Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/176

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She, as herself relates, a dragon bare.

And what the scope, the issue, of the tale?

In swathing-clothes she moored it as a child.

What nurture might the new-born horror crave?

She, in her dream, herself held forth the breast.

How by the pest the nipple then unscathed?

With nurture-milk it sucked the clotted blood.

Not vain the dream but by her husband sent;—

In terror shrieked she, waking up from sleep,

And many torches, in the darkness quenched,

Gleamed through the palace in our mistress' aid;

Libations to the tomb forthwith she sends

Devising for her woe a sovereign cure.

I to this earth and to my father's tomb

Pray that this dream be consummate in me.

And as I read it, sooth, it tallies well.