Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/146

116 Your waxing youth, was patient of the toil,

And cherished you on the land's gracious lap,

Alike to plant the hearth and bear the shield

In loyal service, for an hour like this.

Mark now! until to-day, luck rules our scale;

For we, though long beleaguered, in the main

Have with our sallies struck the foemen hard.

But now the seer, the feeder of the birds,

(Whose art unerring and prophetic skill

Of ear and mind divines their utterance

Without the lore of fire interpreted)

Foretelleth, by the mastery of his art,

That now an onset of Achaea's host

Is by a council of the night designed

To fall in double strength upon our walls.

Up and away, then, to the battlements,

The gates, the bulwarks! don your panoplies,

Array you at the breast-work, take your stand

On floorings of the towers, and with good heart

Stand firm for sudden sallies at the gates,

Nor hold too heinous a respect for hordes

Sent on you from afar: some god will guard!

I too, for shrewd espial of their camp,

Have sent forth scouts, and confidence is mine

They will not fail nor tremble at their task,

And, with their news, I fear no foeman's guile.

[Enter.

Eteocles, high king of Cadmus' folk,

I stand here with news certified and sure

From Argos' camp, things by myself descried.

Seven warriors yonder, doughty chiefs of might,

Into the crimsoned concave of a shield