes high,\n  Lords of the Persian chivalry,\n  Marshals who serve the great king\u2019s word\n  Chieftains of all the mighty horde!\n  Horsemen and bowmen streamed away,\n  Grim in their aspect, fixed to slay,\n  And resolute to face the fray!\n  With troops of horse, careering fast,\n  Masistes, Artemb\u00e1res passed:\n  Imaeus too, the bowman brave,\n  Sosth\u00e1nes, Pharand\u00e1kes, drave\u2014\n  And others the all-nursing wave\n  Of Nilus to the battle gave;\n  Came Susisk\u00e1nes, warrior wild,\n  And Pegast\u00e1gon, Egypt\u2019s child:\n  Thee, brave Ars\u00e1mes! from afar\n  Did holy Memphis launch to war;\n  And Ariomardus, high in fame,\n  From Thebes the immemorial came,\n  And oarsmen skilled from Nilus\u2019 fen,\n  A countless crowd of warlike men:\n  And next, the dainty Lydians went\u2014\n  Soft rulers of a continent\u2014\n  Mitragathes and Arcteus bold\n  In twin command their ranks controlled,\n  And Sardis town, that teems with gold,\n  Sent forth its squadrons to the war\u2014\n  Horse upon horse, and car on car,\n  Double and triple teams, they rolled,\n  In onset awful to behold.\n  From Tmolus\u2019 sacred hill there came\n  The native hordes to join the fray,\n  And upon Hellas\u2019 neck to lay\n  The yoke of slavery and shame;\n  Mardon and Tharubis were there,\n  Bright anvils for the foemen\u2019s spear!\n  The Mysian dart-men sped to war,\n  And the long crowd that onward rolled\n  From Babylon enriched with gold\u2014\n  Captains of ships and archers skilled\n  To speed the shaft, and those who wield\n  The scimitar;\u2014the eastern band\n  Who, by the great king\u2019s high command,\n  Swept to subdue the western land!\n\n  Gone are they, gone\u2014ah, welladay!\n  The flower and pride of our array;\n  And all the Eastland, from whose breast\n  Came forth her bravest and her best,\n  Craves longingly with boding dread\u2014\n  Parents for sons, and brides new-wed\n  For absent lords, and, day by day,\n  Shudder with dread at their delay!\n\n  Ere now they have passed o\u2019er the sea, the manifold host of the king\u2014\n  They have gone forth to sack and to burn; ashore on the Westland they\n  spring!\n  With cordage and rope they have bridged the sea-way of Helle, to pass\n  O\u2019er the strait that is named by thy name, O daughter of Athamas!\n  They have anchored their ships in the current, they have bridled the\n  neck of the sea\u2014\n  The Shepherd and Lord of the East hath bidden a roadway to be!\n  From the land to the land they pass over, a herd at the high king\u2019s\n  best;\n  Some by the way of the waves, and some o\u2019er the planking have\n  pressed.\n  For the king is a lord and a god: he was born of the golden seed\n  That erst upon Danae fell\u2014his captains are strong at the need!\n  And dark is the glare of his eyes, as eyes of a serpent blood-fed,\n  And with manifold troops in his train and with manifold ships hath he\n  sped\u2014\n  Yea, sped with his Syrian cars: he leads on the lords of the bow\n  To meet with the men of the West, the spear-armed force of the foe!\n  Can any make head and resist him, when he comes with the roll of a\n  wave?\n  No barrier nor phalanx of might, no chief, be he ever so brave!\n  For stern is the onset of Persia, and gallant her children in fight.\n  But the guile of the god is deceitful, and who shall elude him by\n  flight?\n  And who is the lord of the leap, that can spring and alight and\n  evade?\n  For At\u00e9 deludes and allures, till round him the meshes are laid,\n  And no man his doom can escape! it was writ in the rule of high\n  Heaven,\n  That in tramp of the steeds and in crash of the charge the war-cry of\n  Persia be given:\n  They have learned to behold the forbidden, the sacred enclosure of\n  sea,\n  Where the waters are wide and in stress of the wind the billows roll\n  hoary to lee!\n  And their trust is in cable and cordage, too weak in the power of the\n  blast,\n  And frail are the links of the bridge whereby unto Hellas they\n  passed.\n\n  Therefore my gloom-wrapped heart is rent with sorrow\n    For what may hap to-morrow!\n  Alack, for all the Persian armament\u2014\n   Alack, lest there be sent\n  Dread news of desolation, Susa\u2019s land\n    Bereft, forlorn, unmanned\u2014\n  Lest the grey Kissian fortress echo back\n    The wail, _Alack, Alack!_\n  The sound of women\u2019s shriek, who wail and mourn,\n    With fine-spun raiment torn!\n  The charioteers went forth nor come again,\n    And all the marching men\n  Even as a swarm of bees have flown afar,\n    Drawn by the king to war\u2014\n  Crossing the sea-bridge, linked from side to side,\n    That doth the waves divide:\n  And the soft bridal couch of bygone years\n    Is now bedewed with tears,\n  Each princess, clad in garments delicate,\n    Wails for her widowed fate\u2014\n\n  _Alas my gallant bridegroom, lost and gone,\n    And I am left alone!_\n\n  But now, ye warders of the state,\n  Here, in this hall of old renown,\n  Behoves that we deliberate\n  In counsel deep and wise debate,\n    For need is surely shown!\n  How fareth he, Darius\u2019 child,\n  The Persian king, from Perseus styled?\n\n  Comes triumph to the eastern bow,\n  Or hath the lance-point conquered now?\n\n Enter ATOSSA.\n\n    See, yonder comes the mother-queen,\n  Light of our eyes, in godlike sheen,\n  The royal mother of the king!\u2014\n  Fall we before her! well it were\n  That, all as one, we sue to her,\n  And round her footsteps cling!\n\n  Queen, among deep-girded Persian dames thou highest and most royal,\n  Hoary mother, thou, of Xerxes, and Darius\u2019 wife of old!\n  To godlike sire, and godlike son, we bow us and are loyal\u2014\n  Unless, on us, an adverse tide of destiny has rolled!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Therefore come I forth to you, from chambers decked and golden,\n    Where long ago Darius laid his head, with me beside,\n  And my heart is torn with anguish, and with terror am I holden,\n    And I plead unto your friendship and I bid you to my side.\n\n  Darius, in the old time, by aid of some Immortal,\n    Raised up the stately fabric, our wealth of long-ago:\n  But I tremble lest it totter down, and ruin porch and portal,\n    And the whirling dust of downfall rise above its overthrow!\n\n  Therefore a dread unspeakable within me never slumbers,\n    Saying, _Honour not the gauds of wealth if men have ceased to grow,\n  Nor deem that men, apart from wealth, can find their strength in\n  numbers_\u2014\n    We shudder for our light and king, though we have gold enow!\n\n  _No light there is, in any house, save presence of the master_\u2014\n    So runs the saw, ye aged men! and truth it says indeed\u2014\n  On you I call, the wise and true, to ward us from disaster,\n    For all my hope is fixed on you, to prop us in our need!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Queen-Mother of the Persian land, to thy commandment bowing,\n    Whate\u2019er thou wilt, in word or deed, we follow to fulfil\u2014\n  Not twice we need thine high behest, our faith and duty knowing,\n    In council and in act alike, thy loyal servants still!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Long while by various visions of the night\n  Am I beset, since to Ionian lands\n  With marshalled host my son went forth to war.\n  Yet never saw I presage so distinct\n  As in the night now passed.\u2014Attend my tale!\u2014\n  A dream I had: two women nobly clad\n  Came to my sight, one robed in Persian dress,\n  The other vested in the Dorian garb,\n  And both right stately and more tall by far\n  Than women of to-day, and beautiful\n  Beyond disparagement, and sisters sprung\n  Both of one race, but, by their natal lot,\n  One born in Hellas, one in Eastern land.\n  These, as it seemed unto my watching eyes,\n  Roused each the other to a mutual feud:\n  The which my son perceiving set himself\n  To check and soothe their struggle, and anon\n  Yoked them and set the collars on their necks;\n  And one, the Ionian, proud in this array,\n  Paced in high quietude, and lent her mouth,\n  Obedient, to the guidance of the rein.\n  But restively the other strove, and broke\n  The fittings of the car, and plunged away\n  With mouth un-bitted: o\u2019er the broken yoke\n  My son was hurled, and lo! Darius stood\n  In lamentation o\u2019er his fallen child.\n  Him Xerxes saw, and rent his robe in grief.\n\n  Such was my vision of the night now past;\n  But when, arising, I had dipped my hand\n  In the fair lustral stream, I drew towards\n  The altar, in the act of sacrifice,\n  Having in mind to offer, as their due,\n  The sacred meal-cake to the averting powers,\n  Lords of the rite that banisheth ill dreams.\n  When lo! I saw an eagle fleeing fast\n  To Phoebus\u2019 shrine\u2014O friends, I stayed my steps,\n  Too scared to speak! for, close upon his flight,\n  A little falcon dashed in winged pursuit,\n  Plucking with claws the eagle\u2019s head, while he\n  Could only crouch and cower and yield himself.\n  Scared was I by that sight, and eke to you\n  No less a terror must it be to hear!\n  For mark this well\u2014if Xerxes have prevailed,\n  He shall come back the wonder of the world:\n  If not, still none can call him to account\u2014\n  So he but live, he liveth Persia\u2019s King!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Queen, it stands not with my purpose to abet these fears of thine,\n  Nor to speak with glazing comfort! nay, betake thee to the shrine!\n  If thy dream foretold disaster, sue to gods to bar its way,\n  And, for thyself, son, state, and friends, to bring fair fate to-day.\n  Next, unto Earth and to the Dead be due libation poured,\n  And by thee let Darius\u2019 soul be wistfully implored\u2014\n  _I saw thee, lord, in last night\u2019s dream, a phantom from the grave,\n  I pray thee, lord, from earth beneath come forth to help and save!\n  To me and to thy son send up the bliss of triumph now,\n  And hold the gloomy fates of ill, dim in the dark below!_\n  Such be thy words! my inner heart good tidings doth foretell,\n  And that fair fate will spring thereof, if wisdom guide us well.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Loyal thou that first hast read this dream, this vision of the night,\n  With loyalty to me, the queen\u2014be then thy presage right!\n  And therefore, as thy bidding is, what time I pass within\n  To dedicate these offerings, new prayers I will begin,\n  Alike to gods and the great dead who loved our lineage well.\n  Yet one more word\u2014say, in what realm do the Athenians dwell?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Far hence, even where, in evening land, goes down our Lord the Sun.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Say, had my son so keen desire, that region to o\u2019errun?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea\u2014if she fell, the rest of Greece were subject to our sway!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Hath she so great predominance, such legions in array?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ay\u2014such a host as smote us sore upon an earlier day.\n\nATOSSA.\n  And what hath she, besides her men? enow of wealth in store?\n\nCHORUS.\n  A mine of treasure in the earth, a fount of silver ore!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Is it in skill of bow and shaft that Athens\u2019 men excel?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay, they bear bucklers in the fight, and thrust the spear-point\n  well.\n\nATOSSA.\n  And who is shepherd of their host and holds them in command?\n\nCHORUS.\n  To no man do they bow as slaves, nor own a master\u2019s hand.\n\nATOSSA.\n  How should they bide our brunt of war, the East upon the West?\n\nCHORUS.\n  That could Darius\u2019 valiant horde in days of yore attest!\n\nATOSSA.\n  A boding word, to us who bore the men now far away!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay\u2014as I deem, the very truth will dawn on us to-day.\n  A Persian by his garb and speed, a courier draws anear\u2014\n  He bringeth news, of good or ill, for Persia\u2019s land to hear.\n\n Enter a MESSENGER.\n\nMESSENGER.\nO walls and towers of all the Asian realm,\nO Persian land, O treasure-house of gold!\nHow, by one stroke, down to destruction, down,\nHath sunk our pride, and all the flower of war\nThat once was Persia\u2019s, lieth in the dust!\nWoe on the man who first announceth woe\u2014\nYet must I all the tale of death unroll!\nHark to me, Persians! Persia\u2019s host lies low.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O ruin manifold, and woe, and fear!\n  Let the wild tears run down, for the great doom is here!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  This blow hath fallen, to the utterance, And I, past hope, behold my\n  safe return!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Too long, alack, too long this life of mine,\n  That in mine age I see this sudden woe condign!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  As one who saw, by no loose rumour led,\n  Lords, I would tell what doom was dealt to us.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, how vainly have they striven!\n  Our myriad hordes with shaft and bow\n  Went from the Eastland, to lay low\n    Hellas, beloved of Heaven!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Piled with men dead, yea, miserably slain,\n  Is every beach, each reef of Salamis!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Thou sayest sooth\u2014ah well-a-day!\n  Battered amid the waves, and torn,\n  On surges hither, thither, borne,\n  Dead bodies, bloodstained and forlorn,\n  In their long cloaks they toss and stray!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Their bows availed not! all have perished, all,\n  By charging galleys crushed and whelmed in death.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Shriek out your sorrow\u2019s wistful wail!\n    To their untimely doom they went;\n  Ill strove they, and to no avail,\n    And minished is their armament!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Out on thee, hateful name of Salamis,\n  Out upon Athens, mournful memory!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Woe upon this day\u2019s evil fame!\n    Thou, Athens, art our murderess;\n  Alack, full many a Persian dame\n    Is left forlorn and husbandless!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Mute have I been awhile, and overwrought\n  At this great sorrow, for it passeth speech,\n  And passeth all desire to ask of it.\n  Yet if the gods send evils, men must bear.\n                                         (_To the_ MESSENGER)\n  Unroll the record! stand composed and tell,\n  Although thy heart be groaning inwardly,\n  Who hath escaped, and, of our leaders, whom\n  Have we to weep? what chieftains in the van\n  Stood, sank, and died and left us leaderless?\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Xerxes himself survives and sees the day.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Then to my line thy word renews the dawn\n  And golden dayspring after gloom of night!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  But the brave marshal of ten thousand horse,\n  Artembares, is tossed and flung in death\n  Along the rugged rocks Silenian.\n  And Dadaces no longer leads his troop,\n  But, smitten by the spear, from off the prow\n  Hath lightly leaped to death; and Tenagon,\n  In true descent a Bactrian nobly born,\n  Drifts by the sea-lashed reefs of Salamis,\n  The isle of Ajax. Gone Lilaeus too,\n  Gone are Arsames and Argestes! all,\n  Around the islet where the sea-doves breed,\n  Dashed their defeated heads on iron rocks;\n  Arcteus, who dwelt beside the founts of Nile,\n  Adeues, Pheresseues, and with them\n  Pharnuchus, from one galley\u2019s deck went down.\n  Matallus, too, of Chrysa, lord and king\n  Of myriad hordes, who led unto the fight\n  Three times ten thousand swarthy cavaliers,\n  Fell, with his swarthy and abundant beard\n  Incarnadined to red, a crimson stain\n  Outrivalling the purple of the sea!\n  There Magian Arabus and Artames\n  Of Bactra perished\u2014taking up, alike,\n  In yonder stony land their long sojourn.\n  Amistris too, and he whose strenuous spear\n  Was foremost in the fight, Amphistreus fell,\n  And gallant Ariomardus, by whose death\n  Broods sorrow upon Sardis: Mysia mourns\n  For Seisames, and Tharubis lies low\u2014\n  Commander, he, of five times fifty ships,\n  Born in Lyrnessus: his heroic form\n  Is low in death, ungraced with sepulchre.\n  Dead too is he, the lord of courage high,\n  Cilicia\u2019s marshal, brave Syennesis,\n  Than whom none dealt more carnage on the foe,\n  Nor perished by a more heroic end.\n  So fell the brave: so speak I of their doom,\n  Summing in brief the fate of myriads!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Ah well-a-day! these crowning woes I hear,\n  The shame of Persia and her shrieks of dole!\n  But yet renew the tale, repeat thy words,\n  Tell o\u2019er the count of those Hellenic ships,\n  And how they ventured with their beak\u00e8d prows\n  To charge upon the Persian armament.\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Know, if mere count of ships could win the day,\n  The Persians had prevailed. The Greeks, in sooth,\n  Had but three hundred galleys at the most,\n  And other ten, select and separate.\n  But\u2014I am witness\u2014Xerxes held command\n  Of full a thousand keels, and, those apart,\n  Two hundred more, and seven, for speed renowned!\u2014\n  So stands the reckoning, and who shall dare\n  To say we Persians had the lesser host?\n\nATOSSA.\n  Nay, we were worsted by an unseen power\n  Who swayed the balance downward to our doom!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  In ward of heaven doth Pallas\u2019 city stand.\n\nATOSSA.\n  How then? is Athens yet inviolate?\n\nMESSENGER.\n  While her men live, her bulwark standeth firm!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Say, how began the struggle of the ships?\n  Who first joined issue? did the Greeks attack,\n  Or Xerxes, in his numbers confident?\n\nMESSENGER.\n  O queen, our whole disaster thus befell,\n  Through intervention of some fiend or fate\u2014\n  I know not what\u2014that had ill will to us.\n  From the Athenian host some Greek came o\u2019er,\n  To thy son Xerxes whispering this tale\u2014\n  _Once let the gloom of night have gathered in,\n  The Greeks will tarry not, but swiftly spring\n  Each to his galley-bench, in furtive flight,\n  Softly contriving safety for their life_.\n  Thy son believed the word and missed the craft\n  Of that Greek foeman, and the spite of Heaven,\n  And straight to all his captains gave this charge\u2014\n  _As soon as sunlight warms the ground no more,\n  And gloom enwraps the sanctuary of sky,\n  Range we our fleet in triple serried lines\n  To bar the passage from the seething strait,\n  This way and that: let other ships surround\n  The isle of Ajax, with this warning word\u2014\n  That if the Greeks their jeopardy should scape\n  By wary craft, and win their ships a road.\n  Each Persian captain shall his failure pay\n  By forfeit of his head_. So spake the king,\n  Inspired at heart with over-confidence,\n  Unwitting of the gods\u2019 predestined will.\n  Thereon our crews, with no disordered haste,\n  Did service to his bidding and purveyed\n  The meal of afternoon: each rower then\n  Over the fitted rowlock looped his oar.\n  Then, when the splendour of the sun had set,\n  And night drew on, each master of the oar\n  And each armed warrior straightway went aboard.\n  Forward the long ships moved, rank cheering rank,\n  Each forward set upon its ordered course.\n  And all night long the captains of the fleet\n  Kept their crews moving up and down the strait.\n  So the night waned, and not one Grecian ship\n  Made effort to elude and slip away.\n  But as dawn came and with her coursers white\n  Shone in fair radiance over all the earth,\n  First from the Grecian fleet rang out a cry,\n  A song of onset! and the island crags\n  Re-echoed to the shrill exulting sound.\n  Then on us Eastern men amazement fell\n  And fear in place of hope; for what we heard\n  Was not a call to flight! the Greeks rang out\n  Their holy, resolute, exulting chant,\n  Like men come forth to dare and do and die\n  Their trumpets pealed, and fire was in that sound,\n  And with the dash of simultaneous oars\n  Replying to the war-chant, on they came,\n  Smiting the swirling brine, and in a trice\n  They flashed upon the vision of the foe!\n  The right wing first in orderly advance\n  Came on, a steady column; following then,\n  The rest of their array moved out and on,\n  And to our ears there came a burst of sound,\n  A clamour manifold.\u2014_On, sons of Greece!\n  On, for your country\u2019s freedom! strike to save\n  Wives, children, temples of ancestral gods,\n  Graves of your fathers! now is all at stake_.\n  Then from our side swelled up the mingled din\n  Of Persian tongues, and time brooked no delay\u2014\n  Ship into ship drave hard its brazen beak\n  With speed of thought, a shattering blow! and first\n  One Grecian bark plunged straight, and sheared away\n  Bowsprit and stem of a Phoenician ship.\n  And then each galley on some other\u2019s prow\n  Came crashing in. Awhile our stream of ships\n  Held onward, till within the narrowing creek\n  Our jostling vessels were together driven,\n  And none could aid another: each on each\n  Drave hard their brazen beaks, or brake away\n  The oar-banks of each other, stem to stern,\n  While the Greek galleys, with no lack of skill,\n  Hemmed them and battered in their sides, and soon\n  The hulls rolled over, and the sea was hid,\n  Crowded with wrecks and butchery of men.\n  No beach nor reef but was with corpses strewn,\n  And every keel of our barbarian host\n  Hurried to flee, in utter disarray.\n  Thereon the foe closed in upon the wrecks\n  And hacked and hewed, with oars and splintered planks,\n  As fishermen hack tunnies or a cast\n  Of netted dolphins, and the briny sea\n  Rang with the screams and shrieks of dying men,\n  Until the night\u2019s dark aspect hid the scene.\n  Had I a ten days\u2019 time to sum that count\n  Of carnage, \u2019twere too little! know this well\u2014\n  One day ne\u2019er saw such myriad forms of death!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Woe on us, woe! disaster\u2019s mighty sea\n  Hath burst on us and all the Persian realm!\n\nMESSENGER.\n  Be well assured, the tale is but begun\u2014\n  The further agony that on us fell\n  Doth twice outweigh the sufferings I have told!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Nay, what disaster could be worse than this?\n  Say on! what woe upon the army came,\n  Swaying the scale to a yet further fall?\n\nMESSENGER.\n  The very flower and crown of Persia\u2019s race,\n  Gallant of soul and glorious in descent,\n  And highest held in trust before the king,\n  Lies shamefully and miserably slain.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Alas for me and for this ruin, friends!\n  Dead, sayest thou? by what fate overthrown?\n\nMESSENGER.\n  An islet is there, fronting Salamis\u2014\n  Strait, and with evil anchorage: thereon\n  Pan treads the measure of the dance he loves\n  Along the sea-beach. Thither the king sent\n  His noblest, that, whene\u2019er the Grecian foe\n  Should \u2019scape, with shattered ships, unto the isle,\n  We might make easy prey of fugitives\n  And slay them there, and from the washing tides\n  Rescue our friends. It fell out otherwise\n  Than he divined, for when, by aid of Heaven,\n  The Hellenes held the victory on the sea,\n  Their sailors then and there begirt themselves\n  With brazen mail and bounded from their ships,\n  And then enringed the islet, point by point,\n  So that our Persians in bewilderment\n  Knew not which way to turn.  On every side,\n  Battered with stones, they fell, while arrows flew\n  From many a string, and smote them to the death.\n  Then, at the last, with simultaneous rush\n  The foe came bursting on us, hacked and hewed\n  To fragments all that miserable band,\n  Till not a soul of them was left alive.\n  Then Xerxes saw disaster\u2019s depth, and shrieked,\n  From where he sat on high, surveying all\u2014\n  A lofty eminence, beside the brine,\n  Whence all his armament lay clear in view.\n  His robe he rent, with loud and bitter wail,\n  And to his land-force swiftly gave command\n  And fled, with shame beside him! Now, lament\n  That second woe, upon the first imposed!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Out on thee, Fortune! thou hast foiled the hope\n  And power of Persia: to this bitter end\n  My son went forth to wreak his great revenge\n  On famous Athens! all too few they seemed,\n  Our men who died upon the Fennel-field!\n  Vengeance for them my son had mind to take,\n  And drew on his own head these whelming woes.\n  But thou, say on! the ships that \u2019scaped from wreck\u2014\n  Where didst thou leave them? make thy story clear.\n\nMESSENGER.\n  The captains of the ships that still survived\n  Fled in disorder, scudding down the wind,\n  The while our land-force on Boeotian soil\n  Fell into ruin, some beside the springs\n  Dropping before they drank, and some outworn,\n  Pursued, and panting all their life away.\n  The rest of us our way to Phocis won,\n  And thence to Doris and the Melian gulf,\n  Where with soft stream Spercheus laves the soil.\n  Thence to the northward did Phthiotis\u2019 plain,\n  And some Thessalian fortress, lend us aid,\n  For famine-pinched we were, and many died\n  Of drought and hunger\u2019s twofold present scourge.\n  Thence to Magnesia came we, and the land\n  Where Macedonians dwell, and crossed the ford\n  Of Axius, and Bolbe\u2019s reedy fen,\n  And mount Pangaeus, in Edonian land.\n  There, in the very night we came, the god\n  Brought winter ere its time, from bank to bank\n  Freezing the holy Strymon\u2019s tide. Each man\n  Who heretofore held lightly of the gods,\n  Now crouched and proffered prayer to Earth and Heaven!\n  Then, after many orisons performed,\n  The army ventured on the frozen ford:\n  Yet only those who crossed before the sun\n  Shed its warm rays, won to the farther side.\n  For soon the fervour of the glowing orb\n  Did with its keen rays pierce the ice-bound stream,\n  And men sank through and thrust each other down\u2014\n  Best was his lot whose breath was stifled first!\n  But all who struggled through and gained the bank,\n  Toilfully wending through the land of Thrace\n  Have made their way, a sorry, scanted few,\n  Unto this homeland. Let the city now\n  Lament and yearn for all the loved and lost.\n  My tale is truth, yet much untold remains\n  Of ills that Heaven hath hurled upon our land.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Spirit of Fate, too heavy were thy feet,\n  Those ill to match! that sprang on Persia\u2019s realm.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Woe for the host, to wrack and ruin hurled!\n  O warning of the night, prophetic dream!\n  Thou didst foreshadow clearly all the doom,\n  While ye, old men, made light of woman\u2019s fears!\n  Ah well\u2014yet, as your divination ruled\n  The meaning of the sign, I hold it good,\n  First, that I put up prayer unto the gods,\n  And, after that, forth from my palace bring\n  The sacrificial cake, the offering due\n  To Earth and to the spirits of the dead.\n  Too well I know it is a timeless rite\n  Over a finished thing that cannot change!\n  But yet\u2014I know not\u2014there may come of it\n  Alleviation for the after time.\n  You it beseems, in view of what hath happed,\n  T\u2019 advise with loyal hearts our loyal guards:\n  And to my son\u2014if, ere my coming forth,\n  He should draw hitherward\u2014give comfort meet,\n  Escort him to the palace in all state,\n  Lest to these woes he add another woe!\n\n [_Exit ATOSSA._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Zeus, lord and king! to death and nought\n  Our countless host by thee is brought.\n  Deep in the gloom of death, to-day,\n  Lie Susa and Ecbatana:\n  How many a maid in sorrow stands\n  And rends her tire with tender hands!\n  How tears run down, in common pain\n  And woeful mourning for the slain!\n  O delicate in dole and grief,\n  Ye Persian women! past relief\n  Is now your sorrow! to the war\n  Your loved ones went and come no more!\n  Gone from you is your joy and pride\u2014\n  Severed the bridegroom from the bride\u2014\n  The wedded couch luxurious\n  Is widowed now, and all the house\n  Pines ever with insatiate sighs,\n  And we stand here and bid arise,\n  For those who forth in ardour went\n  And come not back, the loud lament!\n\n  Land of the East, thou mournest for the host,\n  Bereft of all thy sons, alas the day!\n  For them whom Xerxes led hath Xerxes lost\u2014\n  Xerxes who wrecked the fleet, and flung our hopes away!\n\n  How came it that Darius once controlled,\n  And without scathe, the army of the bow,\n  Loved by the folk of Susa, wise and bold?\n  Now is the land-force lost, the shipmen sunk below!\n\n  Ah for the ships that bore them, woe is me!\n  Bore them to death and  doom!   the  crashing prows\n  Of fierce Ionian oarsmen swept the sea,\n  And death was in their wake, and shipwreck murderous!\n\n  Late, late and hardly\u2014if true tales they tell\u2014\n  Did Xerxes flee along the wintry way\n  And snows of Thrace\u2014but ah, the first who fell\n  Lie by the rocks or float upon Cychrea\u2019s bay!\n\n    Mourn, each and all! waft heavenward your cry,\n      Stung to the soul, bereaved, disconsolate!\n    Wail out your anguish, till it pierce the sky,\n  In shrieks of deep despair, ill-omened, desperate!\n\n    The dead are drifting, yea, are gnawed upon\n      By voiceless children of the stainless sea,\n    Or battered by the surge! we mourn and groan\n  For husbands gone to death, for childless agony!\n\n    Alas the aged men, who mourn to-day\n      The ruinous sorrows that the gods ordain!\n    O\u2019er the wide Asian land, the Persian sway\n  Can force no tribute now, and can no rule sustain.\n\n    Yea, men will crouch no more to fallen power\n      And kingship overthrown! the whole land o\u2019er,\n    Men speak the thing they will, and from this hour\n  The folk whom Xerxes ruled obey his word no more.\n\n    The yoke of force is broken from the neck\u2014\n      The isle of Ajax and th\u2019 encircling wave\n    Reek with a bloody crop of death and wreck\n  Of Persia\u2019s fallen power, that none can lift nor save!\n\n Re-enter ATOSSA, in mourning robes.\n\nATOSSA.\n  Friends, whosoe\u2019er is versed in human ills,\n  Knoweth right well that when a wave of woe\n  Comes on a man, he sees in all things fear;\n  While, in flood-tide of fortune, \u2019tis his mood\n  To take that fortune as unchangeable,\n  Wafting him ever forward. Mark me now\u2014\n  The gods\u2019 thwart purpose doth confront mine eyes,\n  And all is terror to me; in mine ears\n  There sounds a cry, but not of triumph now\u2014\n  So am I scared at heart by woe so great.\n  Therefore I wend forth from the house anew,\n  Borne in no car of state, nor robed in pride\n  As heretofore, but bringing, for the sire\n  Who did beget my son, libations meet\n  For holy rites that shall appease the dead\u2014\n  The sweet white milk, drawn from a spotless cow,\n  The oozing drop of golden honey, culled\n  By the flower-haunting bee, and therewithal\n  Pure draughts of water from a virgin spring;\n  And lo! besides, the stainless effluence,\n  Born of the wild vine\u2019s bosom, shining store\n  Treasured to age, this bright and luscious wine.\n  And eke the fragrant fruit upon the bough\n  Of the grey olive-tree, which lives its life\n  In sprouting leafage, and the twining flowers,\n  Bright children of the earth\u2019s fertility.\n  But you, O friends! above these offerings poured\n  To reconcile the dead, ring out your dirge\n  To summon up Darius from the shades,\n  Himself a shade; and I will pour these draughts,\n  Which earth shall drink, unto the gods of hell.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Queen, by the Persian land adored,\n  By thee be this libation poured,\n  Passing to those who hold command\n  Of dead men in the spirit-land!\n  And we will sue, in solemn chant,\n  That gods who do escort the dead\n  In nether realms, our prayer may grant\u2014\n    Back to us be Darius led!\n\n  O Earth, and Hermes, and the king\n  Of Hades, our Darius bring!\n  For if, beyond the prayers we prayed,\n  He knoweth aught of help or aid,\n  He, he alone, in realms below,\n  Can speak the limit of our woe!\n\n  Doth he hear me, the king we adored, who is god among gods of the\n  dead?\n    Doth he hear me send out in my sorrow the pitiful, manifold cry,\n  The sobbing lament and appeal? is the voice of my suffering sped\n    To the realm of the shades? doth he hear me and pity my sorrowful\n    sigh?\n  O Earth, and ye Lords of the dead! release ye that spirit of might,\n  Who in Susa the palace was born! let him rise up once more to the\n  light!\n\n    There is none like him, none of all\n  That e\u2019er were laid in Persian sepulchres!\n    Borne forth he was to honoured burial,\n  A royal heart! and followed by our tears.\n    God of the dead, O give him back to us,\n  Darius, ruler glorious!\n    He never wasted us with reckless war\u2014\n  God, counsellor, and king, beneath a happy star!\n    Ancient of days and king, awake and come\u2014\n      Rise o\u2019er the mounded tomb!\n  Rise, plant thy foot, with saffron sandal shod\n    Father to us, and god!\n  Rise with thy diadem, O sire benign,\n    Upon thy brow!\n  List to the strange new sorrows of thy line,\n    Sire of a woeful son!\n\n  A mist of fate and hell is round us now,\n  And all the city\u2019s flower to death is done!\n  Alas, we wept thee once, and weep again!\n  O Lord of lords, by recklessness twofold\n  The land is wasted of its men,\n  And down to death are rolled\n  Wreckage of sail and oar,\n  Ships that are ships no more,\n  And bodies of the slain!\n\n The GHOST OF DARIUS rises.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Ye aged Persians, truest of the true,\n  Coevals of the youth that once was mine,\n  What troubleth now our city? harken, how\n  It moans and beats the breast and rends the plain!\n  And I, beholding how my consort stood\n  Beside my tomb, was moved with awe, and took\n  The gift of her libation graciously.\n  But ye are weeping by my sepulchre,\n  And, shrilling forth a sad, evoking cry,\n  Summon me mournfully, _Arise, arise_.\n  No light thing is it, to come back from death,\n  For, in good sooth, the gods of nether gloom\n  Are quick to seize but late and loth to free!\n  Yet among them I dwell as one in power\u2014\n  And lo, I come! now speak, and speed your words,\n  Lest I be blamed for tarrying overlong!\n  What new disaster broods o\u2019er Persia\u2019s realm?\n\nCHORUS.\n  With awe on thee I gaze,\n  And, standing face to face,\n  I tremble as I did in olden days!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Nay, but as I rose to earth again, obedient to your call,\n  Prithee, tarry not in parley! be one word enough for all\u2014\n  Speak and gaze on me unshrinking, neither let my face appal!\n\nCHORUS.\n  I tremble to reveal,\n  Yet tremble to conceal\n  Things hard for friends to feel!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Nay, but if the old-time terror on your spirit keeps its hold,\n  Speak thou, O royal lady who didst couch with me of old!\n  Stay thy weeping and lamenting and to me reveal the truth\u2014\n  Speak! for man is born to sorrow; yea, the proverb sayeth sooth!\n  \u2019Tis the doom of mortal beings, if they live to see old age,\n  To suffer bale, by land and sea, through war and tempest\u2019s rage.\n\nATOSSA.\n  O thou whose blissful fate on earth all mortal weal excelled\u2014\n  Who, while the sunlight touched thine eyes, the lord of all wert\n  held!\n  A god to Persian men thou wert, in bliss and pride and fame\u2014\n  I hold thee blest too in thy death, or e\u2019er the ruin came!\n  Alas,  Darius! one brief word must tell thee all the tale\u2014\n  The Persian power is in the dust, gone down in blood and bale!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Speak\u2014by what chance? did man rebel, or pestilence descend?\n\nATOSSA.\n  Neither! by Athens\u2019 fatal shores our army met its end.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Which of my children led our host to Athens? speak and say.\n\nATOSSA.\n  The froward Xerxes, leaving all our realm to disarray.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Was it with army or with fleet on folly\u2019s quest he went?\n\nATOSSA.\n  With both alike, a twofold front of double armament.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  And how then did so large a host on foot pass o\u2019er the sea?\n\nATOSSA.\n  He bridged the ford of Helle\u2019s strait by artful carpentry.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  How? could his craft avail to span the torrent of that tide?\n\nATOSSA.\n  \u2019Tis sooth I say\u2014some unknown power did fatal help provide!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Alas, that power in malice came, to his bewilderment!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Alas, we see the end of all, the ruin on us sent.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Speak, tell me how they fared therein, that thus ye mourn and weep?\n\nATOSSA.\n  Disaster to the army came, through ruin on the deep!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Is all undone? hath all the folk gone down before the foe?\n\nATOSSA.\n  Yea, hark to Susa\u2019s mourning cry for warriors laid low!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Alas for all our gallant aids, our Persia\u2019s help and pride!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Ay! old with young, the Bactrian force hath perished at our side!\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Alas, my son! what gallant youths hath he sent down to death!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Alone, or with a scanty guard\u2014for so the rumour saith\u2014\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  He came\u2014but how, and to what end? doth aught of hope remain?\n\nATOSSA.\n  With joy he reached the bridge that spanned the Hellespontine main.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  How? is he safe, in Persian land? speak soothly, yea or nay!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Clear and more clear the rumour comes, for no man to gainsay.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Woe for the oracle fulfilled, the presage of the war\n  Launched on my son, by will of Zeus!  I deemed our doom afar\n  In lap of time; but, if a king push forward to his fate,\n  The god himself allures to death that man infatuate!\n  So now the very fount of woe streams out on those I loved,\n  And mine own son, unwisely bold, the truth hereof hath proved!\n  He sought to shackle and control the Hellespontine wave,\n  That  rushes  from  the  Bosphorus,  with fetters of a slave!\u2014\n  To curb and bridge, with welded links, the streaming water-way,\n  And guide across the passage broad his manifold array!\n  Ah, folly void of counsel! he deemed that mortal wight\n  Could thwart the will of Heaven itself and curb Poseidon\u2019s might!\n  Was it not madness? much I fear lest all my wealth and store\n  Pass from my treasure-house, to be the snatcher\u2019s prize once more!\n\nATOSSA.\n  Such is the lesson, ah, too late! to eager Xerxes taught\u2014\n  Trusting random counsellors and hare-brained men of nought,\n  Who said _Darius mighty wealth and fame to us did bring,\n  But thou art nought, a blunted spear, a palace-keeping king!_\n  Unto those sorry counsellors a ready ear he lent,\n  And led away to Hellas\u2019 shore his fated armament.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Therefore through them hath come calamity\n  Most huge and past forgetting; nor of old\n  Did ever such extermination fall\n  Upon the city Susa. Long ago\n  Zeus in his power this privilege bestowed,\n  That with a guiding sceptre one sole man\n  Should rule this Asian land of flock and herd.\n  Over the folk a Mede, Astyages,\n  Did grasp the power: then Cyaxares ruled\n  In his sire\u2019s place, and held the sway aright,\n  Steering his state with watchful wariness.\n  Third in succession, Cyrus, blest of Heaven,\n  Held rule and \u2019stablished peace for all his clan:\n  Lydian and Phrygian won he to his sway,\n  And wide Ionia to his yoke constrained,\n  For the god favoured his discretion sage.\n  Fourth in the dynasty was Cyrus\u2019 son,\n  And fifth was Mardus, scandal of his land\n  And ancient lineage. Him Artaphrenes,\n  Hardy of heart, within his palace slew,\n  Aided by loyal plotters, set for this.\n  And I too gained the lot for which I craved,\n  And oftentimes led out a goodly host,\n  Yet never brought disaster such as this\n  Upon the city. But my son is young\n  And reckless in his youth, and heedeth not\n  The warnings of my mouth. Mark this, my friends,\n  Born with my birth, coeval with mine age\u2014\n  Not all we kings who held successive rule\n  Have wrought, combined, such ruin as my son!\n\nCHORUS.\n  How then, O King Darius? whitherward\n  Dost thou direct thy warning? from this plight\n  How can we Persians fare towards hope again?\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  By nevermore assailing Grecian lands,\n  Even tho\u2019 our Median force be double theirs\u2014\n  For the land\u2019s self protects its denizens.\n\nCHORUS.\n  How meanest thou? by what defensive power?\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  She wastes by famine a too countless foe.\n\nCHORUS.\n  But we will bring a host more skilled than huge.\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Why, e\u2019en that army, camped in Hellas still,\n  Shall never win again to home and weal!\n\nCHORUS.\n  How say\u2019st thou? will not all the Asian host\n  Pass back from Europe over Helle\u2019s ford?\n\nGHOST OF DARIUS.\n  Nay\u2014scarce a tithe of all those myriads,\n  If man may trust the oracles of Heaven\n  When he beholds the things already wrought,\n  Not false with true, but true with no word false\n  If what I trow be truth, my son has left\n  A chosen rear-guard of our host, in whom\n  He trusts, now, with a random confidence!\n  They tarry where Asopus laves the ground\n  With rills that softly bless Boeotia\u2019s plain\u2014\n  There is it fated for them to endure\n  The very crown of misery and doom,\n  Requital for their god-forgetting pride!\n  For why? they raided Hellas, had the heart\n  To wrong the images of holy gods,\n  And give the shrines and temples to the flame!\n  Defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell,\n  And each god\u2019s image, from its pedestal\n  Thrust and flung down, in dim confusion lies!\n  Therefore, for outrage vile, a doom as dark\n  They suffer, and yet more shall undergo\u2014\n  They touch no bottom in the swamp of doom,\n  But round them rises, bubbling up, the ooze!\n  So deep shall lie the gory clotted mass\n  Of corpses by the Dorian spear transfixed\n  Upon Plataea\u2019s field! yea, piles of slain\n  To the third generation shall attest\n  By silent eloquence to those that see\u2014\n  _Let not a mortal vaunt him overmuch_.\n  For pride grows rankly, and to ripeness brings\n  The curse of fate, and reaps, for harvest, tears!\n  Therefore when ye behold, for deeds like these,\n  Such stern requital paid, remember then\n  Athens and Hellas. Let no mortal wight,\n  Holding too lightly of his present weal\n  And passionate for more, cast down and spill\n  The mighty cup of his prosperity!\n  Doubt not that over-proud and haughty souls\n  Zeus lours in wrath, exacting the account.\n  Therefore, with wary warning, school my son,\n  Though he be lessoned by the gods already,\n  To curb the vaunting that affronts high Heaven!\n  And thou, O venerable Mother-queen,\n  Beloved of Xerxes, to the palace pass\n  And take therefrom such raiment as befits\n  Thy son, and go to meet him: for his garb\n  In this extremity of grief hangs rent\n  Around his body, woefully unstitched,\n  Mere tattered fragments of once royal robes!\n  Go thou to him, speak soft and soothing words\u2014\n  Thee, and none other, will he bear to hear,\n  As well I know. But I must pass away\n  From earth above, unto the nether gloom;\n  Therefore, old men, take my farewell, and clasp,\n  Even amid the ruin of this time,\n  Unto your souls the pleasure of the day,\n  For dead men have no profit of their gold!\n\n [_The GHOST OF DARIUS sinks._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, I thrill with pain for Persia\u2019s woes\u2014\n  Many fulfilled, and others hard at hand!\n\nATOSSA.\n  O spirit of the race, what sorrows crowd\n  Upon me! and this anguish stings me worst,\n  That round my royal son\u2019s dishonoured form\n  Hang rags and tatters, degradation deep!\n  I will away, and, bringing from within\n  A seemly royal robe, will straightway strive\n  To meet and greet my son: foul scorn it were\n  To leave our dearest in his hour of shame.\n\n [_Exit ATOSSA._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah glorious and goodly they were, the life and the lot that we\n  gained,\n  The cities we held in our hand when the monarch invincible reigned,\n  The king that was good to his realm, sufficing, fulfilled of his\n  sway,\n  A lord that was peer of the gods, the pride of the bygone day!\n  Then could we show to the skies great hosts and a glorious name,\n  And laws that were stable in might; as towers they guarded our fame!\n  There without woe or disaster we came from the foe and the fight,\n  In triumph, enriched with the spoil, to the land and the city\u2019s\n  delight.\n  What towns ere the Halys he passed! what towns ere he came to the\n  West,\n  To the main and the isles of the Strymon, and the Thracian region\n  possess\u2019d!\n  And those that stand back from the main, enringed by their fortified\n  wall,\n  Gave o\u2019er to Darius, the king, the sceptre and sway over all!\n  Those too by the channel of Helle, where southward it broadens and\n  glides,\n  By the inlets, Propontis! of thee, and the strait of the Pontic\n  tides,\n  And the isles that lie fronting our sea-board, and the Eastland looks\n  on each one,\n  Lesbo and Chios and Paros, and Samos with olive-trees grown,\n  And Naxos, and Myconos\u2019 rock, and Tenos with Andros hard by,\n  And isles that in midmost Aegean, aloof from the continent, lie\u2014\n  And Lemnos and Icaros\u2019 hold\u2014all these to his sceptre were bowed,\n  And Cnidos and neighbouring Rhodes, and Soli, and Paphos the proud,\n  And Cyprian Salamis, name-child of her who hath wrought us this\n  wrong!\n  Yea, and all the Ionian tract, where the Greek-born inhabitants\n  throng,\n  And the cities are teeming with gold\u2014Darius was lord of them all,\n  And, great by his wisdom, he ruled, and ever there came to his call,\n  In stalwart array and unfailing, the warrior chiefs of our land,\n  And mingled allies from the tribes who bowed to his conquering hand!\n  But now there are none to gainsay that the gods are against us; we\n  lie\n  Subdued in the havoc of wreck, and whelmed by the wrath of the sky!\n\n Enter XERXES in disarray.\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas the day, that I should fall\n  Into this grimmest fate of all,\n    This ruin doubly unforeseen!\n  On Persia\u2019s land what power of Fate\n  Descends, what louring gloom of hate?\n    How shall I bear my teen?\n  My limbs are loosened where they stand,\n  When I behold this aged band\u2014\n  Oh God! I would that I too, I,\n    Among the men who went to die,\n  Were whelmed in earth by Fate\u2019s command!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah welladay, my King! ah woe\n  For all our heroes\u2019 overthrow\u2014\n    For all the gallant host\u2019s array,\n    For Persia\u2019s honour, pass\u2019d away,\n    For glory and heroic sway\n    Mown down by Fortune\u2019s hand to-day!\n  Hark, how the kingdom makes its moan,\n  For youthful valour lost and gone,\n  By Xerxes shattered and undone!\n    He, he hath crammed the maw of hell\n    With bowmen brave, who nobly fell,\n  Their country\u2019s mighty armament,\n  Ten thousand heroes deathward sent!\n    Alas, for all the valiant band,\n    O king and lord! thine Asian land\n  Down, down upon its knee is bent!\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas, a lamentable sound,\n  A cry of ruth! for I am found\n  A curse to land and lineage,\n  With none my sorrow to assuage!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, a death-song desolate\n    I send forth, for thy home-coming!\n  A scream, a dirge for woe and fate,\n    Such as the Asian mourners sing,\n  A sorry and ill-omened tale\n  Of tears and shrieks and Eastern wail!\n\nXERXES.\n  Ay, launch the woeful sorrow\u2019s cry,\n  The harsh, discordant melody,\n  For lo, the power, we held for sure,\n  Hath turned to my discomfiture!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea, dirges, dirges manifold\n  Will I send forth, for warriors bold,\n  For the sea-sorrow of our host!\n  The city mourns, and I must wail\n  With plashing tears our sorrow\u2019s tale,\n  Lamenting for the loved and lost!\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas, the god of war, who sways\n  The scales of fight in diverse ways,\n  Gives glory to Ionia!\n  Ionian ships, in fenced array,\n  Have reaped their harvest in the bay,\n  A darkling harvest-field of Fate,\n  A sea, a shore, of doom and hate!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Cry out, and learn the tale of woe!\n  Where are thy comrades?  where the band\n  Who stood beside thee, hand in hand,\n    A little while ago?\n  Where now hath Pharand\u00e1kes gone,\n  Where Psammis, and where Pelagon?\n  Where now is brave Agdabatas,\n  And Susas too, and Datamas?\n  Hath Susiscanes past away,\n  The chieftain of Ecbatana?\n\nXERXES.\n  I left them, mangled castaways,\n    Flung from their Tyrian deck, and tossed\n  On Salaminian water-ways,\n    From surging tides to rocky coast!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, and is Pharnuchus slain,\n  And Ariomardus, brave in vain?\n  Where is Seualces\u2019 heart of fire?\n  Lilaeus, child of noble sire?\n  Are Tharubis and Memphis sped?\n  Hystaechmas, Artemb\u00e1res dead?\n  And where is brave Masistes, where?\n  Sum up death\u2019s count, that I may hear!\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas, alas, they came, their eyes surveyed\n  Ancestral Athens on that fatal day.\n  Then with a rending struggle were they laid\n  Upon the land, and gasped their life away!\n\nCHORUS.\n  And Batanochus\u2019 child, Alpistus great,\n    Surnamed the Eye of State\u2014\n  Saw you and left you him who once of old\n  Ten thousand thousand fighting-men enrolled?\n  His sire was child of Sesamas, and he\n  From Megabates sprang.  Ah, woe is me,\n    Thou king of evil fate!\n  Hast thou lost Parthus, lost Oebares great?\n    Alas, the sorrow!  blow succeedeth blow\n  On Persia\u2019s pride; thou tellest woe on woe!\n\nXERXES.\n  Bitter indeed the pang for comrades slain,\n    The brave and bold! thou strikest to my soul\n  Pain, pain beyond forgetting, hateful pain.\n    My inner spirit sobs and sighs with dole!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Another yet we yearn to see,\n  And see not! ah, thy chivalry,\n  Xanthis, thou chief of Mardian men\n  Countless! and thou, Anchares bright,\n  And ye, whose cars controlled the fight,\n  Arsaces and Diaixis wight,\n  Kegdadatas, Lythimnas dear,\n  And Tolmus, greedy of the spear!\n  I stand bereft! not in thy train\n  Come they, as erst! ah, ne\u2019er again\n  Shall they return unto our eyes,\n  Car-borne, \u2019neath silken canopies!\n\nXERXES.\n  Yea, gone are they who mustered once the host!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea, yea, forgotten, lost!\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas, the woe and cost!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, ye heavenly powers!\n  Ye wrought a sorrow past belief,\n    A woe, of woes the chief!\n  With aspect stern, upon us Ate looms!\n\nXERXES.\n  Smitten are we\u2014time tells no heavier blow!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Smitten! the doom is plain!\n\nXERXES.\n  Curse upon curse and pang on pang we know!\n\nCHORUS.\n  With the Ionian power\n  We clashed, in evil hour!\n  Woe falls on Persia\u2019s race, yea, woe again, again!\n\nXERXES.\n  Yea, smitten am I, and my host is all to ruin hurled!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea verily\u2014in mighty wreck hath sunk the Persian world!\n\nXERXES.\n  (_holding up a torn robe and a quiver_)\n  See you this tattered rag of pride?\n\nCHORUS.\n  I see it, welladay!\n\nXERXES.\n  See you this quiver?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Say, hath aught survived and \u2019scaped the fray?\n\nXERXES.\n  A store for darts it was, erewhile!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Remain but two or three!\n\nXERXES.\n  No aid is left!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ionian folk such darts, unfearing, see!\n\nXERXES.\n  Right resolute they are! I saw disaster unforeseen.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, speakest thou of wreck, of flight, of carnage that hath been?\n\nXERXES.\n  Yea, and my royal robe I rent, in terror at their fall!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, alas!\n\nXERXES.\n  Yea, thrice alas!\n\nCHORUS.\n  For all have perished, all!\n\nXERXES.\n  Ah woe to us, ah joy to them who stood against our pride!\n\nCHORUS.\n  And all our strength is minish\u00e8d and sundered from our side!\n\nXERXES.\n  No escort have I!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay, thy friends are whelmed beneath the tide!\n\nXERXES.\n  Wail, wail the miserable doom, and to the palace hie!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, alas, and woe again!\n\nXERXES.\n  Shriek, smite the breast, as I!\n\nCHORUS.\n  An evil gift, a sad exchange, of tears poured out in vain!\n\nXERXES.\n  Shrill out your simultaneous wail!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas the woe and pain!\n\nXERXES.\n  O, bitter is this adverse fate!\n\nCHORUS.\n  I voice the moan with thee!\n\nXERXES.\n  Smite, smite thy bosom, groan aloud for my calamity!\n\nCHORUS.\n  I mourn and am dissolved in tears!\n\nXERXES.\n  Cry, beat thy breast amain!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O king, my heart is in thy woe!\n\nXERXES.\n  Shriek, wail, and shriek again!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O agony!\n\nXERXES.\n  A blackening blow\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  A grievous stripe shall fall!\n\nXERXES.\n  Yea, beat anew thy breast, ring out the doleful Mysian call!\n\nCHORUS.\n  An agony, an agony!\n\nXERXES.\n  Pluck out thy whitening beard!\n\nCHORUS.\n  By handfuls, ay, by handfuls, with dismal tear-drops smeared!\n\nXERXES.\n  Sob out thine aching sorrow!\n\nCHORUS.\n  I will thine best obey.\n\nXERXES.\n  With thine hands rend thy mantle\u2019s fold\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, woe worth the day!\n\nXERXES.\n  With thine own fingers tear thy locks, bewail the army\u2019s weird!\n\nCHORUS.\n  By handfuls, yea, by handfuls, with tears of dole besmeared!\n\nXERXES.\n  Now let thine eyes find overflow\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  I wend in wail and pain!\n\nXERXES.\n  Cry out for me an answering moan\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, alas again!\n\nXERXES.\n  Shriek with a cry of agony, and lead the doleful train!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, alas, the Persian land is woeful now to tread!\n\nXERXES.\n  Cry out and mourn! the city now doth wail above the dead!\n\nCHORUS.\n  I sob and moan!\n\nXERXES.\n  I bid ye now be delicate in grief!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alas, the Persian land is sad and knoweth not relief!\n\nXERXES.\n  Alas, the triple banks of oars and those who died thereby!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Pass! I will lead you, bring you home, with many a broken sigh!\n\n [_Exeunt._]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES\n\nARGUMENT\n\n\nLaius, king of the Cadmeans, was warned by the oracle of Delphi that he\nshould not beget a child. But he disobeyed this command, and when a son\nwas born to him, he cast the child away, that he might perish on\nCithaeron. But a herdsman found the babe yet alive, and he was\nnourished in Corinth and grew to manhood, not knowing his true\nparentage, and was named Oedipus; and he slew, unknowingly, his father,\nLaius, and afterwards saved the town of the Cadmeans from a devouring\nmonster, and married the widowed queen, Iocaste, and begat sons and\ndaughters. But when he learned what he had wrought unwittingly, he fell\ninto despair, and the queen slew herself. But before Oedipus died, he\nlaid a curse upon his male children, Eteocles and Polynices, that they\nshould make even division of the kingdom by the sword; and it fell out\neven so, for the two brothers strove together for the inheritance, and\nPolynices brought an army, from Argos, against Eteocles; and the\nbrothers fought, and fell each by the other\u2019s hand, and the curse was\nfulfilled.\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nETEOCLES.\nA SPY.\nCHORUS OF CADMEAN MAIDENS.\nANTIGONE.\nISMENE.\nA HERALD.\n\n\n\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Clansmen of Cadmus, at the signal given\n  By time and season must the ruler speak\n  Who sets the course and steers the ship of State\n  With hand upon the tiller, and with eye\n  Watchful against the treachery of sleep.\n  For if all go aright, _thank Heaven_, men say,\n  But if adversely\u2014which may God forefend!\u2014\n  One name on many lips, from street to street,\n  Would bear the bruit and rumour of the time,\n  _Down with Eteocles!_\u2014a clamorous curse,\n  A dirge of ruin. May averting Zeus\n  Make good his title here, in Cadmus\u2019 hold!\n  You it beseems now boys unripened yet\n  To lusty manhood, men gone past the prime\n  And increase of the full begetting seed,\n  And those whom youth and manhood well combined\n  Array for action\u2014all to rise in aid\n  Of city, shrines, and altars of all powers\n  Who guard our land; that ne\u2019er, to end of time,\n  Be blotted out the sacred service due\n  To our sweet mother-land and to her brood.\n  For she it was who to their guest-right called\n  Your waxing youth, was patient of the toil,\n  And cherished you on the land\u2019s gracious lap,\n  Alike to plant the hearth and bear the shield\n  In loyal service, for an hour like this.\n  Mark now! until to-day, luck rules our scale;\n  For we, though long beleaguered, in the main\n  Have with our sallies struck the foemen hard.\n  But now the seer, the feeder of the birds,\n  (Whose art unerring and prophetic skill\n  Of ear and mind divines their utterance\n  Without the lore of fire interpreted)\n  Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art,\n  That now an onset of Achaea\u2019s host\n  Is by a council of the night designed\n  To fall in double strength upon our walls.\n  Up and away, then, to the battlements,\n  The gates, the bulwarks!  don your panoplies,\n  Array you at the breast-work, take your stand\n  On floorings of the towers, and with good heart\n  Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates,\n  Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes\n  Sent on you from afar: some god will guard!\n  I too, for shrewd espial of their camp,\n  Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine\n  They will not fail nor tremble at their task,\n  And, with their news, I fear no foeman\u2019s guile.\n\n Enter a SPY.\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Eteocles, high king of Cadmus\u2019 folk,\n  I stand here with news certified and sure\n  From Argos\u2019 camp, things by myself descried.\n  Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might,\n  Into the crimsoned concave of a shield\n  Have shed a bull\u2019s blood, and, with hands immersed\n  Into the gore of sacrifice, have sworn\n  By Ares, lord of fight, and by thy name,\n  Blood-lapping Terror, _Let our oath be heard\u2014\n  Either to raze the walls, make void the hold\n  Of Cadmus\u2014strive his children as they may\u2014\n  Or, dying here, to make the foemen\u2019s land\n  With blood impasted_. Then, as memory\u2019s gift\n  Unto their parents at the far-off home,\n  Chaplets they hung upon Adrastus\u2019 car,\n  With eyes tear-dropping, but no word of moan.\n  For their steeled spirit glowed with high resolve,\n  As lions pant, with battle in their eyes.\n  For them, no weak alarm delays the clear\n  Issues of death or life! I parted thence\n  Even as they cast the lots, how each should lead,\n  Against which gate, his serried company.\n  Rank then thy bravest, with what speed thou may\u2019st,\n  Hard by the gates, to dash on them, for now,\n  Full-armed, the onward ranks of Argos come!\n  The dust whirls up, and from their panting steeds\n  White foamy flakes like snow bedew the plain.\n  Thou therefore, chieftain! like a steersman skilled,\n  Enshield the city\u2019s bulwarks, ere the blast\n  Of war comes darting on them! hark, the roar\n  Of the great landstorm with its waves of men!\n  Take Fortune by the forelock! for the rest,\n  By yonder dawn-light will I scan the field\n  Clear and aright, and surety of my word\n  Shall keep thee scatheless of the coming storm.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  O Zeus and Earth and city-guarding gods,\n  And thou, my father\u2019s Curse, of baneful might,\n  Spare ye at least this town, nor root it up,\n  By violence of the foemen, stock and stem!\n  For here, from home and hearth, rings Hellas\u2019 tongue.\n  Forbid that e\u2019er the yoke of slavery\n  Should bow this land of freedom, Cadmus\u2019 hold!\n  Be ye her help! your cause I plead with mine\u2014\n  A city saved doth honour to her gods!\n\n [_Exit ETEOCLES, etc._]\n\n Enter the CHORUS OF MAIDENS.\n\nCHORUS.\nI wail in the stress of my terror, and shrill is my cry of despair.\nThe foemen roll forth from their camp as a billow, and onward they\nbear!\nTheir horsemen are swift in the forefront, the dust rises up to the\nsky,\nA signal, though speechless, of doom, a herald more clear than a cry!\nHoof-trampled, the land of my love bears onward the din to mine ears.\nAs a torrent descending a mountain, it thunders and echoes and nears!\nThe doom is unloosened and cometh! O kings and O queens of high Heaven,\nPrevail that it fall not upon us: the sign for their onset is given\u2014\nThey stream to the walls from without, white-shielded and keen for the\nfray.\nThey storm to the citadel gates\u2014 what god or what goddess can stay\nThe rush of their feet? to what shrine shall I bow me in terror and\npray?\nO gods high-throned in bliss, we must crouch at the shrines in your\nhome!\nNot here must we tarry and wail: shield clashes on shield as they come\u2014\nAnd now, even now is the hour for the robes and the chaplets of prayer!\nMine eyes feel the flash of the sword, the clang is instinct with the\nspear!\nIs thy hand set against us, O Ares, in ruin and wrath to o\u2019erwhelm\nThine own immemorial land, O god of the golden helm?\nLook down upon us, we beseech thee, on the land that thou lovest of\nold,\nAnd ye, O protecting gods, in pity your people behold!\nYea, save us, the maidenly troop, from the doom and despair of the\nslave,\nFor the crests of the foemen come onward, their rush is the rush of a\nwave\nRolled on by the war-god\u2019s breath! almighty one, hear us and save\nFrom the grasp of the Argives\u2019 might! to the ramparts of Cadmus they\ncrowd,\nAnd, clenched in the teeth of the steeds, the bits clink horror aloud!\nAnd seven high chieftains of war, with spear and with panoply bold,\nAre set, by the law of the lot, to storm the seven gates of our hold!\nBe near and befriend us, O Pallas, the Zeus-born maiden of might!\nO lord of the steed and the sea, be thy trident uplifted to smite\nIn eager desire of the fray, Poseidon! and Ares come down,\nIn fatherly presence revealed, to rescue Harmonia\u2019s town!\nThine too, Aphrodite, we are! thou art mother and queen of our race,\nTo thee we cry out in our need, from thee let thy children have grace!\nYe too, to scare back the foe, be your cry as a wolf\u2019s howl wild,\nThou, O the wolf-lord, and thou, of she-wolf Leto the child!\nWoe and alack for the sound, for the rattle of cars to the wall,\nAnd the creak of the grinding axles! O Hera, to thee is our call!\nArtemis, maiden beloved! the air is distraught with the spears,\nAnd whither doth destiny drive us, and where is the goal of our fears?\nThe blast of the terrible stones on the ridge of our wall is not\nstayed,\nAt the gates is the brazen clash of the bucklers\u2014Apollo to aid!\nThou too, O daughter of Zeus, who guidest the wavering fray\nTo the holy decision of fate, Athena! be with us to-day!\nCome down to the sevenfold gates and harry the foemen away!\nO gods and O sisters of gods, our bulwark and guard! we beseech\nThat ye give not our war-worn hold to a rabble of alien speech!\nList to the call of the maidens, the hands held up for the right,\nBe near us, protect us, and show that the city is dear in your sight!\nHave heed for her sacrifice holy, and thought of her offerings take,\nForget not her love and her worship, be near her and smite for her\nsake!\n\n Re-enter ETEOCLES.\n\nETEOCLES\n  Hark to my question, things detestable!\n  Is this aright and for the city\u2019s weal,\n  And helpful to our army thus beset,\n  That ye before the statues of our gods\n  Should fling yourselves, and scream and shriek your fears?\n  Immodest, uncontrolled! Be this my lot\u2014\n  Never in troublous nor in peaceful days\n  To dwell with aught that wears a female form!\n  Where womankind has power, no man can house,\n  Where womankind feeds panic, ruin rules\n  Alike in house and city! Look you now\u2014\n  Your flying feet, and rumour of your fears,\n  Have spread a soulless panic on our walls,\n  And they without do go from strength to strength,\n  And we within make breach upon ourselves!\n  Such fate it brings, to house with womankind.\n  Therefore if any shall resist my rule\u2014\n  Or man, or woman, or some sexless thing\u2014\n  The vote of sentence shall decide their doom,\n  And stones of execution, past escape,\n  Shall finish all. Let not a woman\u2019s voice\n  Be loud in council! for the things without,\n  A man must care; let women keep within\u2014\n  Even then is mischief all too probable!\n  Hear ye? or speak I to unheeding ears?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, but I shudder, child of Oedipus!\n    I heard the clash and clang!\n  The axles rolled and rumbled; woe to us\n    Fire-welded bridles rang!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Say\u2014when a ship is strained and deep in brine,\n  Did e\u2019er a seaman mend his chance, who left\n  The helm, t\u2019invoke the image at the prow?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, but I fled to the shrines, I called to our helpers on high,\n    When the stone-shower roared at the portals!\n  I sped to the temples aloft, and loud was my call and my cry,\n    _Look down and deliver. Immortals!_\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ay, pray amain that stone may vanquish steel!\n  Were not that grace of gods? ay, ay\u2014methinks,\n  When cities fall, the gods go forth from them!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, let me die, or ever I behold\n    The gods go forth, in conflagration dire!\n  The foemen\u2019s rush and raid, and all our hold\n    Wrapt in the burning fire!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Cry not: on Heaven, in impotent debate!\n  What saith the saw?\u2014_Good saving Strength, in verity,\n  Out of Obedience breeds the babe Prosperity_.\n\nCHORUS.\n  \u2019Tis true: yet stronger is the power divine,\n    And oft, when man\u2019s estate is overbowed\n  With bitter pangs, disperses from his eyne\n    The heavy, hanging cloud!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Let men with sacrifice and augury\n  Approach the gods, when comes the tug of war;\n  Maids must be silent and abide within.\n\nCHORUS.\nBy grace of the gods we hold it, a city untamed of the spear,\nAnd the battlement wards from the wall the foe and his aspect of fear!\nWhat need of displeasure herein?\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ay, pay thy vows to Heaven; I grudge them not,\n  But\u2014so thou strike no fear into our men\u2014\n  Have calm at heart, nor be too much afraid.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, it is fresh in mine ears, the clamour and crash of the fray,\n  And up to our holiest height I sped on my timorous way,\n  Bewildered, beset by the din!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Now, if ye hear the bruit of death or wounds,\n  Give not yourselves o\u2019ermuch to shriek and scream,\n  For Ares ravens upon human flesh.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, but the snorting of the steeds I hear!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Then, if thou hearest, hear them not too well!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Hark, the earth rumbles, as they close us round!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Enough if I am here, with plans prepared.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Alack, the battering at the gates is loud!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Peace! stay your tongue, or else the town may hear!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O warders of the walls, betray them not!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Bestrew your cries! in silence face your fate.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Gods of our city, see me not enslaved!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  On me, on all, thy cries bring slavery.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Zeus, strong to smite, turn upon foes thy blow!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Zeus, what a curse are women, wrought by thee!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Weak wretches, even as men, when cities fall.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  What! clasping gods, yet voicing thy despair?\n\nCHORUS.\n  In the sick heart, fear machete prey of speech.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Light is the thing I ask thee\u2014do my will!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ask swiftly:  swiftly shall I know my power.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Silence, weak wretch! nor put thy friends in fear.\n\nCHORUS.\n  I speak no more: the general fate be mine!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  I take that word as wiser than the rest.\n  Nay, more: these images possess thy will\u2014\n  Pray, in their strength, that Heaven be on our side!\n  Then hear my prayers withal, and then ring out\n  The female triumph-note, thy privilege\u2014\n  Yea, utter forth the usage Hellas knows,\n  The cry beside the altars, sounding clear\n  Encouragement to friends, alarm to foes.\n  But I unto all gods that guard our walls,\n  Lords of the plain or warders of the mart\n  And to Isthmus\u2019 stream and Dirge\u2019s rills,\n  I swear, if Fortune smiles and saves our town,\n  That we will make our altars reek with blood\n  Of sheep and kine, shed forth unto the gods,\n  And with victorious tokens front our fannies\u2014\n  Corsets and cases that once our foemen wore,\n  Spear-shattered now\u2014to deck these holy homes!\n  Be such thy vows to Heaven\u2014away with sighs,\n  Away with outcry vain and barbarous,\n  That shall avail not, in a general doom!\n  But I will back, and, with six chosen men\n  Myself the seventh, to confront the foe\n  In this great aspect of a pois\u00e8d war,\n  Return and plant them at the sevenfold gates,\n  Or e\u2019er the prompt and clamorous battle-scouts\n  Haste to inflame our counsel with the need.\n\n [_Exit ETEOCLES._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  I mark his words, yet, dark and deep,\n  My heart\u2019s alarm forbiddeth sleep!\n  Close-clinging cares around my soul\n  Enkindle fears beyond control,\n  Presageful of what doom may fall\n  From the great leaguer of the wall!\n  So a poor dove is faint with fear\n  For her weak nestlings, while anew\n  Glides on the snaky ravisher!\n  In troop and squadron, hand on hand,\n  They climb and throng, and hemmed we stand,\n  While on the warders of our town\n  The flinty shower comes hurtling down!\n\n  Gods born of Zeus! put forth your might\n  For Cadmus\u2019 city, realm, and right!\n  What nobler land shall e\u2019er be yours,\n  If once ye give to hostile powers\n  The deep rich soil, and Dirce\u2019s wave,\n  The nursing stream, Poseidon gave\n  And Tethys\u2019 children? Up and save!\n  Cast on the ranks that hem us round\n  A deadly panic, make them fling\n  Their arms in terror on the ground,\n  And die in carnage! thence shall spring\n  High honour for our clan and king!\n  Come at our wailing cry, and stand\n  As thron\u00e8d sentries of our land!\n\nFor pity and sorrow it were that this immemorial town\nShould sink to be slave of the spear, to dust and to ashes gone down,\nBy the gods of Achaean worship and arms of Achaean might\nSacked and defiled and dishonoured, its women the prize of the fight\u2014\nThat, haled by the hair as a steed, their mantles dishevelled and torn,\nThe maiden and matron alike should pass to the wedlock of scorn!\nI hear it arise from the city, the manifold wail of despair\u2014\n_Woe, woe for the doom that shall be_\u2014as in grasp of the foeman they\nfare!\nFor a woe and a weeping it is, if the maiden inviolate flower\nIs plucked by the foe in his might, not culled in the bridal bower!\nAlas for the hate and the horror\u2014how say it?\u2014less hateful by far\nIs the doom to be slain by the sword, hewn down in the carnage of war!\nFor wide, ah! wide is the woe when the foeman has mounted the wall;\nThere is havoc and terror and flame, and the dark smoke broods over\nall,\nAnd wild is the war-god\u2019s breath, as in frenzy of conquest he springs,\nAnd pollutes with the blast of his lips the glory of holiest things!\n\n  Up to the citadel rise clash and din,\n    The war-net closes in,\n  The spear is in the heart: with blood imbrued\n    Young mothers wail aloud,\n  For children at their breast who scream and die!\n    And boys and maidens fly,\n  Yet scape not the pursuer, in his greed\n    To thrust and grasp and feed!\n  Robber with robber joins, each calls his mate\n    Unto the feast of hate\u2014\n  _The banquet, lo! is spread\u2014\n      seize, rend, and tear!\n    No need to choose or share!_\n  And all the wealth of earth to waste is poured\u2014\n    A sight by all abhorred!\n  The grieving housewives eye it;\n      heaped and blent,\n    Earth\u2019s boons are spoiled and spent,\n  And waste to nothingness; and O alas,\n    Young maids, forlorn ye pass\u2014\n  Fresh horror at your hearts\u2014beneath the power\n    Of those who crop the flower!\n  Ye own the ruffian ravisher for lord,\n    And night brings rites abhorred!\n  Woe, woe for you! upon your grief and pain\n    There comes a fouler stain.\n\n Enter on one side THE SPY; on the other ETEOCLES and the SIX\n CHAMPIONS.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Look, friends! methinks the scout, who parted hence\n  To spy upon the foemen, comes with news,\n  His feet as swift as wafting chariot-wheels.\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Ay, and our king, the son of Oedipus,\n  Comes prompt to time, to learn the spy\u2019s report\u2014\n  His heart is fainter than his foot is fast!\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Well have I scanned the foe, and well can say\n  Unto which chief, by lot, each gate is given.\n  Tydeus already with his onset-cry\n  Storms at the gate called Proetides; but him\n  The seer Amphiaraus holds at halt,\n  Nor wills that he should cross Ismenus\u2019 ford,\n  Until the sacrifices promise fair.\n  But Tydeus, mad with lust of blood and broil,\n  Like to a cockatrice at noontide hour,\n  Hisses out wrath and smites with scourge of tongue\n  The prophet-son of Oecleus\u2014_Wise thou art,\n  Faint against war, and holding back from death!_\n  With such revilings loud upon his lips\n  He waves the triple plumes that o\u2019er his helm\n  Float overshadowing, as a courser\u2019s mane;\n  And at his shield\u2019s rim, terror in their tone,\n  Clang and reverberate the brazen bells.\n  And this proud sign, wrought on his shield, he bears\u2014\n  The vault of heaven, inlaid with blazing stars;\n  And, for the boss, the bright moon glows at full,\n  The eye of night, the first and lordliest star.\n  Thus with high-vaunted armour, madly bold,\n  He clamours by the stream-bank, wild for war,\n  As a steed panting grimly on his bit,\n  Held in and chafing for the trumpet\u2019s bray!\n  Whom wilt thou set against him? when the gates\n  Of Proetus yield, who can his rush repel?\n\nETEOCLES.\n  To me, no blazon on a foeman\u2019s shield\n  Shall e\u2019er present a fear! such pointed threats\n  Are powerless to wound; his plumes and bells,\n  Without a spear, are snakes without a sting.\n  Nay, more\u2014that pageant of which thou tellest\u2014\n  The nightly sky displayed, ablaze with stars,\n  Upon his shield, palters with double sense\u2014\n  One headstrong fool will find its truth anon!\n  For, if night fall upon his eyes in death,\n  Yon vaunting blazon will its own truth prove,\n  And he is prophet of his folly\u2019s fall.\n  Mine shall it be, to pit against his power\n  The loyal son of Astacus, as guard\n  To hold the gateways\u2014a right valiant soul,\n  Who has in heed the throne of Modesty\n  And loathes the speech of Pride, and evermore\n  Shrinks from the base, but knows no other fear.\n  He springs by stock from those whom Ares spared,\n  The men called Sown, a right son of the soil,\n  And Melanippus styled. Now, what his arm\n  To-day shall do, rests with the dice of war,\n  And Ares shall ordain it; but his cause\n  Hath the true badge of Right, to urge him on\n  To guard, as son, his motherland from wrong.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Then may the gods give fortune fair\n  Unto our chief, sent forth to dare\n     War\u2019s terrible arbitrament!\n  But ah! when champions wend away,\n  I shudder, lest, from out the fray,\n     Only their blood-stained wrecks be sent!\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Nay, let him pass, and the gods\u2019 help be his!\n  Next, Capaneus comes on, by lot to lead\n  The onset at the gates Electran styled:\n  A giant he, more huge than Tydeus\u2019 self,\n  And more than human in his arrogance\u2014\n  May fate forefend his threat against our walls!\n  _God willing, or unwilling_\u2014such his vaunt\u2014\n  _I will lay waste this city; Pallas\u2019 self,\n  Zeus\u2019 warrior maid, although she swoop to earth\n  And plant her in my path, shall stay me not_.\n  And, for the flashes of the levin-bolt,\n  He holds them harmless as the noontide rays.\n  Mark, too, the symbol on his shield\u2014a man\n  Scornfully weaponless but torch in hand,\n  And the flame glows within his grasp, prepared\n  For ravin: lo, the legend, wrought in words,\n  _Fire for the city bring I_, flares in gold!\n  Against such wight, send forth\u2014yet whom? what man\n  Will front that vaunting figure and not fear?\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Aha, this profits also, gain on gain!\n  In sooth, for mortals, the tongue\u2019s utterance\n  Bewrays unerringly a foolish pride!\n  Hither stalks Capaneus, with vaunt and threat\n  Defying god-like powers, equipt to act,\n  And, mortal though he be, he strains his tongue\n  In folly\u2019s ecstasy, and casts aloft\n  High swelling words against the ears of Zeus.\n  Right well I trust\u2014if justice grants the word\u2014\n  That, by the might of Zeus, a bolt of flame\n  In more than semblance shall descend on him.\n  Against his vaunts, though reckless, I have set,\n  To make assurance sure, a warrior stern\u2014\n  Strong Polyphontes, fervid for the fray;\n  A sturdy bulwark, he, by grace of Heaven\n  And favour of his champion Artemis!\n  Say on, who holdeth the next gate in ward?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Perish the wretch whose vaunt affronts our home!\n    On him the red bolt come,\n  Ere to the maiden bowers his way he cleave,\n    To ravage and bereave!\n\nTHE SPY.\n  I will say on. Eteoclus is third\u2014\n  To him it fell, what time the third lot sprang\n  O\u2019er the inverted helmet\u2019s brazen rim,\n  To dash his stormers on Neistae gate.\n  He wheels his mares, who at their frontlets chafe\n  And yearn to charge upon the gates amain.\n  They snort the breath of pride, and, filled therewith,\n  Their nozzles whistle with barbaric sound.\n  High too and haughty is his shield\u2019s device\u2014\n  An arm\u00e8d man who climbs, from rung to rung,\n  A scaling ladder, up a hostile wall,\n  Afire to sack and slay; and he too cries,\n  (By letters, full of sound, upon the shield)\n  _Not Ares\u2019 self shall cast me from the wall_.\n  Look to it, send, against this man, a man\n  Strong to debar the slave\u2019s yoke from our town.\n\nETEOCLES (_pointing to_ MEGAREUS)\n  Send will I\u2014even this man, with luck to aid\u2014\n  By his worth sent already, not by pride\n  And vain pretence, is he. \u2019Tis Megareus,\n  The child of Creon, of the Earth-sprung born!\n  He will not shrink from guarding of the gates,\n  Nor fear the maddened charger\u2019s frenzied neigh,\n  But, if he dies, will nobly quit the score\n  For nurture to the land that gave him birth,\n  Or from the shield-side hew two warriors down\n  Eteoclus and the figure that he lifts\u2014\n  Ay, and the city pictured, all in one,\n  And deck with spoils the temple of his sire!\n  Announce the next pair, stint not of thy tongue!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O thou, the warder of my home,\n    Grant, unto us, Fate\u2019s favouring tide,\n  Send on the foemen doom!\n    They fling forth taunts of frenzied pride,\n  On them may Zeus with glare of vengeance come;\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Lo, next him stands a fourth and shouts amain,\n  By Pallas Onca\u2019s portal, and displays\n  A different challenge; \u2019tis Hippomedon!\n  Huge the device that starts up from his targe\n  In high relief; and, I deny it not,\n  I shuddered, seeing how, upon the rim,\n  It made a mighty circle round the shield\u2014\n  No sorry craftsman he, who wrought that work\n  And clamped it all around the buckler\u2019s edge!\n  The form was Typhon: from his glowing throat\n  Rolled lurid smoke, spark-litten, kin of fire!\n  The flattened edge-work, circling round the whole,\n  Made strong support for coiling snakes that grew\n  Erect above the concave of the shield:\n  Loud rang the warrior\u2019s voice; inspired for war,\n  He raves to slay, as doth a Bacchanal,\n  His very glance a terror! of such wight\n  Beware the onset! closing on the gates,\n  He peals his vaunting and appalling cry!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Yet first our Pallas Onca\u2014wardress she,\n  Planting her foot hard by her gate\u2014shall stand,\n  The Maid against the ruffian, and repel\n  His force, as from her brood the mother-bird\n  Beats back the wintered serpent\u2019s venom\u2019d fang\n  And next, by her, is Oenops\u2019 gallant son,\n  Hyperbius, chosen to confront this foe,\n  Ready to seek his fate at Fortune\u2019s shrine!\n\n  In form, in valour, and in skill of arms,\n  None shall gainsay him. See how wisely well\n  Hermes hath set the brave against the strong!\n  Confronted shall they stand, the shield of each\n  Bearing the image of opposing gods:\n  One holds aloft his Typhon breathing fire,\n  But, on the other\u2019s shield, in symbol sits\n  Zeus, calm and strong, and fans his bolt to flame\u2014\n  Zeus, seen of all, yet seen of none to fail!\n  Howbeit, weak is trust reposed in Heaven\u2014\n  Yet are we upon Zeus\u2019 victorious side,\n  The foe, with those he worsted\u2014if in sooth\n  Zeus against Typhon held the upper hand,\n  And if Hyperbius, (as well may hap\n  When two such foes such diverse emblems bear)\n  Have Zeus upon his shield, a saving sign.\n\nCHORUS.\n  High faith is mine that he whose shield\n  Bears, against Zeus, the thing of hate.\n  The giant Typhon, thus revealed,\n  A monster loathed of gods eterne\n  And mortal men\u2014this doom shall earn\n  A shattered skull, before the gate!\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Heaven send it so!\n  A fifth assailant now\n  Is set against our fifth, the northern, gate,\n  Fronting the death-mound where Amphion lies\n  The child of Zeus.\n\n  This foeman vows his faith,\n  Upon a mystic spear-head which he deems\n  More holy than a godhead and more sure\n  To find its mark than any glance of eye,\n  That, will they, nill they, he will storm and sack\n  The hold of the Cadmeans. Such his oath\u2014\n  His, the bold warrior, yet of childish years,\n  A bud of beauty\u2019s foremost flower, the son\n  Of Zeus and of the mountain maid. I mark\n  How the soft down is waxing on his cheek,\n  Thick and close-growing in its tender prime\u2014\n  In name, not mood, is he a maiden\u2019s child\u2014\n  Parthenopaeus; large and bright his eyes\n  But fierce the wrath wherewith he fronts the gate:\n  Yet not unheralded he takes his stand\n  Before the portal; on his brazen shield,\n  The rounded screen and shelter of his form,\n  I saw him show the ravening Sphinx, the fiend\n  That shamed our city\u2014how it glared and moved,\n  Clamped on the buckler, wrought in high relief!\n  And in its claws did a Cadmean bear\u2014\n  Nor heretofore, for any single prey,\n  Sped she aloft, through such a storm of darts\n  As now awaits her. So our foe is here\u2014\n  Like, as I deem, to ply no stinted trade\n  In blood and broil, but traffick as is meet\n  In fierce exchange for his long wayfaring!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ah, may they meet the doom they think to bring\u2014\n  They and their impious vaunts\u2014from those on high!\n  So should they sink, hurled down to deepest death!\n  This foe, at least, by thee Arcadian styled,\n  Is faced by one who bears no braggart sign,\n  But his hand sees to smite, where blows avail\u2014\n  Actor, own brother to Hyperbius!\n  He will not let a boast without a blow\n  Stream through our gates and nourish our despair,\n  Nor give him way who on his hostile shield\n  Bears the brute image of the loathly Sphinx!\n  Blocked at the gate, she will rebuke the man\n  Who strives to thrust her forward, when she feels\n  Thick crash of blows, up to the city wall.\n  With Heaven\u2019s goodwill, my forecast shall be true.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Home to my heart the vaunting goes,\n    And, quick with terror, on my head\n  Rises my hair, at sound of those\n    Who wildly, impiously rave!\n  If gods there be, to them I plead\u2014\n    _Give them to darkness and the grave_.\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Fronting the sixth gate stands another foe,\n  Wisest of warriors, bravest among seers\u2014\n  Such must I name Amphiaraus: he,\n  Set steadfast at the Homoloid gate,\n  Berates strong Tydeus with reviling words\u2014\n  _The man of blood, the bane of state and home,\n  To Argos, arch-allurer to all ill,\n  Evoker of the fury-fiend of hell,\n  Death\u2019s minister, and counsellor of wrong\n  Unto Adrastus in this fatal field_.\n  Ay, and with eyes upturned and mien of scorn\n  He chides thy brother Polynices too\n  At his desert, and once and yet again\n  Dwells hard and meaningly upon his name\n  Where it saith _glory_ yet importeth _feud_.\n  _Yea, such thou art in act, and such thy grace\n  In sight of Heaven, and such in aftertime\n  Thy fame, for lips and ears of mortal men!\n  \u201cHe strove to sack the city of his sires\n  And temples of her gods, and brought on her\n  An alien armament of foreign foes.\n  The fountain of maternal blood outpoured\n  What power can staunch? even so, thy fatherland\n  Once by thine ardent malice stormed and ta\u2019en,\n  Shall ne\u2019er join force with thee.\u201d    For me, I know\n  It doth remain to let my blood enrich\n  The border of this land that loves me not\u2014\n  Blood of a prophet, in a foreign grave!\n  Now, for the battle! I foreknow my doom,\n  Yet it shall be with honour_. So he spake,\n  The prophet, holding up his targe of bronze\n  Wrought without blazon, to the ears of men\n  Who stood around and heeded not his word.\n  For on no bruit and rumour of great deeds,\n  But on their doing, is his spirit set,\n  And in his heart he reaps a furrow rich,\n  Wherefrom the foison of good counsel springs.\n  Against him, send brave heart and hand of might,\n  For the god-lover is man\u2019s fiercest foe.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Out on the chance that couples mortal men,\n  Linking the just and impious in one!\n  In every issue, the one curse is this\u2014\n  Companionship with men of evil heart!\n  A baneful harvest, let none gather it!\n  The field of sin is rank, and brings forth death\n  At whiles a righteous man who goes aboard\n  With reckless mates, a horde of villainy,\n  Dies by one death with that detested crew;\n  At whiles the just man, joined with citizens\n  Ruthless to strangers, recking nought of Heaven,\n  Trapped, against nature, in one net with them,\n  Dies by God\u2019s thrust and all-including blow.\n  So will this prophet die, even Oecleus\u2019 child,\n  Sage, just, and brave, and loyal towards Heaven,\n  Potent in prophecy, but mated here\n  With men of sin, too boastful to be wise!\n  Long is their road, and they return no more,\n  And, at their taking-off, by hand of Zeus,\n  The prophet too shall take the downward way.\n  He will not\u2014so I deem\u2014assail the gate\u2014\n  Not as through cowardice or feeble will,\n  But as one knowing to what end shall be\n  Their struggle in the battle, if indeed\n  Fruit of fulfilment lie in Loxias\u2019 word.\n  He speaketh not, unless to speak avails!\n  Yet, for more surety, we will post a man,\n  Strong Lasthenes, as warder of the gate,\n  Stern to the foeman; he hath age\u2019s skill,\n  Mated with youthful vigour, and an eye\n  Forward, alert; swift too his hand, to catch\n  The fenceless interval \u2019twixt shield and spear!\n  Yet man\u2019s good fortune lies in hand of Heaven.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Unto our loyal cry, ye gods, give ear!\n  Save, save the city! turn away the spear,\n    Send on the foemen fear!\n  Outside the rampart fall they, rent and riven\n    Beneath the bolt of heaven!\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Last, let me name yon seventh antagonist,\n  Thy brother\u2019s self, at the seventh portal set\u2014\n  Hear with what wrath he imprecates our doom,\n  Vowing to mount the wall, though banished hence,\n  And peal aloud the wild exulting cry\u2014\n  _The town is ta\u2019en_\u2014then clash his sword with thine,\n  Giving and taking death in close embrace,\n  Or, if thou \u2019scapest, flinging upon thee,\n  As robber of his honour and his home,\n  The doom of exile such as he has borne.\n  So clamours he and so invokes the gods\n  Who guard his race and home, to hear and heed\n  The curse that sounds in Polynices\u2019 name!\n  He bears a round shield, fresh from forge and fire,\n  And wrought upon it is a twofold sign\u2014\n  For lo, a woman leads decorously\n  The figure of a warrior wrought in gold;\n  And thus the legend runs\u2014_I Justice am,\n  And I will bring the hero home again,\n  To hold once more his place within this town,\n  Once more to pace his sire\u2019s ancestral hall_.\n  Such are the symbols, by our foemen shown\u2014\n  Now make thine own decision, whom to send\n  Against this last opponent! I have said\u2014\n  Nor canst thou in my tidings find a flaw\u2014\n  Thine is it, now, to steer the course aright.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ah me, the madman, and the curse of Heaven!\n  And woe for us, the lamentable line\n  Of Oedipus, and woe that in this house\n  Our father\u2019s curse must find accomplishment!\n  But now, a truce to tears and loud lament,\n  Lest they should breed a still more rueful wail!\n  As for this Polynices, named too well,\n  Soon shall we know how his device shall end\u2014\n  Whether the gold-wrought symbols on his shield,\n  In their mad vaunting and bewildered pride,\n  Shall guide him as a victor to his home!\n  For had but Justice, maiden-child of Zeus,\n  Stood by his act and thought, it might have been!\n  Yet never, from the day he reached the light\n  Out of the darkness of his mother\u2019s womb,\n  Never in childhood, nor in youthful prime,\n  Nor when his chin was gathering its beard,\n  Hath Justice hailed or claimed him as her own.\n  Therefore I deem not that she standeth now\n  To aid him in this outrage on his home!\n  Misnamed, in truth, were Justice, utterly,\n  If to impiety she lent her hand.\n  Sure in this faith, I will myself go forth\n  And match me with him; who hath fairer claim?\n  Ruler, against one fain to snatch the rule,\n  Brother with brother matched, and foe with foe,\n  Will I confront the issue. To the wall!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O thou true heart, O child of Oedipus,\n  Be not, in wrath, too like the man whose name\n  Murmurs an evil omen! \u2019Tis enough\n  That Cadmus\u2019 clan should strive with Argos\u2019 host,\n  For blood there is that can atone that stain!\n  But\u2014brother upon brother dealing death\u2014\n  Not time itself can expiate the sin!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  If man find hurt, yet clasp his honour still,\n  \u2019Tis well; the dead have honour, nought beside.\n  Hurt, with dishonour, wins no word of praise!\n\nCHORUS.\n      Ah, what is thy desire?\n    Let not the lust and ravin of the sword\n    Bear thee adown the tide accursed, abhorred!\n  Fling off thy passion\u2019s rage, thy spirit\u2019s prompting dire!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Nay\u2014since the god is urgent for our doom,\n  Let Laius\u2019 house, by Phoebus loathed and scorned,\n  Follow the gale of destiny, and win\n  Its great inheritance, the gulf of hell!\n\nCHORUS.\n    Ruthless thy craving is\u2014\n  Craving for kindred and forbidden blood\n    To be outpoured\u2014a sacrifice imbrued\n  With sin, a bitter fruit of murderous enmities!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Yea, my own father\u2019s fateful Curse proclaims\u2014\n  A ghastly presence, and her eyes are dry\u2014\n  _Strike! honour is the prize, not life prolonged!_\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, be not urged of her! for none shall dare\n  To call thee _coward_, in thy throned estate!\n  Will not the Fury in her sable pall\n  Pass outward from these halls, what time the gods\n  Welcome a votive offering from our hands?\n\nETEOCLES.\n  The gods! long since they hold us in contempt,\n  Scornful of gifts thus offered by the lost!\n  Why should we fawn and flinch away from doom?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Now, when it stands beside thee! for its power\n  May, with a changing gust of milder mood,\n  Temper the blast that bloweth wild and rude\n    And frenzied, in this hour!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ay, kindled by the curse of Oedipus\u2014\n  All too prophetic, out of dreamland came\n  The vision, meting out our sire\u2019s estate!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Heed women\u2019s voices, though thou love them not!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Say aught that may avail, but stint thy words.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Go not thou forth to guard the seventh gate!\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Words shall not blunt the edge of my resolve.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yet the god loves to let the weak prevail.\n\nETEOCLES.\n  That to a swordsman, is no welcome word!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Shall thine own brother\u2019s blood be victory\u2019s palm?\n\nETEOCLES.\n  Ill which the gods have sent thou canst not shun!\n\n [_Exit ETEOCLES._]\n\nCHORUS.\nI shudder in dread of the power, abhorred by the gods of high heaven,\nThe ruinous curse of the home till roof-tree and rafter be riven!\nToo true are the visions of ill, too true the fulfilment they bring\nTo the curse that was spoken of old by the frenzy and wrath of the\nking!\nHer will is the doom of the children, and Discord is kindled amain,\nAnd strange is the Lord of Division, who cleaveth the birthright in\ntwain,\u2014\nThe edged thing, born of the north, the steel that is ruthless and\nkeen,\nDividing in bitter division the lot of the children of teen!\nNot the wide lowland around, the realm of their sire, shall they have,\nYet enough for the dead to inherit, the pitiful space of a grave!\n\n  Ah, but when kin meets kin, when sire and child,\n    Unknowing, are defiled\n  By shedding common blood, and when the pit\n    Of death devoureth it,\n  Drinking the clotted stain, the gory dye\u2014\n    Who, who can purify?\n  Who cleanse pollution, where the ancient bane\n    Rises and reeks again?\n  Whilome in olden days the sin was wrought,\n    And swift requital brought\u2014\n  Yea on the children of the child came still\n    New heritage of ill!\n  For thrice Apollo spoke this word divine,\n    From Delphi\u2019s central shrine,\n  To Laius\u2014_Die thou childless!_ thus alone\n    Can the land\u2019s weal be won!\n  But vainly with his wife\u2019s desire he strove,\n    And gave himself to love,\n  Begetting Oedipus, by whom he died,\n    The fateful parricide!\n  The sacred seed-plot, his own mother\u2019s womb,\n    He sowed, his house\u2019s doom,\n  A root of blood! by frenzy lured, they came\n    Unto their wedded shame.\n  And now the waxing surge, the wave of fate,\n    Rolls on them, triply great\u2014\n  One billow sinks, the next towers, high and dark,\n    Above our city\u2019s bark\u2014\n  Only the narrow barrier of the wall\n    Totters, as soon to fall;\n  And, if our chieftains in the storm go down,\n    What chance can save the town?\n  Curses, inherited from long ago,\n    Bring heavy freight of woe:\n  Rich stores of merchandise o\u2019erload the deck,\n    Near, nearer comes the wreck\u2014\n  And all is lost, cast out upon the wave,\n    Floating, with none to save!\n\n  Whom did the gods, whom did the chief of men,\n    Whom did each citizen\n  In crowded concourse, in such honour hold,\n    As Oedipus of old,\n  When the grim fiend, that fed on human prey,\n    He took from us away?\n\nBut when, in the fulness of days, he knew of his bridal unblest,\nA twofold horror he wrought, in the frenzied despair of his breast\u2014\nDebarred from the grace of the banquet, the service of goblets of gold,\nHe flung on his children a curse for the splendour they dared to\nwithhold,\nA curse prophetic and bitter\u2014_The glory of wealth and of pride,\nWith iron, not gold, in your hands, ye shall come, at the last, to\ndivide!_\nBehold, how a shudder runs through me, lest now, in the fulness of\ntime,\nThe house-fiend awake and return, to mete out the measure of crime!\n\n Enter THE SPY.\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Take heart, ye daughters whom your mothers\u2019 milk\n  Made milky-hearted! lo, our city stands,\n  Saved from the yoke of servitude: the vaunts\n  Of overweening men are silent now,\n  And the State sails beneath a sky serene,\n  Nor in the manifold and battering waves\n  Hath shipped a single surge, and solid stands\n  The rampart, and the gates are made secure,\n  Each with a single champion\u2019s trusty guard.\n  So in the main and at six gates we hold\n  A victory assured; but, at the seventh,\n  The god that on the seventh day was born,\n  Royal Apollo, hath ta\u2019en up his rest\n  To wreak upon the sons of Oedipus\n  Their grandsire\u2019s wilfulness of long ago.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What further woefulness besets our home?\n\nTHE SPY.\n  The home stands safe\u2014but ah, the princes twain\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  Who? what of them?  I am distraught with fear.\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Hear now, and mark! the sons of Oedipus\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, my prophetic soul!  I feel their doom.\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Have done with questions!\u2014with their lives crushed out\u2014\n\nCHORUS.\n  Lie they out yonder? the full horror speak!\n  Did hands meet hands more close than brotherly?\n  Came fate on each, and in the selfsame hour?\n\nTHE SPY.\n  Yea, blotting out the lineage ill-starred!\n  Now mix your exultation and your tears,\n  Over a city saved, the while its lords,\n  Twin leaders of the fight, have parcelled out\n  With forged arbitrament of Scythian steel\n  The full division of their fatherland,\n  And, as their father\u2019s imprecation bade,\n  Shall have their due of land, a twofold grave.\n  So is the city saved; the earth has drunk\n  Blood of twin princes, by each other slain.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O mighty Zeus and guardian powers,\n  The strength and stay of Cadmus\u2019 towers!\n  Shall I send forth a joyous cry,\n    _Hail to the lord of weal renewed?_\n  Or weep the misbegotten twain,\n  Born to a fatal destiny?\n  Each numbered now among the slain,\n     Each dying in ill fortitude,\n  Each _truly named_, each _child of feud?_\n\n  O dark and all-prevailing ill,\n     That broods o\u2019er Oedipus and all his line,\n  Numbing my heart with mortal chill!\n     Ah me, this song of mine,\n  Which, Thyad-like, I woke, now falleth still,\n     Or only tells of doom,\n     And echoes round a tomb!\n\n  Dead are they, dead! in their own blood they lie\u2014\n  Ill-omened the concent that hails our victory!\n  The curse a father on his children spake\n    Hath faltered not, nor failed!\n  Nought, Laius! thy stubborn choice availed\u2014\n  First to beget, then, in the after day\n      And for the city\u2019s sake,\n      The child to slay!\n      For nought can blunt nor mar\n      The speech oracular!\n    Children of teen! by disbelief ye erred\u2014\n  Yet in wild weeping came fulfilment of the word!\n\n ANTIGONE and ISMENE approach with a train of mourners, bearing the\n bodies of ETEOCLES and POLYNICES.\n\n    Look up, look forth! the doom is plain,\n    Nor spake the messenger in vain!\n    A twofold sorrow, twofold strife\u2014\n    Each brave against a brother\u2019s life!\n    In double doom hath sorrow come\u2014\n    How shall I speak it?\u2014on the home!\n\n  Alas, my sisters! be your sighs the gale,\n  The smiting of your brows the plash of oars,\n  Wafting the boat, to Acheron\u2019s dim shores\n  That passeth ever, with its darkened sail,\n  On its uncharted voyage and sunless way,\n  Far from thy beams, Apollo, god of day\u2014\n    The melancholy bark\n  Bound for the common bourn, the harbour of the dark!\n    Look up, look yonder! from the home\n    Antigone, Ismene come,\n  On the last, saddest errand bound,\n  To chant a dirge of doleful sound,\n  With agony of equal pain\n  Above their brethren slain!\n  Their sister-bosoms surely swell,\n  Heart with rent heart according well\n  In grief for those who fought and fell!\n  Yet\u2014ere they utter forth their woe\u2014\n  We must awake the rueful strain\n  To vengeful powers, in realms below,\n  And mourn hell\u2019s triumph o\u2019er the slain!\n\n  Alas! of all, the breast who bind,\u2014\n  Yea, all the race of womankind\u2014\n    O maidens, ye are most bereaved!\n  For you, for you the tear-drops start\u2014\n    Deem that in truth, and undeceived,\n  Ye hear the sorrows of my heart!\n    (_To the dead_.)\n  Children of bitterness, and sternly brave\u2014\n    One, proud of heart against persuasion\u2019s voice,\n    One, against exile proof! ye win your choice\u2014\n  Each in your fatherland, a separate grave!\n\n    Alack, on house and heritage\n  They brought a baneful doom, and death for wage!\n  One strove through tottering walls to force his way,\n  One claimed, in bitter arrogance, the sway,\n    And both alike, even now and here,\n  Have closed their suit, with steel for arbiter!\n    And lo, the Fury-fiend of Oedipus, their sire,\n  Hath brought his curse to consummation dire!\n      Each in the left side smitten, see them laid\u2014\n        The children of one womb,\n        Slain by a mutual doom!\n      Alas, their fate! the combat murderous,\n        The horror of the house,\n      The curse of ancient bloodshed, now repaid!\n      Yea, deep and to the heart the deathblow fell,\n        Edged by their feud ineffable\u2014\n      By the grim curse, their sire did imprecate\u2014\n        Discord and deadly hate!\n      Hark, how the city and its towers make moan\u2014\n      How the land mourns that held them for its own!\n      Fierce greed and fell division did they blend,\n        Till death made end!\n      They strove to part the heritage in twain,\n        Giving to each a gain\u2014\n      Yet that which struck the balance in the strife,\n        The arbitrating sword,\n      By those who loved the twain is held abhorred\u2014\n      Loathed is the god of death, who sundered each from life!\n        Here, by the stroke of steel, behold! they lie\u2014\n          And rightly may we cry\n    _Beside their fathers, let them here be laid\u2014\n    Iron gave their doom, with iron their graves be made\u2014\n    Alack, the slaying sword, alack, th\u2019 entombing spade!_\n\n    Alas, a piercing shriek, a rending groan,\n    A cry unfeigned of sorrow felt at heart!\n    With shuddering of grief, with tears that start,\n    With wailful escort, let them hither come\u2014\n    For one or other make divided moan!\n    No light lament of pity mixed with gladness,\n    But with true tears, poured from the soul of sadness,\n  Over the princes dead and their bereav\u00e8d home\n\n    Say we, above these brethren dead,\n      _On citizen, on foreign foe,\n    Brave was their rush, and stern their blow\u2014\n      Now, lowly are they laid!_\n    Beyond all women upon earth\n    Woe, woe for her who gave them birth!\n    Unknowingly, her son she wed\u2014\n    The children of that marriage-bed,\n    Each in the self-same womb, were bred\u2014\n    Each by a brother\u2019s hand lies dead!\n\n  Yea, from one seed they sprang, and by one fate\n      Their heritage is desolate,\n    The heart\u2019s division sundered claim from claim,\n      And, from their feud, death came!\n      Now is their hate allayed,\n      Now is their life-stream shed,\n    Ensanguining the earth with crimson dye\u2014\n  Lo, from one blood they sprang, and in one blood they lie!\n    A grievous arbiter was given the twain\u2014\n      The stranger from the northern main,\n        The sharp, dividing sword,\n        Fresh from the forge and fire\n    The War-god treacherous gave ill award\n  And brought their father\u2019s curse to a fulfilment dire!\n      They have their portion\u2014each his lot and doom,\n        Given from the gods on high!\n      Yea, the piled wealth of fatherland, for tomb,\n        Shall underneath them lie!\n      Alas, alas!  with flowers of fame and pride\n        Your home ye glorified;\n      But, in the end, the Furies gathered round\n        With chants of boding sound,\n\n  Shrieking, _In wild defeat and disarray,\n    Behold, ye pass away!_\n  The sign of Ruin standeth at the gate,\n    There, where they strove with Fate\u2014\n  And the ill power beheld the brothers\u2019 fall,\n    And triumphed over all!\n\nANTIGONE, ISMENE, _and_ CHORUS\n(_Processional Chant_)\n  Thou wert smitten, in smiting,\n    Thou didst slay, and wert slain\u2014\n  By the spear of each other\n    Ye lie on the plain,\n  And ruthless the deed that ye wrought was, and ruthless the death of\n  the twain!\n\n  Take voice, O my sorrow!\n    Flow tear upon tear\u2014\n  Lay the slain by the slayer,\n    Made one on the bier!\n  Our soul in distraction is lost, and we mourn o\u2019er the prey of the\n  spear!\n\n  Ah, woe for your ending,\n    Unbrotherly wrought!\n  And woe for the issue,\n    The fray that ye fought,\n  The doom of a mutual slaughter whereby to the grave ye are brought!\n\n  Ah, twofold the sorrow\u2014\n    The heard and the seen!\n  And double the tide\n    Of our tears and our teen,\n  As we stand by our brothers in death and wail for the love that has\n  been!\n\n  O grievous the fate\n  That attends upon wrong!\n  Stern ghost of our sire,\n  Thy vengeance is long!\n  Dark Fury of hell and of death, the hands of thy kingdom are strong!\n\n  O dark were the sorrows\n  That exile hath known!\n  He slew, but returned not\n  Alive to his own!\n  He struck down a brother, but fell, in the moment of triumph hewn\n  down!\n\n  O lineage accurst,\n  O doom and despair!\n  Alas, for their quarrel,\n  The brothers that were!\n  And woe! for their pitiful end, who once were our love and our care!\n\n  O grievous the fate\n  That attends upon wrong!\n  Stern ghost of our sire,\n  Thy vengeance is long!\n  Dark  Fury of hell and of death,  the hands of thy kingdom are\n  strong!\n\n  By proof have ye learnt it!\n  At once and as one,\n  O brothers beloved,\n  To death ye were done!\n  Ye came to the  strife of the sword, and behold! ye are both\n  overthrown!\n\n  O grievous the tale is,\n  And grievous their fall,\n  To the house, to the land,\n  And to me above all!\n  Ah God! for the curse that hath come, the sin and the ruin withal!\n\n  O children distraught,\n  Who in madness have died!\n  Shall ye rest with old kings\n  In the place of their pride?\n  Alas for the wrath of your sire if he findeth you laid by his side!\n\n Enter a HERALD.\n\nHERALD.\n  I bear command to tell to one and all\n  What hath approved itself and now is law,\n  Ruled by the counsellors of Cadmus\u2019 town.\n  For this Eteocles, it is resolved\n  To lay him on his earth-bed, in this soil,\n  Not without care and kindly sepulture.\n  For why? he hated those who hated us,\n  And, with all duties blamelessly performed\n  Unto the sacred ritual of his sires,\n  He met such end as gains our city\u2019s grace,\u2014\n  With auspices that do ennoble death.\n  Such words I have in charge to speak of him:\n  But of his brother Polynices, this\u2014\n  Be he cast out unburied, for the dogs\n  To rend and tear: for he presumed to waste\n  The land of the Cadmeans, had not Heaven\u2014\n  Some god of those who aid our fatherland\u2014\n  Opposed his onset, by his brother\u2019s spear,\n  To whom, tho\u2019 dead, shall consecration come!\n  Against him stood this wretch, and brought a horde\n  Of foreign foemen, to beset our town.\n  He therefore shall receive his recompense,\n  Buried ignobly in the maw of kites\u2014\n  No women-wailers to escort his corpse\n  Nor pile his tomb nor shrill his dirge anew\u2014\n  Unhouselled, unattended, cast away!\n  So, for these brothers, doth our State ordain.\n\nANTIGONE.\n  And I\u2014to those who make such claims of rule\n  In Cadmus\u2019 town\u2014I, though no other help,\n  (_Pointing to the body of_ POLYNICES)\n  I, I will bury this my brother\u2019s corse\n  And risk your wrath and what may come of it!\n  It shames me not to face the State, and set\n  Will against power, rebellion resolute:\n  Deep in my heart is set my sisterhood,\n  My common birthright with my brothers, born\n  All of one womb, her children who, for woe,\n  Brought forth sad offspring to a sire ill-starred.\n  Therefore, my soul! take thou thy willing share,\n  In aid of him who now can will no more,\n  Against this outrage: be a sister true,\n  While yet thou livest, to a brother dead!\n  Him never shall the wolves with ravening maw\n  Rend and devour: I do forbid the thought!\n  I for him, I\u2014albeit a woman weak\u2014\n  In place of burial-pit, will give him rest\n  By this protecting handful of light dust\n  Which, in the lap of this poor linen robe,\n  I bear to hallow and bestrew his corpse\n  With the due covering. Let none gainsay!\n  Courage and craft shall arm me, this to do.\n\nHERALD.\n  I charge thee, not to flout the city\u2019s law!\n\nANTIGONE.\n  I charge thee, use no useless heralding!\n\nHERALD.\n  Stern is a people newly \u2019scaped from death.\n\nANTIGONE.\n  Whet thou their sternness! Burial he shall have.\n\nHERALD.\n  How? Grace of burial, to the city\u2019s foe?\n\nANTIGONE.\n  God hath not judged him separate in guilt.\n\nHERALD.\n  True\u2014till he put this land in jeopardy.\n\nANTIGONE.\n  His rights usurped, he answered wrong with wrong.\n\nHERALD.\n  Nay\u2014but for one man\u2019s sin he smote the State.\n\nANTIGONE.\n  Contention doth out-talk all other gods! Prate thou no more\u2014I will to\n  bury him.\n\nHERALD.\n  Will, an thou wilt! but I forbid the deed.\n\n [_Exit the HERALD._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  Exulting Fates, who waste the line\n  And whelm the house of Oedipus!\n  Fiends, who have slain, in wrath condign,\n  The father and the children thus!\n  What now befits it that I do,\n  What meditate, what undergo?\n  Can I the funeral rite refrain,\n  Nor weep for Polynices slain?\n  But yet, with fear I shrink and thrill,\n  Presageful of the city\u2019s will!\n  Thou, O Eteocles, shalt have\n  Full rites, and mourners at thy grave,\n  But he, thy brother slain, shall he,\n  With none to weep or cry _Alas_,\n  To unbefriended burial pass?\n  Only one sister o\u2019er his bier,\n  To raise the cry and pour the tear\u2014\n  Who can obey such stern decree?\n\nSEMI-CHORUS.\n  Let those who hold our city\u2019s sway\n  Wreak, or forbear to wreak, their will\n  On those who cry, _Ah, well-a-day!_\n  Lamenting Polynices still!\n  We will go forth and, side by side\n  With her, due burial will provide!\n  Royal he was; to him be paid\n  Our grief, wherever he be laid!\n  The crowd may sway, and change, and still\n  Take its caprice for Justice\u2019 will!\n  But we this dead Eteocles,\n  As Justice wills and Right decrees,\n  Will bear unto his grave!\n  For\u2014under those enthroned on high\n  And Zeus\u2019 eternal royalty\u2014\n  He unto us salvation gave!\n  He saved us from a foreign yoke,\u2014\n  A wild assault of outland folk,\n  A savage, alien wave!\n\n [_Exeunt._]\n\n\n\n\nPROMETHEUS BOUND\n\nARGUMENT\n\n\nIn the beginning, Ouranos and Gaia held sway over Heaven and Earth. And\nmanifold children were born unto them, of whom were Cronos, and\nOkeanos, and the Titans, and the Giants. But Cronos cast down his\nfather Ouranos, and ruled in his stead, until Zeus his son cast him\ndown in his turn, and became King of Gods and men. Then were the Titans\ndivided, for some had good will unto Cronos, and others unto Zeus;\nuntil Prometheus, son of the Titan Iapetos, by wise counsel, gave the\nvictory to Zeus. But Zeus held the race of mortal men in scorn, and was\nfain to destroy them from the face of the earth; yet Prometheus loved\nthem, and gave secretly to them the gift of fire, and arts whereby they\ncould prosper upon the earth. Then was Zeus sorely angered with\nPrometheus, and bound him upon a mountain, and afterward overwhelmed\nhim in an earthquake, and devised other torments against him for many\nages; yet could he not slay Prometheus, for he was a God.\n\nDRAMATIS PERSONAE\n\nSTRENGTH AND FORCE.\nHEPHAESTUS.\nPROMETHEUS.\nCHORUS OF SEA-NYMPHS.\nDAUGHTERS OF OCEANUS.\nOCEANUS.\nIO.\nHERMES.\n\n_Scene\u2014A rocky ravine in the mountains of Scythia_.\n\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Lo, the earth\u2019s bound and limitary land,\n  The Scythian steppe, the waste untrod of men!\n  Look to it now, Hephaestus\u2014thine it is,\n  Thy Sire obeying, this arch-thief to clench\n  Against the steep-down precipice of rock,\n  With stubborn links of adamantine chain.\n  Look thou: thy flower, the gleaming plastic fire,\n  He stole and lent to mortal man\u2014a sin\n  That gods immortal make him rue to-day,\n  Lessoned hereby to own th\u2019 omnipotence\n  Of Zeus, and to repent his love to man!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  O Strength and Force, for you the best of Zeus\n  Stands all achieved, and nothing bars your will:\n  But I\u2014I dare not bind to storm-vext cleft\n  One of our race, immortal as are we.\n  Yet, none the less, necessity constrains,\n  For Zeus, defied, is heavy in revenge!\n                                            (_To PROMETHEUS_)\n\n  O deep-devising child of Themis sage,\n  Small will have I to do, or thou to bear,\n  What yet we must. Beyond the haunt of man\n  Unto this rock, with fetters grimly forged,\n  I must transfix and shackle up thy limbs,\n  Where thou shalt mark no voice nor human form,\n  But, parching in the glow and glare of sun,\n  Thy body\u2019s flower shall suffer a sky-change;\n  And gladly wilt thou hail the hour when Night\n  Shall in her starry robe invest the day,\n  Or when the Sun shall melt the morning rime.\n  But, day or night, for ever shall the load\n  Of wasting agony, that may not pass,\n  Wear thee away; for know, the womb of Time\n  Hath not conceived a power to set thee free.\n  Such meed thou hast, for love toward mankind\n  For thou, a god defying wrath of gods,\n  Beyond the ordinance didst champion men,\n  And for reward shalt keep a sleepless watch,\n  Stiff-kneed, erect, nailed to this dismal rock,\n  With manifold laments and useless cries\n  Against the will inexorable of Zeus.\n  Hard is the heart of fresh-usurp\u00e8d power!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Enough of useless ruth! why tarriest thou?\n  Why pitiest one whom all gods wholly hate,\n  One who to man gave o\u2019er thy privilege?\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Kinship and friendship wring my heart for him.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Ay\u2014but how disregard our Sire\u2019s command?\n  Is not thy pity weaker than thy fear?\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Ruthless as ever, brutal to the full!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Tears can avail him nothing: strive not thou,\n  Nor waste thine efforts thus unaidingly.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Out on my cursed mastery of steel!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Why curse it thus? In sooth that craft of thine\n  Standeth assoiled of all that here is wrought.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Would that some other were endowed therewith!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  All hath its burden, save the rule of Heaven,\n  And freedom is for Zeus, and Zeus alone.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  I know it; I gainsay no word hereof.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Up, then, and hasten to do on his bonds,\n  Lest Zeus behold thee indolent of will!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Ah well\u2014behold the armlets ready now!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Then cast them round his arms and with sheer strength\n  Swing down the hammer, clinch him to the crags.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Lo, \u2019tis toward\u2014no weakness in the work!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Smite harder, wedge it home\u2014no faltering here!\n  He hath a craft can pass th\u2019 impassable!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  This arm is fast, inextricably bound.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Then shackle safe the other, that he know\n  His utmost craft is weaker far than Zeus.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  He, but none other, can accuse mine art!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Now, strong and sheer, drive thro\u2019 from breast to back\n  The adamantine wedge\u2019s stubborn fang.\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Alas, Prometheus!  I lament thy pain.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Thou, faltering and weeping sore for those\n  Whom Zeus abhors! \u2019ware, lest thou rue thy tears!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Thou gazest on a scene that poisons sight.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  I gaze on one who suffers his desert.\n  Now between rib and shoulder shackle him\u2014\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Do it I must\u2014hush thy superfluous charge!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Urge thee I will\u2014ay, hound thee to the prey.\n  Step downward now, enring his legs amain!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Lo, it is done\u2014\u2019twas but a moment\u2019s toil.\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Now, strongly strike, drive in the piercing gyves\u2014\n  Stern is the power that oversees thy task!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Brutish thy form, thy speech brutality!\n\nSTRENGTH.\n  Be gentle, an thou wilt, but blame not me\n   For this my stubbornness and anger fell!\n\nHEPHAESTUS.\n  Let us go hence; his legs are firmly chained.\n\nSTRENGTH (_To_ PROMETHEUS).\nAha!  there play the insolent, and steal,\nFor creatures of a day, the rights of gods!\nO deep delusion of the powers that named thee\nPrometheus, the Fore-thinker! thou hast need\nOf others\u2019 forethought and device, whereby\nThou may\u2019st elude this handicraft of ours!\n\n[_Exeunt HEPHAESTUS, STRENGTH and FORCE.\u2014A pause._]\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  O Sky divine, O Winds of pinions swift,\n  O fountain-heads of Rivers, and O thou,\n  Illimitable laughter of the Sea!\n  O Earth, the Mighty Mother, and thou Sun,\n  Whose orbed light surveyeth all\u2014attest,\n  What ills I suffer from the gods, a god!\n  Behold me, who must here sustain\n  The marring agonies of pain,\n  Wrestling with torture, doomed to bear\n  Eternal ages, year on year!\n  Such and so shameful is the chain\n  Which Heaven\u2019s new tyrant doth ordain\n  To bind me helpless here.\n  Woe! for the ruthless present doom!\n  Woe! for the Future\u2019s teeming womb!\n  On what far dawn, in what dim skies,\n  Shall star of my deliverance rise?\n\n  Truce to this utterance!  to its dimmest verge\n  I do foreknow the future, hour by hour,\n  Nor can whatever pang may smite me now\n  Smite with surprise. The destiny ordained\n  I must endure to the best, for well I wot\n  That none may challenge with Necessity.\n  Yet is it past my patience, to reveal,\n  Or to conceal, these issues of my doom.\n  Since I to mortals brought prerogatives,\n  Unto this durance dismal am I bound:\n  Yea, I am he who in a fennel-stalk,\n  By stealthy sleight, purveyed the fount of fire,\n  The teacher, proven thus, and arch-resource\n  Of every art that aideth mortal men.\n  Such was my sin:  I earn its recompense,\n  Rock-riveted, and chained in height and cold.\n\n [_A pause._]\n\n\n  Listen! what breath of sound,\n  what fragrance soft hath risen\n  Upward to me? is it some godlike essence,\n  Or being half-divine, or mortal presence?\n  Who to the world\u2019s end comes, unto my craggy prison?\n  Craves he the sight of pain, or what would he behold?\n  Gaze on a god in tortures manifold,\n  Heinous to Zeus, and scorned by all\n  Whose footsteps tread the heavenly hall,\n  Because too deeply, from on high,\n  I pitied man\u2019s mortality!\n  Hark, and again! that fluttering sound\n  Of wings that whirr and circle round,\n  And their light rustle thrills the air\u2014\n  How all things that unseen draw near\n  Are to me Fear!\n\n Enter the CHORUS OF OCEANIDES in winged cars.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Ah, fear us not! as friends, with rivalry\n  Of swiftly-vying wings, we came together\n  Unto this rock and thee!\n  With our sea-sire we pleaded hard, until\n  We won him to our will,\n  And swift the wafting breezes bore us hither.\n  The heavy hammer\u2019s steely blow\n  Thrilled to our ocean-cavern from afar,\n  Banished soft shyness from our maiden brow,\n  And with unsandalled feet we come, in winged car!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ah well-a-day! ye come, ye come\n  From the Sea-Mother\u2019s teeming home\u2014\n  Children of Tethys and the sire\n  Who around Earth rolls, gyre on gyre,\n  His sleepless ocean-tide!\n  Look on me\u2014shackled with what chain,\n  Upon this chasm\u2019s beetling side\n  I must my dismal watch sustain!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yea, I behold, Prometheus! and my fears\n  Draw swiftly o\u2019er mine eyes a mist fulfilled of tears,\n  When I behold thy frame\n  Bound, wasting on the rock, and put to shame\n  By adamantine chains!\n  The rudder and the rule of Heaven\n  Are to strange pilots given:\n  Zeus with new laws and strong caprice holds sway,\n  Unkings  the ancient Powers, their might constrains,\n  And thrusts their pride away!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Had he but hurled me, far beneath\n  The vast and ghostly halls of Death,\n  Down to the limitless profound\n  Of Tartarus, in fetters bound,\n  Fixed by his unrelenting hand!\n  So had no man, nor God on high,\n  Exulted o\u2019er mine agony\u2014\n  But now, a sport to wind and sky,\n  Mocked by my foes, I stand!\n\nCHORUS.\n  What God can wear such ruthless heart\n  As to delight in ill?\n  Who in thy sorrow bears not part?\n  Zeus, Zeus alone! for he, with wrathful will,\n  Clenched and inflexible,\n  Bears down Heaven\u2019s race\u2014nor end shall be, till hate\n  His soul shall satiate,\n  Or till, by some device, some other hand\n  Shall wrest from him his sternly-clasped command!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yet,\u2014though in shackles close and strong\n  I lie in wasting torments long,\u2014\n  Yet the new tyrant, \u2019neath whose nod\n  Cowers down each blest subservient god,\n  One day, far hence, my help shall need,\n  The destined stratagem to read,\n  Whereby, in some yet distant day,\n  Zeus shall be reaved of pride and sway:\n  And no persuasion\u2019s honied spell\n  Shall lure me on, the tale to tell;\n  And no stern threat shall make me cower\n  And yield the secret to his power,\n  Until his purpose be foregone,\n  And shackles yield, and he atone\n  The deep despite that he hath done!\n\nCHORUS.\n  O strong in hardihood, thou striv\u2019st amain\n  Against the stress of pain!\n  But yet too free, too resolute thy tongue\n  In challenging thy wrong!\n  Ah, shuddering dread doth make my spirit quiver,\n  And o\u2019er thy fate sits Fear!\n  I see not to what shore of safety ever\n  Thy bark can steer\u2014\n  In depths unreached the will of Zeus doth dwell,\n  Hidden, implacable!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay, stern is Zeus, and Justice stands,\n  Wrenched to his purpose, in his hands\u2014\n  Yet shall he learn, perforce, to know\n  A milder mood, when falls the blow\u2014\n  His ruthless wrath he shall lay still,\n  And he and I with mutual will\n  In concord\u2019s bond shall go.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Unveil, say forth to us the tale entire,\n  Under what imputation Zeus laid hands\n  On thee, to rack thee thus with shameful pangs?\n  Tell us\u2014unless the telling pain thee\u2014all!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Grievous alike are these things for my tongue,\n  Grievous for silence\u2014rueful everyway.\n  Know that, when first the gods  began  their strife,\n  And heaven was all astir with mutual feud\u2014\n  Some willing to fling Cronos from his throne,\n  And set, forsooth, their Zeus on high as king,\n  And other some in contrariety\n  Striving to bar him from heaven\u2019s throne for aye\u2014\n  Thereon I sought to counsel for the best\n  The Titan brood of Ouranos and Earth;\n  Yet I prevailed not, for they held in scorn\n  My glozing wiles, and, in their hardy pride,\n  Deemed that sans effort they could grasp the sway.\n  But, for my sake, my mother Themis oft,\n  And Earth, one symbol of names manifold,\n  Had held me warned, how in futurity\n  It stood ordained that not by force or power,\n  But by some wile, the victors must prevail.\n  In such wise I interpreted; but they\n  Deigned not to cast their heed thereon at all.\n  Then, of things possible, I deemed it best,\n  Joining my mother\u2019s wisdom to mine own,\n  To range myself with Zeus, two wills in one.\n  Thus, by device of mine, the murky depth\n  Of Tartarus enfoldeth Cronos old\n  And those who strove beside him. Such the aid\n  I gave the lord of heaven\u2014my meed for which\n  He paid me thus, a penal recompense!\n  For \u2019tis the inward vice of tyranny,\n  To deem of friends as being secret foes.\n  Now, to your question\u2014hear me clearly show\n  On what imputed fault he tortures me.\n  Scarce was he seated on his father\u2019s throne,\n  When he began his doles of privilege\n  Among the lesser gods, allotting power\n  In trim division; while of mortal men\n  Nothing he recked, nor of their misery\n  Nay, even willed to blast their race entire\n  To nothingness, and breed another brood;\n  And none but I was found to cross his will.\n  I dared it, I alone; I rescued men\n  From crushing ruin and th\u2019 abyss of hell\u2014\n  Therefore am I constrained in chastisement\n  Grievous to bear and piteous to behold,\u2014\n  Yea, firm to feel compassion for mankind,\n  Myself was held unworthy of the same\u2014\n  Ay, beyond pity am I ranged and ruled\n  To sufferance\u2014a sight that shames his sway!\n\nCHORUS.\n  A heart of steel, a mould of stone were he,\n  Who could complacently behold thy pains\n  I came not here as craving for this sight,\n  And, seeing it, I stand heart-wrung with pain.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yea truly, kindly eyes must pity me!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Say, didst thou push transgression further still?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay, man thro\u2019 me ceased to foreknow his death.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What cure couldst thou discover for this curse?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Blind hopes I sent to nestle in man\u2019s heart.\n\nCHORUS.\n  This was a goodly gift thou gavest them.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yet more I gave them, even the boon of fire.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What? radiant fire, to things ephemeral?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yea\u2014many an art too shall they learn thereby!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Then, upon imputation of such guilt,\n  Doth Zeus without surcease torment thee thus?\n  Is there no limit to thy course of pain?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  None, till his own will shall decree an end.\n\nCHORUS.\n  And how shall he decree it? say, what hope?\n  Se\u00ebst thou not thy sin? yet of that sin\n  It irks me sore to speak, as thee to hear.\n  Nay, no more words hereof; bethink thee now,\n  From this ordeal how to find release.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Easy it is, for one whose foot is set\n  Outside the slough of pain, to lesson well\n  With admonitions him who lies therein.\n  With perfect knowledge did I all I did,\n  I willed to sin, and sinned, I own it all\u2014\n  I championed men, unto my proper pain.\n  Yet scarce I deemed that, in such cruel doom,\n  Withering upon this skyey precipice,\n  I should inherit lonely mountain crags,\n  Here, in a vast tin-neighboured solitude.\n  Yet list not to lament my present pains,\n  But, stepping from your cars unto the ground,\n  Listen, the while I tell the future fates\n  Now drawing near, until ye know the whole.\n  Grant ye, O grant my prayer, be pitiful\n  To one now racked with woe! the doom of pain\n  Wanders, but settles, soon or late, on all.\n\nCHORUS.\n  To willing hearts, and schooled to feel,\n  Prometheus, came thy tongue\u2019s appeal;\n  Therefore we leave, with lightsome tread,\n  The flying cars in which we sped\u2014\n  We leave the stainless virgin air\n  Where winged creatures float and fare,\n  And by thy side, on rocky land,\n  Thus gently we alight and stand,\n  Willing, from end to end, to know\n  Thine history of woe.\n\n The CHORUS alight from their winged cars. Enter OCEANUS mounted on a\n griffin.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Thus, over leagues and leagues of space\n  I come, Prometheus, to thy place\u2014\n  By will alone, not rein, I guide\n  The winged thing on which I ride;\n  And much, be sure, I mourn thy case\u2014\n  Kinship is Pity\u2019s bond, I trow;\n  And, wert thou not akin, I vow\n  None other should have more than thou\n  Of my compassion\u2019s grace!\n  \u2019Tis said, and shall be proved; no skill\n  Have I to gloze and feign goodwill!\n  Name but some mode of helpfulness,\n  And thou wilt in a trice confess\n  That I, Oceanus, am best\n  Of all thy friends, and trustiest.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ho, what a sight of marvel! what, thou too\n  Comest to contemplate my pains, and darest\u2014\n  (Yet how, I wot not!) leaving far behind\n  The circling tide, thy namefellow, and those\n  Rock-arched, self-hollowed caverns\u2014thus to come\n  Unto this land, whose womb bears iron ore?\n  Art come to see my lot, resent with me\n  The ills I bear? Well, gaze thy fill! behold\n  Me, friend of Zeus, part-author of his power\u2014\n  Mark, in what ruthlessness he bows me down!\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Yea, I behold, Prometheus! and would warn\n  Thee, spite of all thy wisdom, for thy weal!\n  Learn now thyself to know, and to renew\n  A rightful spirit within thee, for, made new\n  With pride of place, sits Zeus among the gods!\n  Now, if thou choosest to fling forth on him\n  Words rough with anger thus and edged with scorn,\n  Zeus, though he sit aloof, afar, on high,\n  May hear thine utterance, and make thee deem\n  His present wrath a mere pretence of pain.\n  Banish, poor wretch! the passion of thy soul,\n  And seek, instead, acquittance from thy pangs!\n  Belike my words seem ancientry to thee\u2014\n  Such, natheless, O Prometheus, is the meed\n  That doth await the overweening tongue!\n  Meek wert thou never, wilt not crouch to pain,\n  But, set amid misfortunes, cravest more!\n  Now\u2014if thou let thyself be schooled by me\u2014\n  Thou must not kick against the goad. Thou knowest,\n  A despot rules, harsh, resolute, supreme,\n  Whose law is will. Yet shall I go to him,\n  With all endeavour to relieve thy plight\u2014\n  So thou wilt curb the tempest of thy tongue!\n  Surely thou knowest, in thy wisdom deep,\n  The saw\u2014_Who vaunts amiss, quick pain is his_.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  O enviable thou, and unaccused\u2014\n  Thou who wast art and part in all I dared!\n  And now, let be! make this no care of thine,\n  For Zeus is past persuasion\u2014urge him not!\n  Look to thyself, lest thine emprise thou rue.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Thou hast more skill to school thy neighbour\u2019s fault\n  Than to amend thine own: \u2019tis proved and plain,\n  By fact, not hearsay, that I read this well.\n  Yet am I fixed to go\u2014withhold me not\u2014\n  Assured I am, assured, that Zeus will grant\n  The boon I crave, the loosening of thy bonds.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  In part I praise thee, to the end will praise;\n  Goodwill thou lackest not, but yet forbear\n  Thy further trouble! If thy heart be fain,\n  Bethink thee that thy toil avails me not.\n  Nay, rest thee well, aloof from danger\u2019s brink!\n  I will not ease my woe by base relief\n  In knowing others too involved therein.\n  Away the thought! for deeply do I rue\n  My brother Atlas\u2019 doom. Far off he stands\n  In sunset land, and on his shoulder bears\n  The pillar\u2019d mountain-mass whose base is earth,\n  Whose top is heaven, and its ponderous load\n  Too great for any grasp. With pity too\n  I saw Earth\u2019s child, the monstrous thing of war,\n  That in Cilicia\u2019s hollow places dwelt\u2014\n  Typho; I saw his hundred-headed form\n  Crushed and constrained; yet once his stride was fierce,\n  His jaws gaped horror and their hiss was death,\n  And all heaven\u2019s host he challenged to the fray,\n  While, as one vowed to storm the power of Zeus,\n  Forth from his eyes he shot a demon glare.\n  It skilled not: the unsleeping bolt of Zeus,\n  The downward levin with its rush of flame,\n  Smote on him, and made dumb for evermore\n  The clamour of his vaunting: to the heart\n  Stricken he lay, and all that mould of strength\n  Sank thunder-shattered to a smouldering ash;\n  And helpless now and laid in ruin huge\n  He lieth by the narrow strait of sea,\n  Crushed at the root of Etna\u2019s mountain-pile.\n  High on the pinnacles whereof there sits\n  Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence\n  On some hereafter day shall burst and stream\n  The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs\n  Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily!\n  Such ire shall Typho from his living grave\n  Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge,\n  Hot and unslaked, altho\u2019 himself be laid\n  In quaking ashes by Zeus\u2019 thunderbolt.\n  But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me\n  To school thy sense: thou knowest safety\u2019s road\u2014\n  Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain,\n  Till Zeus relent from wrath, my present woe.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Nay, but, Prometheus, know\u2019st thou not the saw\u2014\n  _Words can appease the angry soul\u2019s disease?_\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay\u2014if in season one apply their salve,\n  Not scorching wrath\u2019s proud flesh with caustic tongue.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  But in wise thought and venturous essay\n  Perceivest thou a danger? prithee tell!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  I see a fool\u2019s good nature, useless toil.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Let me be sick of that disease; I know,\n  Loyalty, masked as folly, wins the way.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n But of thy blunder I shall bear the blame.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Clearly, thy word would send me home again.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Lest thy lament for me should bring thee hate.\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Hate from the newly-throned Omnipotence?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Be heedful\u2014lest his will be wroth with thee!\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Thy doom, Prometheus, cries to me _Beware!_\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Mount, make away, discretion at thy side!\n\nOCEANUS.\n  Thy word is said to me in act to go:\n  For lo, my hippogriff with waving wings\n  Fans the smooth course of air, and fain is he\n  To rest his limbs within his ocean stall.\n\n [_Exit OCEANUS._]\n\nCHORUS.\nFor the woe and the wreck and the doom, Prometheus I utter my sighs;\nO\u2019er my cheek flows the fountain of tears from tender, compassionate\neyes.\nFor stern and abhorred is the sway of Zeus on his self-sought throne,\nAnd ruthless the spear of his scorn, to the gods of the days that are\ndone.\nAnd over the limitless earth goes up a disconsolate cry:\n_Ye were all so fair, and have fallen; so great and your might has gone\nby!_\nSo wails with a mighty lament the voice of the mortals, who dwell\nIn the Eastland, the home of the holy, for thee and the fate that\nbefel;\nAnd they of the Colchian land, the maidens whose arm is for war;\nAnd the Scythian bowmen, who roam by the lake of Maeotis afar;\nAnd the blossom of battling hordes, that flowers upon Caucasus\u2019 height,\nWith clashing of lances that pierce, and with clamour of swords that\nsmite.\nStrange is thy sorrow! one only I know who has suffered thy pain\u2014\nAtlas the Titan, the god, in a ruthless, invincible chain!\nHe beareth for ever and ever the burden and poise of the sky,\nThe vault of the rolling heaven, and earth re-echoes his cry.\nThe depths of the sea are troubled; they mourn from their caverns\nprofound,\nAnd the darkest and innermost hell moans deep with a sorrowful sound;\nAnd the rivers of waters, that flow from the fountains that spring\nwithout stain,\nAre as one in the great lamentation, and moan for thy piteous pain.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Deem not that I in pride or wilful scorn\n  Restrain my speech; \u2019tis wistful memory\n  That rends my heart, when I behold myself\n  Abased to wretchedness. To these new gods\n  I and none other gave their lots of power\n  In full attainment; no more words hereof\n  I speak\u2014the tale ye know. But listen now\n  Unto the rede of mortals and their woes,\n  And how their childish and unreasoning state\n  Was changed by me to consciousness and thought.\n  Yet not in blame of mortals will I speak,\n  But as in proof of service wrought to them.\n  For, in the outset, eyes they had and saw not;\n  And ears they had but heard not; age on age,\n  Like unsubstantial shapes in vision seen,\n  They groped at random in the world of sense,\n  Nor knew to link their building, brick with brick,\n  Nor how to turn its aspect to the sun,\n  Nor how to join the beams by carpentry,\n  In hollowed caves they dwelt, as emmets dwell,\n  Weak feathers for each blast, in sunless caves.\n  Nor had they certain forecast of the cold,\n  Nor of the advent of the flowery spring,\n  Nor of the fruitful summer. All they wrought,\n  Unreasoning they wrought, till I made clear\n  The laws of rising stars, and inference dim,\n  More hard to learn, of what their setting showed.\n  I taught to them withal that art of arts,\n  The lore of number, and the written word\n  That giveth sense to sound, the tool wherewith\n  The gift of memory was wrought in all,\n  And so came art and song. I too was first\n  To harness \u2019neath the yoke strong animals,\n  Obedient made to collar and to weight,\n  That they might bear whate\u2019er of heaviest toil\n  Mortals endured before. For chariots too\n  I trained, and docile service of the rein,\n  Steeds, the delight of wealth and pomp and pride.\n  I too, none other, for seafarers wrought\n  Their ocean-roaming canvas-wing\u00e8d cars.\n  Such arts of craft did I, unhappy I,\n  Contrive for mortals: now, no feint I have\n  Whereby I may elude my present woe.\n\nCHORUS.\n  A rueful doom is thine! distraught of soul,\n  And all astray, and like some sorry leech\n  Art thou, repining at thine own disease,\n  Unskilled, unknowing of the needful cure.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  More wilt thou wonder when the rest thou hearest\u2014\n  What arts for them, what methods I devised.\n  Foremost was this: if any man fell sick,\n  No aiding art he knew, no saving food,\n  No curing oil nor draught, but all in lack\n  Of remedies they dwindled, till I taught\n  The medicinal blending of soft drugs,\n  Whereby they ward each sickness from their side.\n  I ranged for them the methods manifold\n  Of the diviner\u2019s art; I first discerned\n  Which of night\u2019s visions hold a truth for day,\n  I read for them the lore of mystic sounds,\n  Inscrutable before; the omens seen\n  Which bless or ban a journey, and the flight\n  Of crook-clawed birds, did I make clear to man\u2014\n  And how they soar upon the right, for weal,\n  How, on the left, for evil; how they dwell,\n  Each in its kind, and what their loves and hates,\n  And which can flock and roost in harmony.\n  From me, men learned what deep significance\n  Lay in the smoothness of the entrails set\n  For sacrifice, and which, of various hues,\n  Showed them a gift accepted of the gods;\n  They learned what streaked and varied comeliness\n  Of gall and liver told; I led them, too,\n  (By passing thro\u2019 the flame the thigh-bones, wrapt\n  In rolls of fat, and th\u2019 undivided chine),\n  Unto the mystic and perplexing lore\n  Of omens; and I cleared unto their eyes\n  The forecasts, dim and indistinct before,\n  Shown in the flickering aspect of a flame.\n  Of these, enough is said. The other boons,\n  Stored in the womb of earth, in aid of men\u2014\n  Copper and iron, silver, gold withal\u2014\n  Who dares affirm he found them ere I found?\n  None\u2014well I know\u2014save who would babble lies!\n  Know thou, in compass of a single phrase\u2014\n  All arts, for mortals\u2019 use, Prometheus gave.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay, aid not mortal men beyond their due,\n  Holding too light a reckoning of thyself\n  And of thine own distress: good hope have I\n  To see thee once again from fetters free\n  And matched with Zeus in parity of power.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Not yet nor thus hath Fate ordained the end\u2014\n  Not until age-long pains and countless woes\n  Have bent and bowed me, shall my shackles fall;\n  Art strives too feebly against destiny.\n\nCHORUS.\n  But what hand rules the helm of destiny?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  The triform Fates, and Furies unforgiving.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Then is the power of Zeus more weak than theirs?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  He may not shun the fate ordained for him.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What is ordained for him, save endless rule?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Seek not for answer: this thou may\u2019st not learn.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Surely thy silence hides some solemn thing.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Think on some other theme: \u2019tis not the hour,\n  This secret to unveil; in deepest dark\n  Be it concealed: by guarding it shall I\n  Escape at last from bonds, and scorn, and pain.\n\nCHORUS.\n  O never may my weak and faint desire\n      Strive against God most high\u2014\n  Never be slack in service, never tire\n      Of sacred loyalty;\n  Nor fail to wend unto the altar-side,\n      Where with the blood of kine\n  Steams up the offering, by the quenchless tide\n      Of Ocean, Sire divine!\n  Be this within my heart, indelible\u2014\n      _Offend not with thy tongue!_\n  Sweet, sweet it is, in cheering hopes to dwell,\n      Immortal, ever young,\n  In maiden gladness fostering evermore\n      A soft content of soul!\n  But ah, I shudder at thine anguish sore\u2014\n      Thy doom thro\u2019 years that roll!\n  Thou could\u2019st not cower to Zeus: a love too great\n      Thou unto man hast given\u2014\n  Too high of heart thou wert\u2014ah, thankless fate!\n      What aid, \u2019gainst wrath of Heaven,\n  Could mortal man afford? in vain thy gift\n      To things so powerless!\n  Could\u2019st thou not see? they are as dreams that drift;\n      Their strength is feebleness\n  A purblind race, in hopeless fetters bound,\n      They have no craft or skill,\n  That could o\u2019erreach the ordinance profound\n      of the eternal will.\n  Alas, Prometheus! on thy woe condign\n      I looked, and learned this lore;\n  And a new strain floats to these lips of mine\u2014\n      Not the glad song of yore,\n  When by the lustral wave I sang to see\n      My sister made thy bride,\n  Decked with thy gifts, thy loved Hesione,\n      And clasped unto thy side.\n\n Enter IO, horned like a cow.\n\nIO.\n  Alack! what land, what folk are here?\n  Whom see I clenched in rocky fetters drear\n  Unto the stormy crag? for what thing done\n  Dost thou in agony atone?\n  Ah, tell me whither, well-a-day!\n  My feet have roamed their weary way?\n  Ah, but it maddens, the sting! it burns in my piteous side!\n  Ah, but the vision, the spectre, the earth-born, the myriad-eyed!\n  Avoid thee! Earth, hide him, thine offspring! he cometh\u2014O aspect of\n  ill!\n  Ghostly, and crafty of face, and dead, but pursuing me still!\n  Ah, woe upon me, woe ineffable!\n  He steals upon my track, a hound of hell\u2014\n  Where\u2019er I stray, along the sands and brine,\n  Weary and foodless, come his creeping eyne!\n      And ah, the ghostly sound\u2014\n  The wax-stopped reed-flute\u2019s weird and drowsy drone!\n  Alack my wandering woes, that round and round\n  Lead me in many mazes, lost, foredone!\n  O child of Cronos! for what deed of wrong\n  Am I enthralled by thee in penance long?\n  Why by the stinging bruise, the thing of fear,\n  Dost thou torment me, heart and brain?\n  Nay, give me rather to the flames that sear,\n      Or to some hidden grave,\n  Or to the rending jaws, the monsters of the main!\n  Nor grudge the boon for which I crave, O king!\n  Enough, enough of weary wandering,\n      Pangs from which none can save!\n      Hearken! in pity hold\n  Io, the ox-horned maid, thy love of old!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Hear Zeus or not, I hear and know thee well,\n  Daughter of Inachus;  I know thee driven,\n  Stung by the gadfly, mazed with agony.\n  Ay, thou art she whose beauty fired the breast\n  Of Zeus with passion;  she whom Hera\u2019s hate\n  Now harasses o\u2019er leagues and leagues of land.\n\nIO.\n      Alack, thou namest Inachus my sire!\n  Wottest thou of him? how, from lips of pain,\n  Comes to my woeful ears truth\u2019s very strain?\n      How knowest thou the curse, the burning fire\n  The god-sent, piercing pest that stings and clings?\n  Ah me! in frenzied, foodless wanderings\n  Hither I come, and on me from on high\n      Lies Hera\u2019s angry craft! Ah, men unblest!\n  Not one there is, not one, that is unblest as I.\n     But thou\u2014tell me the rest!\n  Utter the rede of woes to come for me;\n  Utter the aid, the cure, if aid or cure there be!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Lo, clearly will I show forth all thy quest\u2014\n  Not in dark speech, but with such simple phrase\n  As doth befit the utterance of a friend.\n  I am Prometheus, who gave fire to men.\n\nIO.\n  O daring, proven champion of man\u2019s race,\n  What sin, Prometheus, dost thou thus atone?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  One moment since, I told my woes and ceased.\n\nIO.\n  Then should I plead my suit to thee in vain?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Nay, speak thy need; nought would I hide from thee.\n\nIO.\n  Pronounce who nailed thee to the rocky cleft.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Zeus, by intent; Hephaestus, by his hand.\n\nIO.\n  For what wrongdoing do these pains atone?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  What I have said, is said; suffice it thee!\n\nIO.\n  Yet somewhat add; forewarn me in my woe\n  What time shall bring my wandering to its goal?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Fore-knowledge is fore-sorrow; ask it not.\n\nIO.\n  Nay, hide not from me destiny\u2019s decree.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  I grudge thee not the gift which I withhold.\n\nIO.\n  Then wherefore tarry ere thou tell me all?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Nothing I grudge, but would not rack thy soul.\n\nIO.\n  Be not compassionate beyond my wish.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Well, thou art fain, and I will speak. Attend!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay\u2014ere thou speak, hear me, bestow on me\n  A portion of the grace of granted prayers.\n  First let us learn how Io\u2019s frenzy came\u2014\n  (She telling her disasters manifold)\n  Then of their sequel let her know from thee.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Well were it, Io, thus to do their will\u2014\n  Right well!  they are the sisters of thy sire.\n  \u2019Tis worth the waste and effluence of time,\n  To tell, with tears of perfect moan, the doom\n  Of sorrows that have fallen, when \u2019tis sure\n  The listeners will greet the tale with tears.\n\nIO.\n  I know not how I should mistrust your prayer;\n  Therefore the whole that ye desire of me\n  Ye now shall learn in one straightforward tale.\n  Yet, as it leaves my lips, I blush with shame\n  To tell that tempest of the spite of Heaven,\n  And all the wreck and ruin of my form,\n  And whence they swooped upon me, woe is me!\n  Long, long in visions of the night there came\n  Voices and forms into my maiden bower,\n  Alluring me with smoothly glozing words\u2014\n  _O maiden highly favoured of high Heaven,\n  Why cherish thy virginity so long?\n  Thine is it to win wedlock\u2019s noblest crown!\n  Know that Zeus\u2019 heart thro\u2019 thee is all aflame,\n  Pierced with desire as with a dart, and longs\n  To join in utmost rite of love with thee.\n  Therefore, O maiden, shun not with disdain_\n  _Th\u2019 embrace of Zeus, but hie thee forth straightway\n  To the lush growth of Lerna\u2019s meadow-land,\n  Where are the flocks and steadings of thy home,\n  And let Zeus\u2019 eye be eased of its desire_.\n  Night after night, haunted by dreams like these,\n  Heartsick, I ventured at the last to tell\n  Unto my sire these visions of the dark.\n  Then sent he many a wight, on sacred quest,\n  To Delphi and to far Dodona\u2019s shrine,\n  Being fall fain to learn what deed or word\n  Would win him favour from the powers of heaven.\n  But they came back repeating oracles\n  Mystic, ambiguous, inscrutable,\n  Till, at the last, an utterance direct,\n  Obscure no more, was brought to Inachus\u2014\n  A peremptory charge to fling me forth\n  Beyond my home and fatherland, a thing\n  Sent loose in banishment o\u2019er all the world;\n  And\u2014should he falter\u2014Zeus should launch on him\n  A fire-eyed bolt, to shatter and consume\n  Himself and all his race to nothingness.\n  Bowing before such utterance from the shrine\n  Of Loxias, he drave me from our halls,\n  Barring the gates against me: loth he was\n  To do, as I to suffer, this despite:\n  But the strong curb of Zeus had overborne\n  His will to me-ward.  As I parted thence,\n  In form and mind I grew dishumanized,\n  And horned as now ye see me, poison-stung\n  By the envenomed bitings of the brize,\n  I leapt and flung in frenzy, rushed away\n  To the bright waters of Cerchneia\u2019s stream\n  And Lerna\u2019s beach: but ever at my side,\n  A herdsman by his heifer, Argus moved,\n  Earth-born, malevolent of mood, and peered,\n  With myriad eyes, where\u2019er my feet would roam.\n  But on him in a moment, unforeseen,\n  Came Fate, and sundered him from life; but I,\n  Still maddened by the gadfly\u2019s sting, the scourge\n  Of God\u2019s infliction, roam the weary world.\n  How I have fared, thou hearest: be there aught\n  Of what remains to bear, that thou canst tell,\n  Speak on! but let not thy compassion warm\n  Thy words to cheering falsehood.  Worst of woes\n  Are words that break their promise to our hope!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Woe! woe! avaunt\u2014thou and thy tale of bane!\n    O never, never dared I dream\n  Such horror of strange sounds should pierce mine ear;\n  Such loathly sights, such tortures hard to bear,\n  Outrage, pollution, agony supreme,\n  Wasting my heart with double edge of pain!\n  Ah Fate, ah Fate! I gaze on Io\u2019s dole,\n  And shudder to my soul!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Thou wailest all too soon, fulfilled of fear\u2014\n  Tarry awhile, till thou have learned the whole.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Say on, reveal it! suffering souls are fain\n  To know aright what yet remains to bear.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Lightly, with help of mine, did ye achieve\n  That which ye first desired: from Io\u2019s mouth\n  craved to hear, recounted by herself,\n  The story of her strivings.  Listen now\n  To what shall follow, to what woefulness\n  The wrath of Hera must compel this maid.\n                                            (_To_ Io)\n  And thou, O child of Inachus, within\n  Thine inmost heart store up these words of mine,\n  That thou may\u2019st learn thy wanderings and their goal.\n  First from this spot toward the sunrise turn,\n  And cross the steppe that knoweth not the plough:\n  Thus to the nomad Scythians shalt thou come,\n  Who dwell in wattled homes, not built on earth\n  But borne along on wains of sturdy wheel\u2014\n  Equipped, themselves, with bows of mighty reach.\n  Pass them avoidingly, and leave their land,\n  And skirt the beaches where the tides make moan,\n  Till lo! upon the left hand thou shalt find\n  The Chalybes, stout craftsmen of the steel\u2014\n  Beware of them! no gentleness is theirs,\n  No kindly welcome to a stranger\u2019s foot!\n  Thence to the Stream of Violence shalt thou come\u2014\n  Like name, like nature; see thou cross it not,\n  (\u2019Tis fatal to the forder!) till thou come\n  Right to the very Caucasus, the peak\n  That overtops the world, and from its brows\n  The river pants in spray its wrathful stream.\n  Thence, o\u2019er the pinnacles that court the stars,\n  Onward and southward thou must take thy way,\n  And reach the warlike horde of Amazons,\n  Maidens through hate of man; and gladly they\n  Will guide thy maiden feet.  That host, in days\n  That are not yet, shall fix their home and dwell\n  At Themiscyra, on Thermodon\u2019s bank,\n  Nigh whereunto the grim projecting fang\n  Of Salmydessus\u2019 cape affronts the main,\n  The seaman\u2019s curse, to ships a stepmother!\n  Then at the jutting land, Cimmerian styled,\n  That screens the narrowing portal of the mere,\n  Thou shalt arrive; pass o\u2019er it, brave at heart,\n  And ferry thee across Macotis\u2019 ford.\n  So shall there be great rumour evermore,\n  In ears of mortals, of thy passage strange;\n  And Bosporos shall be that channel\u2019s name,\n  Because the ox-horned thing did pass thereby.\n  So, from the wilds of Europe wander\u2019d o\u2019er,\n  To Asia\u2019s continent thou com\u2019st at last.\n                                            (_To the_ CHORUS)\n  And ye, what think ye?  Seems he not, that lord\n  And tyrant of the gods, as tyrannous\n  Unto all other lives?  A high god\u2019s lust\n  Constrained this mortal maid to roam the world!\n                                               (_To_ Io)\n  Poor maid! a brutal wooer sure was thine!\n  For know that all which I have told thee now\n  Is scarce the prelude of thy woes to come.\n\nIO.\n  Alas for me, alas!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Again thou criest, with a heifer\u2019s low.\n  What wilt thou do, learning thy future woes?\n\nCHORUS.\n  What, hast thou further sorrows for her ear?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yea, a vext ocean of predestined pain.\n\nIO.\n  What profit then is life to me?  Ah, why\n  Did I not cast me from this stubborn crag?\n  So with one spring, one crash upon the ground,\n  I had attained surcease from all my woes.\n  Better it is to die one death outright\n  Than linger out long life in misery.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ill would\u2019st thou bear these agonies of mine\u2014\n  Mine, with whose fate it standeth not to win\n  The goal of death, which were release from pain!\n  Now, there is set no limit to my woe\n  Till Zeus be hurled from his omnipotence.\n\nIO.\n  Zeus hurled from pride of place!  Can such things be?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Thou wert full fain, methinks, to see that sight!\n\nIO.\n  Even so\u2014his overthrow who wrought my pain.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Then may\u2019st thou know thereof; such fall shall be.\n\nIO.\n  And who shall wrench the sceptre from his hand?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  By his own mindless counsels shall he fall.\n\nIO.\n  And how? unless the telling harm, say on!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Wooing a bride, his ruin he shall win.\n\nIO.\n  Goddess, or mortal? tell me, if thou may\u2019st.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  No matter which\u2014more must not be revealed.\n\nIO.\n  Doth then a consort thrust him from his throne?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  The child she bears him shall o\u2019ercome his sire.\n\nIO.\n  And hath he no avoidance of this doom?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  None, surely\u2014till that I, released from bonds\u2014\n\nIO.\n  Who can release thee, but by will of Zeus?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Fate gives this duty to a child of thine!\n\nIO.\n  How?  Shall a child of mine undo thy woes?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yea, of thy lineage, thirteen times removed.\n\nIO.\n  Dark beyond guessing grows thine oracle.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Yea\u2014seek not therefore to foreknow thy woes.\n\nIO.\n  As thou didst proffer hope, withdraw it not.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Two tales I have\u2014choose! for I grant thee one.\n\nIO.\n  And which be they? reveal, and leave me choice.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  I grant it: shall I in all clearness show\n  Thy future woes, or my deliverance?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Nay! of the two, vouchsafe her wish to her\n  And mine to me, deigning a truth to each\u2014\n  To her, reveal her future wanderings\u2014\n  To me, thy future saviour, as I crave!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  I will not set myself to thwart your will\n  Withholding aught of what ye crave to know.\n  First to thee, Io, will I tell and trace\n  Thy scared circuitous wandering mark it well,\n  Deep in retentive tablets of the soul.\n  When thou hast overpast the ferry\u2019s flow\n  That sunders continent from continent,\n  Straight to the eastward and the flaming face\n  Of dawn, and highways trodden by the sun,\n  Pass, till thou come unto the windy land\n  Of daughters born to Boreas: beware\n  Lest the strong spirit of the stormy blast\n  Snatch thee aloft, and sweep thee to the void,\n  On wings of raving wintry hurricane!\n  Wend by the noisy tumult of the wave,\n  Until thou reach the Gorgon-haunted plains\n  Beside Cisthene.  In that solitude\n  Dwell Phorcys\u2019 daughters, beldames worn with time,\n  Three, each swan-shapen, single-toothed, and all\n  Peering thro\u2019 shared endowment of one eye;\n  Never on them doth the sun shed his rays,\n  Never falls radiance of the midnight moon.\n  But, hard by these, their sisters, clad with wings,\n  Serpentine-curled, dwell, loathed of mortal men,\u2014\n  The Gorgons!\u2014he of men who looks on them\n  Shall gasp away his life. Of such fell guard\n  I bid thee to beware. Now, mark my words\n  When I another sight of terror tell\u2014\n  Beware the Gryphon pack, the hounds of Zeus,\n  As keen of fang as silent of their tongues!\n  Beware the one-eyed Arimaspian band\n  That tramp on horse-hoofs, dwelling by the ford\n  Of Pluto and the stream that flows with gold:\n  Keep thou aloof from these. To the world\u2019s end\n  Thou comest at the last, the dark-faced tribe\n  That dwell beside the sources of the sun,\n  Where springs the river, Aethiopian named.\n  Make thou thy way along his bank, until\n  Thou come unto the mighty downward slope\n  Where from the overland of Bybline hills\n  Nile pours his hallowed earth-refreshing wave.\n  He by his course shall guide thee to the realm\n  Named from himself, three-angled, water-girt;\n  There, Io, at the last, hath Fate ordained,\n  For thee and for thy race, the charge to found,\n  Far from thy native shore, a new abode.\n  Lo, I have said: if aught hereof appear\n  Hard to thy sense and inarticulate,\n  Question me o\u2019er again, and soothly learn\u2014\n  God wot, I have too much of leisure here!\n\nCHORUS.\n  If there be aught beyond, or aught pass\u2019d o\u2019er,\n  Which thou canst utter, of her woe-worn maze,\n  Speak on! if all is said, then grant to us\n  That which we asked, as thou rememberest.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  She now hath learned, unto its utmost end,\n  Her pilgrimage; but yet, that she may know\n  That \u2019tis no futile fable she hath heard,\n  I will recount her history of toil\n  Ere she came hither; let it stand for proof\n  Of what I told, my forecast of the end.\n  So, then\u2014to sum in brief the weary tale\u2014\n  I turn me to thine earlier exile\u2019s close.\n  When to Molossia\u2019s lowland thou hadst come,\n  Nigh to Dodona\u2019s cliff and ridge sublime,\n  (Where is the shrine oracular and seat\n  Of Zeus, Thesprotian styled, and that strange thing\n  And marvel past belief, the prophet-oaks\n  That syllable his speech), thou by their tongues,\n  With clear acclaim and unequivocal,\n  Wert thus saluted\u2014_Hail, O bride of Zeus\n  That art to be_\u2014hast memory thereof?\n  Thence, stung anew with frenzy, thou didst hie\n  Along the shoreward track, to Rhea\u2019s lap,\n  The mighty main; then, stormily distraught,\n  Backward again and eastward.  To all time,\n  Be well assured, that inlet of the sea\n  All mortal men shall call Ionian,\n  In memory that Io fared thereby.\n  Take this for proof and witness that my mind\n  Hath more in ken than ever sense hath shown.\n                                          (_To the_ CHORUS)\n  That which remains, to you and her alike\n  I will relate, and, to my former words\n  Reverting, add this final prophecy.\n                                             (_To_ Io)\n  There lieth, at the verge of land and sea,\n  Where Nilus issues thro\u2019 the silted sand,\n  A town, Canopus called: and there at length\n  Shall Zeus renew the reason in thy brain\n  With the mere touch and contact of his hand\n  Fraught now with fear no more: and thou shalt bear\n  A child, dark Epaphus\u2014his very name\n  Memorial of Zeus\u2019 touch that gave him life.\n  And his shall be the foison and the fruit\n  Of all the land enriched by spreading Nile.\n  Thence the fifth generation of his seed\n  Back unto Argos, yet unwillingly,\n  Shall flee for refuge\u2014fifty maidens they,\n  Loathing a wedlock with their next in blood,\n  More kin than kind, from their sire\u2019s brother sprung.\n  And on their track, astir with wild desire,\n  Like falcons fierce closing on doves that flee,\n  Shall speed the suitors, craving to achieve\n  A prey forbidden, a reluctant bride.\n  Yet power divine shall foil them, and forbid\n  Possession of the maids, whom Argive land\n  Shall hold protected, when unsleeping hate,\n  Horror, and watchful ambush of the night,\n  Have laid the suitors dead, by female hands.\n  For every maid shall smite a man to death,\n  Dyeing a dagger\u2019s edges in his throat\u2014\n  Such bed of love befall mine enemies!\n  Yet in one bride shall yearning conquer hate,\n  Bidding her spare the bridegroom at her side,\n  Blunting the keen edge of her set resolve.\n  Thus of two scorns the former shall she choose,\n  The name of coward, not of murderess.\n  In Argos shall she bear, in after time,\n  A royal offspring.  Long it were to tell\n  In clear succession all that thence shall be.\n  Take this for sooth\u2014in lineage from her\n  A hero shall arise, an archer great,\n  And he shall be my saviour from these woes.\n  Such knowledge of the future Themis gave,\n  The ancient Titaness, to me her son.\n  But how, and by what skill, \u2019twere long to say,\n  And no whit will the knowledge profit thee.\n\nIO.\n  O woe, O rending and convulsive pain,\n  Frenzy and agony, again, again\n      Searing my heart and brain!\n  O dagger of the sting, unforged with fire\n  Yet burning, burning ever!  O my heart,\n  Pulsing with horror, beating at my breast!\n  O rolling maddened eyes! away, apart,\n      Raving with anguish dire,\n  I spring, by frenzy-fiends possest.\n  O wild and whirling words, that sweep in gloom\n      Down to dark waves of doom!\n\n [_Exit IO._]\n\nCHORUS.\n  O well and sagely was it said\u2014\n    Yea, wise of heart was he who first\n    Gave forth in speech the thought he nursed\u2014\n  _In thine own order see thou wed!_\n\n  Let not the humble heart aspire\n    To the gross home of wealth and pride;\n    Nor be it to a hearth allied\n  That vaunts of many a noble sire.\n\n  O Fates, of awful empery!\n    Never may I by Zeus be wooed\u2014\n    Never give o\u2019er my maidenhood\n  To any god that dwells on high.\n\n  A shudder to my soul is sent,\n    Beholding Io\u2019s doom forlorn\u2014\n    By Hera\u2019s malice put to scorn,\n  Roaming in mateless banishment.\n\n  From wedlock\u2019s crown of fair desire\n    I would not shrink\u2014an idle fear!\n    But may no god to me draw near\n  With shunless might and glance of fire!\n\n  That were a strife wherein no chance\n    Of conquest lies: from Zeus most high\n    And his resolve, no subtlety\n  Could win me my deliverance.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  And yet shall Zeus, for all his stubborn pride,\n  Be brought to low estate! aha, he schemes\n  Such wedlock as shall bring his doom on him,\n  Flung from his kingship to oblivion\u2019s lap!\n  Ay, then the curse his father Cronos spake\n  As he fell helpless from his agelong throne,\n  Shall be fulfilled unto the utterance!\n  No god but I can manifest to him\n  A rescue from such ruin as impends\u2014\n  I know it, I, and how it may be foiled.\n  Go to, then, let him sit and blindly trust\n  His skyey rumblings, for security,\n  And wave his levin with its blast of flame!\n  All will avail him not, nor bar his fall\n  Down to dishonour vile, intolerable\n  So strong a wrestler is he moulding now\n  To his own proper downfall\u2014yea, a shape\n  Portentous and unconquerably huge,\n  Who truly shall reveal a flame more strong\n  Than is the lightning, and a crash of sound\n  More loud than thunder, and shall dash to nought\n  Poseidon\u2019s trident-spear, the ocean-bane\n  That makes the firm earth quiver.  Let Zeus strike\n  Once on this rock, he speedily shall learn\n  How far the fall from power to slavery!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Beware! thy wish doth challenge Zeus himself.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  I voice my wish and its fulfilment too.\n\nCHORUS.\n  What, dare we look for one to conquer Zeus?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay\u2014Zeus shall wear more painful bonds than mine\n\nCHORUS.\n  Darest thou speak such taunts and tremble not?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Why should I fear, who am immortal too?\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yet he might doom thee to worse agony.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Out on his dooming! I foreknow it all.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Yet do the wise revere Necessity.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay, ay\u2014do reverence, cringe and crouch to power\n  Whene\u2019er, where\u2019er thou see it! But, for me,\n  I reck of Zeus as something less than nought.\n  Let him put forth his power, attest his sway,\n  Howe\u2019er he will\u2014a momentary show,\n  A little brief authority in heaven!\n  Aha, I see out yonder one who comes,\n  A bidden courier, truckling at Zeus\u2019 nod,\n  A lacquey in his new lord\u2019s livery,\n  Surely on some fantastic errand sped!\n\n Enter HERMES.\n\nHERMES.\n  Thou, double-dyed in gall of bitterness,\n  Trickster and sinner against gods, by giving\n  The stolen fire to perishable men!\n  Attend\u2014the Sire supreme doth bid thee tell\n  What is the wedlock which thou vauntest now,\n  Whereby he falleth from supremacy?\n  Speak forth the whole, make all thine utterance clear,\n  Have done with words inscrutable, nor cause\n  To me, Prometheus! any further toil\n  Or twofold journeying. Go to\u2014thou seest\n  Zeus doth not soften at such words as thine!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Pompous, in sooth, thy word, and swoln with pride,\n  As doth befit the lacquey of thy lords!\n  O ye young gods! how, in your youthful sway,\n  Ye deem secure your citadels of sky,\n  Beyond the reach of sorrow or of fall!\n  Have I not seen two dynasties of gods\n  Already flung therefrom? and soon shall see\n  A third, that now in tyranny exults,\n  Shamed, ruined, in an hour! What sayest thou?\n  Crouch I and tremble at these stripling powers?\n  Small homage unto such from me, or none!\n  Betake thee hence, sweat back along thy road\u2014\n  Look for no answer from me, get thee gone!\n\nHERMES.\n  Think\u2014it was such audacities of will\n  That drove thee erst to anchorage in woe!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ay\u2014but mark this: mine heritage of pain\n  I would not barter for thy servitude.\n\nHERMES.\n  Better, forsooth, be bond-slave to a crag,\n  Than true-born herald unto Zeus the Sire!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Take thine own coin\u2014taunts for a taunting slave!\n\nHERMES.\n  Proud art thou in thy circumstance, methinks!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Proud? in such pride then be my foemen set,\n  And I to see\u2014and of such foes art thou!\n\nHERMES.\n  What, blam\u2019st thou me too for thy sufferings?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Mark a plain word\u2014I loathe all gods that are,\n  Who reaped my kindness and repay with wrong.\n\nHERMES.\n  I hear no little madness in thy words.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Madness be mine, if scorn of foes be mad.\n\nHERMES.\n  Past bearing were thy pride, in happiness.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Ah me!\n\nHERMES.\n  Zeus knoweth nought of sorrow\u2019s cry!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  He shall! Time\u2019s lapse bringeth all lessons home.\n\nHERMES.\n  To thee it brings not yet discretion\u2019s curb.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  No\u2014else I had not wrangled with a slave!\n\nHERMES.\n  Then thou concealest all that Zeus would learn?\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  As though I owed him aught and should repay!\n\nHERMES.\n  Scornful thy word, as though I were a child\u2014\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Child, ay\u2014or whatsoe\u2019er hath less of brain\u2014\n  Thou, deeming thou canst wring my secret out!\n  No mangling torture, no, nor sleight of power\n  There is, by which he shall compel my speech,\n  Until these shaming bonds be loosed from me.\n  So, let him fling his blazing levin-bolt!\n  Let him with white and winged flakes of snow,\n  And rumbling earthquakes, whelm and shake the world!\n  For nought of this shall bend me to reveal\n  The power ordained to hurl him from his throne.\n\nHERMES.\n  Bethink thee if such words can mend thy lot.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  All have I long foreseen, and all resolved.\n\nHERMES.\n  Perverse of will! constrain, constrain thy soul\n  To think more wisely in the grasp of doom!\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Truce to vain words! as wisely wouldst thou strive\n  To warn a swelling wave: imagine not\n  That ever I before thy lord\u2019s resolve\n  Will shrink in womanish terror, and entreat,\n  As with soft suppliance of female hands,\n  The Power I scorn unto the utterance,\n  To loose me from the chains that bind me here\u2014\n  A world\u2019s division \u2019twixt that thought and me!\n\nHERMES.\n  So, I shall speak, whate\u2019er I speak, in vain!\n  No prayer can melt or soften thy resolve;\n  But, as a colt new-harnessed champs the bit,\n  Thou strivest and art restive to the rein.\n  But all too feeble is the stratagem\n  In which thou art so confident: for know\n  That strong self-will is weak and less than nought\n  In one more proud than wise. Bethink thee now\u2014\n  If these my words thou shouldest disregard\u2014\n  What storm, what might as of a great third wave\n  Shall dash thy doom upon thee, past escape!\n  First shall the Sire, with thunder and the flame\n  Of lightning, rend the crags of this ravine,\n  And in the shattered mass o\u2019erwhelm thy form,\n  Immured and morticed in a clasping rock.\n  Thence, after age on age of durance done,\n  Back to the daylight shall thou come, and there\n  The eagle-hound of Zeus, red-ravening, fell\n  With greed, shall tatter piecemeal all thy flesh\n  To shreds and ragged vestiges of form\u2014\n  Yea, an unbidden guest, a day-long bane,\n  That feeds, and feeds\u2014yea, he shall gorge his fill\n  On blackened fragments, from thy vitals gnawed.\n  Look for no respite from that agony\n  Until some other deity be found,\n  Ready to bear for thee the brunt of doom,\n  Choosing to pass into the lampless world\n  Of Hades and the murky depths of hell.\n  Hereat, advise thee! \u2019tis no feigned threat\n  Whereof I warn thee, but an o\u2019er-true tale.\n  The lips of Zeus know nought of lying speech,\n  But wreak in action all their words foretell.\n  Therefore do thou look warily, and deem\n  Prudence a better saviour than self-will.\n\nCHORUS.\n  Meseems that Hermes speaketh not amiss,\n  Bidding thee leave thy wilfulness and seek\n  The wary walking of a counselled mind.\n  Give heed! to err through anger shames the wise.\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  All, all I knew, whate\u2019er his tongue\n  In idle arrogance hath flung.\n  \u2019Tis the world\u2019s way, the common lot\u2014\n  Foe tortures foe and pities not.\n  Therefore I challenge him to dash\n  His bolt on me, his zigzag flash\n    Of piercing, rending flame!\n  Now be the welkin stirred amain\n  With thunder-peal and hurricane,\n  And let the wild winds now displace\n  From its firm poise and rooted base\n    The stubborn earthly frame!\n  The raging sea with stormy surge\n  Rise up and ravin and submerge\n    Each high star-trodden way!\n  Me let him lift and dash to gloom\n  Of nether hell, in whirls of doom!\n  Yet\u2014do he what extremes he may\u2014\n  He cannot crush my life away!\n\nHERMES.\n  Such are the counsels, such the strain,\n  Heard from wild lips and frenzied brain!\n  In word or thought, how fails his fate\n  Of madness wild and desperate?\n                                          (_To the_ CHORUS)\n  But ye, who stand compassionate\n  Here at his side, depart in haste!\n  Lest of his penalty ye taste,\n  And shattered brain and reason feel\n  The roaring, ruthless thunder-peal!\n\nCHORUS.\n  Out on thee! if thy heart be fain\n  I should obey thee, change thy strain!\n  Vile is thine hinted cowardice,\n  And loathed of me thy base advice,\n    Weakly to shrink from pain!\n  Nay, at his side, whate\u2019er befall,\n  I will abide, endure it all!\n  Among all things abhorr\u2019d, accurst,\n  I hold betrayers for the worst!\n\nHERMES.\n  Nay, ye are warned! remember well\u2014\n  Nor cry, when meshed in nets of hell,\n  _Ah cruel fate, ah Zeus unkind\u2014\n  Thus, by a sentence undivined,\n  To dash us to the realms below!_\n  It is no sudden, secret blow\u2014\n  Nay, ye achieve your proper woe\u2014\n  Warn\u2019d and foreknowing shall ye go,\n  Through your own folly trapped and ta\u2019en,\n  Into the net the Fates ordain\u2014\n  The vast, illimitable pain!\n\n [_Thunder and lightning._]\n\nPROMETHEUS.\n  Hark! for no more in empty word,\n  But in sheer sooth, the world is stirred!\n  The massy earth doth heave and sway,\n  And thro\u2019 their dark and secret way\n    The cavern\u2019d thunders boom!\n  See, how they gleam athwart the sky,\n    The lightnings, through the gloom!\n  And whirlwinds roll the dust on high,\n  And right and left the storm-clouds leap\n  To battle in the skyey deep,\n  In wildest uproar unconfined,\n  An universe of warring wind!\n  And falling sky and heaving sea\n  Are blent in one! on me, on me,\n  Nearer and ever yet more near,\n  Flaunting its pageantry of fear,\n  Drives down in might its destined road\n  The tempest of the wrath of God!\n  O holy Earth, O mother mine!\n  O Sky, that biddest speed along\n  Thy vault the common Light divine,\u2014\n    Be witness of my wrong!\n\n [_The rocks are rent with fire and earthquake, and fall, burying\n PROMETHEUS in the ruins._]","title":"Four Plays of Aeschylus","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":40734}