Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/117

Rh Wilt in the bath thy wedded consort cheer?

How speak the issue? Soon it will be here;—

Hand after hand is lifted. Woe the while!

I comprehend her not; this mystic lore,

These blear-eyed oracles perplex me sore.

Woe! woe! Look! look! What see I there?

Is it, ye gods, a net of hell?

The wife herself, joint-slayer, is the snare.

Now o'er the accursed rite

Let the dread brood of Night,

Unglutted with the race, their chorus swell!

What Fury 'gainst this house doth summon? What,

The shriek to raise? Such utt'rance cheers me not.

Pallid through every vein

Blood to my heart doth run,

Which to the battle-slain

Quencheth life's sun;

But Atè comes amain.

Hold! hold! Woe! woe! The heifer there

Keep from the bull. In meshes fell

Of black-woofed garb entangled,—guileful snare,—

Catching,—she smites him dead;—

Prone in his watery bed

He falls. The laver's guileful doom I tell.