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134 134 AESCHYLUS

If the Fate who hath bound him should loose not the links, 1250

He were utterly mad. Then depart ye who groan with him, Leaving to moan with him ; Go in haste ! lest the roar of the thunder anearing Should blast you to idiocy, living and hearing. 12.55 Chorus. Change thy speech for another, thy thought

for a new. If to move me and teach me indeed be thy care ; For thy words swerve so far from the loyal and true That the thunder of Zeus seems more easy to bear. How ! couldst teach me to venture such vileness ? be- hold ! 1260 I choose with this victim this anguish foretold ! I recoil from the traitor in haste and disdain, And I know that the curse of the treason is worse Than the pang of the chain. Hermes. Then remember, Ο nymphs, what I tell you before, 1265 Nor, when pierced by the arrows that Ate ^ will throw you. Cast blame on your fate, and declare evermore

That Zeus thrust you on anguish he did not fore- show you. Nay, verily, nay ! for ye perish anon

For your deed, by your choice. By no blindness

of doubt, 1270

No abruptness of doom, but by madness alone, In the great net of Ate, whence none cometh out, Ye are wound and undone. [Exit Hermes.

^ The goddess of blind infatuation and hence of ruin.