Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/356

286 And progeny of Tethys. Hence we call,

Gods, on your guardian band;—

Into the powers outside our towers

Sending the coward's deadly fear,

Which fatuous casts the shield away,

Earn for these burghers glory. Hear,

Oh hear my shrill-voiced wailings and retain,

As Saviours of our State, your stedfast reign.

For sad it were, before its time

To hurl, enslaved, as booty of the spear,

A city famed of old, to Hades drear,

In crumbling ashes laid by Argive foe,

Through heaven's high will, in shameful overthrow;

That women old and virgins in their prime

Like horses by their hair be dragged, ah me,

Their robes around them rent, to slavery.

Waileth the city emptied of its store,

While captives, to destruction led

Lamenting, swell the mingled roar.

This heavy doom forebodingly I dread.

For maids whose bloom is at the full,

Before the rites the scarce ripe fruit that cull,