Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/243

Rh That ever I before thy lord's resolve

Will shrink in womanish terror, and entreat,

As with soft suppliance of female hands,

The Power I scorn unto the utterance,

To loose me from the chains that bind me here—

A world's division 'twixt that thought and me!

So, I shall speak, whate'er I speak, in vain!

No prayer can melt or soften thy resolve;

But, as a colt new-harnessed champs the bit,

Thou strivest and art restive to the rein.

But all too feeble is the stratagem

In which thou art so confident: for know

That strong self-will is weak and less than nought

In one more proud than wise. Bethink thee now—

If these my words thou shouldest disregard—

What storm, what might as of a great third wave

Shall dash thy doom upon thee, past escape!

First shall the Sire, with thunder and the flame

Of lightning, rend the crags of this ravine,

And in the shattered mass o'erwhelm thy form,

Immured and morticed in a clasping rock.

Thence, after age on age of durance done,

Back to the daylight shalt thou come, and there

The eagle-hound of Zeus, red-ravening, fell

With greed, shall tatter piecemeal all thy flesh

To shreds and ragged vestiges of form—

Yea, an unbidden guest, a day-long bane,

That feeds, and feeds—yea, he shall gorge his fill

On blackened fragments, from thy vitals gnawed.

Look for no respite from that agony

Until some other deity be found,

Ready to bear for thee the brunt of doom,