Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/212

182 It skilled not: the unsleeping bolt of Zeus,

The downward levin with its rush of flame,

Smote on him, and made dumb for evermore

The clamour of his vaunting: to the heart

Stricken he lay, and all that mould of strength

Sank thunder-shattered to a smouldering ash;

And helpless now and laid in ruin huge

He lieth by the narrow strait of sea,

Crushed at the root of Etna's mountain-pile.

High on the pinnacles whereof there sits

Hephaestus, sweltering at the forge; and thence

On some hereafter day shall burst and stream

The lava-floods, that shall with ravening fangs

Gnaw thy smooth lowlands, fertile Sicily!

Such ire shall Typho from his living grave

Send seething up, such jets of fiery surge,

Hot and unslaked, altho' himself be laid

In quaking ashes by Zeus' thunderbolt.

But thou dost know hereof, nor needest me

To school thy sense: thou knowest safety's road—

Walk then thereon! I to the dregs will drain,

Till Zeus relent from wrath, my present woe.

Nay, but, Prometheus, know'st thou not the saw—

Words can appease the angry soul's disease?

Ay—if in season one apply their salve,

Not scorching wrath's proud flesh with caustic tongue.

But in wise thought and venturous essay

Perceivest thou a danger? prithee tell!