Page:Four Plays of Aeschylus (Cookson).djvu/224

212 And these my words recall;

Neither blame Zeus that he hath sent

Sorrow no warning word forewent!

Ye labour for your fall

With your own hands! Not by surprise

Nor yet by stealth, but with clear eyes,

Knowing the thing ye do,

Ye walk into the yawning net

That for the feet of fools is set

And Ruin spreads for you.

[Exit.

The time is past for words; earth [sic]quakes

Sensibly: hark! pent thunder rakes

The depths, with bellowing din

Of echoes rolling ever nigher:

Lightnings shake out their locks of fire;

The dust cones dance and spin;

The skipping winds, as if possessed

By faction—north, south, east and west,

Puff at each other; sea

And sky are shook together: Lo!

The swing and fury of the blow

Wherewith Zeus smiteth me

Sweepeth apace, and, visibly,

To strike my heart with fear. See, see,

Earth, awful Mother! Air,

That shedd'st from the revolving sky

On all the light they see thee by,

What bitter wrongs I bear!

The scene closes with earthquake and thunder, in the midst of which and the  sink into the abyss.