Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/119

Rh Sweet life, unmarred by tears, is thine:

But me awaits the double-edgèd blade.

Whence hast thou these prophetic throes,

Rushing athwart thy soul, in vain?

Why body forth in dismal strain,

Blent with shrill cries, these direful woes?

Whence cometh thus to vex thy soul

Of prophecy the dark, ill-omened goal?

Oh, nuptial rite, oh, nuptial rite,

Of Paris, fraught with doom!

Scamander! whence my fathers drank,

Nourished of yore upon thy bank,

I throve in youthful bloom.

Me now Cocytos and the streams of night

To augur on their dismal shores invite.

What thought hast uttered all too clear?

An infant might interpret here.

Smitten within am I with gory sting,

The while thy bird-like cry to hear

My heart doth wring.

Oh deadly coil, oh, deadly coil

Of Ilion, doomed to fall!

Alas, the flower-cropping kine

Slain by my father at the shrine