Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/232

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Nay! of the two, vouchsafe her wish to her

And mine to me, deigning a truth to each—

To her, reveal her future wanderings—

To me, thy future saviour, as I crave!

I will not set myself to thwart your will

Withholding aught of what ye crave to know.

First to thee, Io, will I tell and trace

Thy scared circuitous wandering—mark it well,

Deep in retentive tablets of the soul.

When thou hast overpast the ferry's flow

That sunders continent from continent,

Straight to the eastward and the flaming face

Of dawn, and highways trodden by the sun,

Pass, till thou come unto the windy land

Of daughters born to Boreas: beware

Lest the strong spirit of the stormy blast

Snatch thee aloft, and sweep thee to the void,

On wings of raving wintry hurricane!

Wend by the noisy tumult of the wave,

Until thou reach the Gorgon-haunted plains

Beside Cisthene. In that solitude

Dwell Phorcys' daughters, beldames worn with time,

Three, each swan-shapen, single-toothed, and all

Peering thro' shared endowment of one eye;

Never on them doth the sun shed his rays,

Never falls radiance of the midnight moon.

But, hard by these, their sisters, clad with wings,

Serpentine-curled, dwell, loathed of mortal men,—

The Gorgons!—he of men who looks on them

Shall gasp away his life. Of such fell guard

I bid thee to beware. Now, mark my words