Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/214

184

Thy word is said to me in act to go:

For lo, my hippogriff with waving wings

Fans the smooth course of air, and fain is he

To rest his limbs within his ocean stall.

[Exit.

For the woe and the wreck and the doom, Prometheus, I utter my sighs;

O'er my cheek flows the fountain of tears from tender, compassionate eyes.

For stern and abhorred is the sway of Zeus on his self-sought throne,

And ruthless the spear of his scorn, to the gods of the days that are done.

And over the limitless earth goes up a disconsolate cry:

Ye were all so fair, and have fallen; so great, and your might has gone by!

So wails with a mighty lament the voice of the mortals, who dwell

In the Eastland, the home of the holy, for thee and the fate that befel;

And they of the Colchian land, the maidens whose arm is for war;

And the Scythian bowmen, who roam by the lake of Maeotis afar;

And the blossom of battling hordes, that flowers upon Caucasus' height,

With clashing of lances that pierce, and with clamour of swords that smite.

Strange is thy sorrow! one only I know who has suffered thy pain—