Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/154

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Content thee! Therefore have I filed my mind;

And words are not the stuff to dull its edge.

To win is all: get glory he who can:

The victory won wins God's acknowledgment.

He who girds on his armour owes no love

To that wise saw.

And yet the greater fault—

To lay rash hands upon thy brother's life

And with those crimson juices stain thy soul—

Mislikes thee not!

Sin may be thrust upon us:

Evil when Heaven sends it, who shall shun?

[Exit.

By this cold shuddering fit of fear

My heart divines a presence here,

Goddess or Ghost yclept;

Wrecker of homes, and dark adept

Of prophecy, whose vastitude of ill

This hour and all hours shall at last fulfil.

Thou Curse that from the gloom

Of nether Hell

A Sire invoked; implacable

Erinys, whom in fierce excess of wrath

Grief-maddened Œdipus did summon forth,

Thou'rt in this strife to work his children's doom.