Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/284

214

Whirls it along, snapping the yoke asunder.

Prone falls my son, and close at hand his sire,

Darius, pitying stands, whom when he sees,

The robes about his person Xerxes rends.

Such was, I say, my vision of the night.

When I arose and with my hands had touched

Fountain clear-flowing, I the altar neared

With sacrificial hand, wishing to pay

To the averting gods, to whom belong

Such rites, oblations; forthwith I behold

An eagle fleeing straight to Phœbos' hearth.

Speechless I stood through terror, friends; anon,

A kite I see borne forward on swift wing,

Tearing with talons fierce the eagle's head;

Meanwhile the eagle nothing did but cower,

His body tamely yielding to the foe.

Dreadful these portents are to me who saw

And you who hear: for well ye know, my son,

If victor, were a man with glory crowned,

Yet worsted, to the state gives no account,

And saved, he none the less this realm will sway.

Thee neither would we, mother, o'erfrighten by our words,

Nor yet too much encourage; but, prayerful, seek the gods;

If aught hast seen of evil, that pray them to avert,

But for thyself and children, the state, and all thy friends,