Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/423

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Have now these short-lived creatures flame-eyed fire?

Ay, and by it full many arts will learn.

Upon such charges doth Zeus outrage thee,

Nor aught abateth of thy miseries?

To this dire struggle is no term assigned?

No other but what seemeth good to him.

How may this be? What hope? Seest thou not

That thou hast erred? But in what way hast erred,

That to unfold,—while me it gladdens not,

To thee is pain. Forbear we then this theme;

But from this struggle seek thou some escape.

Whoso his foot holdeth unmesh'd of harm,

For him 'tis easy to exhort and warn

One sorely plagued. But this I all foreknew;

Of will, free will, I erred, nor will gainsay it.

Mortals abetting I myself found bale;

Not that I thought, with penalties like these,

To wither thus against sky-piercing rocks,

Doom'd to this drear and solitary height.

But ye, no further wail my present woes,

But, on the ground alighting, hear from me