Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/122

52

Ay, to the townsmen all their woes I spelled.

How then by wrath of Loxias unharmed?

No credence won I after this offence.

To us thy oracles seem all too true.

Woe! woe! alas! alas! ye miseries!

Of faithful augury the direful toil

Racks me once more, with bodeful preludings

Vexing my soul.—Seated within these halls,

See, tender boys, like dreamy phantoms; children,

As by their dear ones done to death, their hands

Filled with their proper flesh, for nutriment;

Their heart and vitals,—loathsome, piteous, meal,—

Look, how they hold,—their sire has tasted, look!

For these, I say, vengeance devising, waits

A dastard lion, wallowing in bed;

House-warden, sooth, to him that's come, my master,

For the slave's yoke, alas! I needs must bear.

The naval leader, leveller of Troy,

He knows not that the fell she-dog, whose tongue

Spoke words of guileful welcome, long drawn out,

Like lurking Atè, will achieve his doom.

Such things she dares; the female slays the male!