Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/125

Rh

By nevermore assailing Grecian lands,

Even tho' our Median force be double theirs—

For the land's self protects its denizens.

How meanest thou? by what defensive power?

She wastes by famine a too countless foe.

But we will bring a host more skilled than huge.

Why, e'en that army, camped in Hellas still,

Shall never win again to home and weal!

How say'st thou? will not all the Asian host

Pass back from Europe over Helle's ford?

Nay—scarce a tithe of all those myriads,

If man may trust the oracles of Heaven

When he beholds the things already wrought,

Not false with true, but true with no word false

If what I trow be truth, my son has left

A chosen rear-guard of our host, in whom

He trusts, now, with a random confidence!

They tarry where Asopus laves the ground