Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/195

Rh Wherewith they now are armed against disease.

I staked the windings path of divination

And was the first distinguisher of dreams,

The true from false; and voices ominous

Of meaning dark interpreted; and tokens

Seen when men take the road; and augury

By flight of all the greater crook-clawed birds

With nice discrimination I defined;

These, by their nature fair and favourable,

Those, flattered with fair name. And of each sort

The habits I described; their mutual feuds

And friendships and the assemblages they hold.

And of the plumpness of the inward parts

What colour is acceptable to the Gods,

The well-streaked liver-lobe and gall-bladder.

Also by roasting limbs well wrapped in fat

And the long chine, I led men on the road

Of dark and riddling knowledge; and I purged

The glancing eye of fire, dim before,

And made its meaning plain. These are my works.

Then, things beneath the earth, aids hid from man,

Brass, iron, silver, gold, who dares to say

He was before me in discovering?

None, I wot well, unless he loves to babble.

And in a single word to sum the whole,—

All manner of arts men from Prometheus learned.

Shoot not beyond the mark in succouring man

While thou thyself art comfortless: for I

Am of good hope that from these bonds escaped

Thou shalt one day be mightier than Zeus.