Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/211

Rh And now, let be! make this no care of thine,

For Zeus is past persuasion—urge him not!

Look to thyself, lest thine emprise thou rue.

Thou hast more skill to school thy neighbour's fault

Than to amend thine own: 'tis proved and plain,

By fact, not hearsay, that I read this well.

Yet am I fixed to go—withhold me not—

Assured I am, assured, that Zeus will grant

The boon I crave, the loosening of thy bonds.

In part I praise thee, to the end will praise;

Goodwill thou lackest not, but yet forbear

Thy further trouble! If thy heart be fain,

Bethink thee that thy toil avails me not.

Nay, rest thee well, aloof from danger's brink!

I will not ease my woe by base relief

In knowing others too involved therein.

Away the thought! for deeply do I rue

My brother Atlas' doom. Far off he stands

In sunset land, and on his shoulder bears

The pillar'd mountain-mass whose base is earth,

Whose top is heaven, and its ponderous load

Too great for any grasp. With pity too

I saw Earth's child, the monstrous thing of war,

That in Cilicia's hollow places dwelt—

Typho; I saw his hundred-headed form

Crushed and constrained; yet once his stride was fierce,

His jaws gaped horror and their hiss was death,

And all heaven's host he challenged to the fray,

While, as one vowed to storm the power of Zeus,

Forth from his eyes he shot a demon glare.