Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/179

Rh Look down upon my shame,

The cruel wrong that racks my frame,

The grinding anguish that shall waste my strength,

Till time's ten thousand years have measured out their length!

He hath devised these chains,

The new throned potentate who reigns,

Chief of the chieftains of the Blest. Ah me!

The woe which is and that which yet shall be

I wail; and question make of these wide skies

When shall the star of my deliverance rise.

And yet—and yet—exactly I foresee

All that shall come to pass; no sharp surprise

Of pain shall overtake me; what's determined

Bear, as I can, I must, knowing the might

Of strong Necessity is unconquerable.

But touching my fate silence and speech alike

Are unsupportable. For boons bestowed

On mortal men I am straitened in these bonds.

I sought the fount of fire in hollow reed

Hid privily, a measureless resource

For man, and mighty teacher of all arts.

This is the crime that I must expiate

Hung here in chains, nailed 'neath the open sky.

Ha! Ha!

What echo, what odour floats by with no sound?

God-wafted or mortal or mingled its strain?

Comes there one to this world's end, this mountain-girt ground,

To have sight of my torment? Or of what is he fain?