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Rh and pray that their pursuers may be overwhelmed in the sea, and never reach the shores of Argos. And now they have reached the orchestra, and dividing into ranks and companies, they range themselves about the altar, there to sing, no longer to the music of a march, but in more varied strains, their prayers and lamentations. Just as Prometheus compares his sufferings with those of Atlas and Typhon, so these maidens compare themselves to Tereus' bride, the piteous nightingale:—

In their appeals to Zeus, here and throughout the play, the suppliants assert the sublimest truths about the one supreme God. The mystery that shrouds His ways and the certainty of His justice are their favourite themes:—

"For dark and shadowed o'er

The pathways of the counsels of His heart,

And difficult to see.

And from high towering hopes He hurleth down

To utter doom the heir of mortal birth: