Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/228

198 The seaman's curse, to ships a stepmother!

Then at the jutting land, Cimmerian styled,

That screens the narrowing portal of the mere,

Thou shalt arrive; pass o'er it, brave at heart,

And ferry thee across Maeotis' ford.

So shall there be great rumour evermore,

In ears of mortals, of thy passage strange;

And Bosporos shall be that channel's name,

Because the ox-horned thing did pass thereby.

So, from the wilds of Europe wander'd o'er,

To Asia's continent thou com'st at last.

(To the )

And ye, what think ye? Seems he not, that lord

And tyrant of the gods, as tyrannous

Unto all other lives? A high god's lust

Constrained this mortal maid to roam the world!

(To )

Poor maid! a brutal wooer sure was thine!

For know that all which I have told thee now

Is scarce the prelude of thy woes to come.

Alas for me, alas!

Again thou criest, with a heifer's low.

What wilt thou do, learning thy future woes?

What, hast thou further sorrows for her ear?

Yea, a vext ocean of predestined pain.