Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/181

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(By woman's brain devised,)

The armèd chief who foemen scared,

Whom faithful lieges prized.

Dear is to me the unstained hearth, and dear

In woman's hand the unaudacious spear.

But first of woes in every clime,

The Lemnian is deplored;—

And still the most detested crime

As Lemnian is abhorred.

Branded with infamy by men,

The impious disappear;

For whom the righteous gods condemn,

No mortal dares revere.—

The lore which thus we chant in choral strain,

Say ye, doth Reason at her bar arraign?

Right through the lungs doth Justice' hand

Drive home the bitter steel;

The majesty of Zeus they dared withstand,

And to the ground, with reckless heel,

Trampled his high command.