Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/193

Rh Bellows the main of waters, surge with foam-seethed surge

Clashing tumultuous; for thee the deep seas chant their dirge;

And Hell's dark under-world a hollow moaning fills;

Thee mourn the sacred streams with all their fountain-rills.

Think not that I for pride and stubbornness

Am silent: rather is my heart the prey

Of gnawing thoughts, both for the past, and now

Seeing myself by vengeance buffeted.

For to these younger Gods their precedence

Who severally determined if not I?

No more of that: I should but weary you

With things ye know; but listen to the tale

Of human sufferings, and how at first

Senseless as beasts I gave men sense, possessed them

Of mind. I speak not in contempt of man;

I do but tell of good gifts I conferred.

In the beginning, seeing they saw amiss,

And hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled

In dreams, the perplexed story of their days

Confounded; knowing neither timber-work

Nor brick-built dwellings basking in the light,

But dug for themselves holes, wherein like ants,

That hardly may contend against a breath,

They dwelt in burrows of their unsunned caves.

Neither of winter's cold had they fix'd sign,

Nor of the spring when she comes decked with flowers,

Nor yet of summer's heat with melting fruits

Sure token: but utterly without knowledge