Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (1908) Morshead.djvu/63

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O King of Kings, among the blest

Thou highest and thou happiest,

Listen and grant our prayer,

And, deeply loathing, thrust

Away from us the young men's lust,

And deeply drown

In azure waters, down and ever down,

Benches and rowers dark,

The fatal and perfidious bark!

Unto the maidens turn thy gracious care;

Think yet again upon the tale of fame,

How from the maiden loved of thee there sprung

Mine ancient line, long since in many a legend sung!

Remember, O remember, thou whose hand

Did Io by a touch to human shape reclaim.

For from this Argos erst our mother came

Driven hence to Egypt's land,

Yet sprung of Zeus we were, and hence our birth we claim.

And now have I roamed back

Unto the ancient track

Where Io roamed and pastured among flowers,

Watched o'er by Argus' eyes,

Through the lush grasses and the meadow bowers.

Thence, by the gadfly maddened, forth she flies

Unto far lands and alien peoples driven

And, following fate, through paths of foam and surge,

Sees, as she goes, the cleaving strait divide

Greece, from the Eastland riven.

And swift through Asian borders doth she urge

Her course, o'er Phrygian mountains' sheep-clipt side;