Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/215

Rh Therefore, grave mistresses of fate, I pray

That I may never live to see the day

When Zeus takes me for his bedfellow; or I

Draw near in love to husband from on high.

For I am full of fear when I behold

Io, the maid no human love may fold,

And her virginity disconsolate,

Homeless and husbandless by Hera's hate.

For me, when love is level, fear is far.

May none of all the Gods that greater are

Eye me with his unshunnable regard;

For in that warfare victory is hard,

And of that plenty cometh emptiness.

What should befall me then I dare not guess;

Nor whither I should flee that I might shun

The craft and subtlety of Cronos' Son.

I tell thee that the self-willed pride of Zeus

Shall surely be abased; that even now

He plots a marriage that shall hurl him forth

Far out of sight of his imperial throne

And kingly dignity. Then, in that hour,

Shall be fulfilled, nor in one tittle fail,

The curse wherewith his father Cronos cursed him,

What time he fell from his majestic place

Established from of old. And such a stroke

None of the Gods save me could turn aside.

I know these things shall be and on what wise.

Therefore let him, secure him in his seat,

And put his trust in, airy noise, and swing

His bright, two-handed, blazing thunderbolt,

For these shall nothing stead him, nor avert