Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/126

96 With rills that softly bless Boeotia's plain—

There is it fated for them to endure

The very crown of misery and doom,

Requital for their god-forgetting pride!

For why? they raided Hellas, had the heart

To wrong the images of holy gods,

And give the shrines and temples to the flame!

Defaced and dashed from sight the altars fell,

And each god's image, from its pedestal

Thrust and flung down, in dim confusion lies!

Therefore, for outrage vile, a doom as dark

They suffer, and yet more shall undergo—

They touch no bottom in the swamp of doom,

But round them rises, bubbling up, the ooze!

So deep shall lie the gory clotted mass

Of corpses by the Dorian spear transfixed

Upon Plataea's field! yea, piles of slain

To the third generation shall attest

By silent eloquence to those that see—

Let not a mortal vaunt him overmuch.

For pride grows rankly, and to ripeness brings

The curse of fate, and reaps, for harvest, tears!

Therefore when ye behold, for deeds like these,

Such stern requital paid, remember then

Athens and Hellas. Let no mortal wight,

Holding too lightly of his present weal

And passionate for more, cast down and spill

The mighty cup of his prosperity!

Doubt not that over-proud and haughty souls

Zeus lours in wrath, exacting the accompt.

Therefore, with wary warning, school my son,

Though he be lessoned by the gods already,

To curb the vaunting that affronts high Heaven!

And thou, O venerable Mother-queen,

Beloved of Xerxes, to the palace pass