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vv. 189–215.

Parched and seas impassable

Fate on that Greek army fell,

Fronting Chalcis as it lay,

By Aulis in the swirling bay.

(Till at last Calchas answered that Artemis was wroth and demanded the death of daughter. The King's doubt and grief.)

And winds, winds blew from Strymon River,

Unharboured, starving, winds of waste endeavour,

Man-blinding, pitiless to cord and bulwark,

And the waste of days was made long, more long,

Till the flower of Argos was aghast and withered;

Then through the storm rose the War-seer's song,

And told of medicine that should tame the tempest,

But bow the Princes to a direr wrong.

Then "Artemis" he whispered, he named the name;

And the brother Kings they shook in the hearts of them,

And smote on the earth their staves, and the tears came.

But the King, the elder, hath found voice and spoken:

"A heavy doom, sure, if God's will were broken;

But to slay mine own child, who my house delighteth,

Is that not heavy? That her blood should flow

On her father's hand, hard beside an altar?

My path is sorrow wheresoe'er I go.

Shall Agamemnon fail his ships and people,

And the hosts of Hellas melt as melts the snow?

They cry, they thirst, for a death that shall break the spell,