Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/364

294 Since foe will foe confront, while on their shields

They into conflict bring two hostile gods.

For Typhon, breathing fire, the one doth bear,

While Father Zeus upon Hyperbios' shield

Sits, firmly throned, wielding his fiery bolt;

But Zeus defeated no one yet hath seen.

Such on each side the friendship of the gods;

We with the victors, with the vanquish'd they.

Thus will it with the mortal champions fare,

If Zeus than Typhon stronger be in fight;

And to Hyperbios, as the legend reads

Set on his shield, a saviour Zeus will prove.

Firm is my trust that he

The hateful form who beareth on his shield

Of earth-born deity,

Adverse to Zeus, to men a shape of dread

And to the long-lived gods, prone in the field,

Before our gate shall fling his own proud head.

Such be the issue! At the northern gates

The fifth is marshalled, near the tomb which holds

Zeus-born Amphīon. By his spear he swears,

Which more than God he honours, or his eyes,

That the Cadmeian's stronghold he will spoil,

Despite of Zeus. So speaks the stripling hero,

Scion fair-faced of mother mountain-reared;

Over his cheek spreadeth the tender down,