Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/218

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A very solemn piece of insolence

Spoken like an underling of the Gods! Ye are young!

Ye are young! New come to power! And ye suppose

Your towered citadel Calamity

Can never enter! Ah, and have not I

Seen from those pinnacles the two-fold fall

Of tyrants? And the third, who his brief 'now'

Of lordship arrogates, I shall see yet

By lapse most swift, most ignominious,

Sink to perdition. And dost thou suppose

I crouch and cower in reverence and awe

To Gods of yesterday? I fail of that

So much, the total all of space and time

Bulks in between. Take thyself hence and count

Thy toiling steps back by the way thou camest,

In nothing wiser for thy questionings.

This is that former stubborness of thine

That brought thee hither to foul anchorage.

Mistake me not; I would not, if I might,

Change my misfortunes for thy vassalage.

Oh! better be the vassal of this rock

Than born the trusty messenger of Zeus!

I answer insolence, as it deserves,

With insolence. How else should it be answered?

Surely;—and, being in trouble, it is plain

You revel in your plight.