Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/441

Rh Then yielding to such Loxian Oracles,

He drave me forth, and barred me from his home,

Against his will and mine; but, forcefully,

The curb of Zeus constrained him this to do.

Forthwith my shape and mind distorted were,

And horned, as ye behold me, goaded on

By gad-fly, keen of fang, with frenzied bounds

I to Kerchneias' limpid current rush'd,

And fount of Lerna. Then the earth-born herdsman,

Hot-tempered Argos, ever dogged my steps,

Gazing upon me with his myriad eyes.

But him a sudden and unlooked-for fate

Did reave of life; but I, brize-tortured, still

Before the scourge divine am driven on

From land to land; the past thou hearest; now

If thou canst tell my future toils, say on,

Nor, pity-moved, soothe me with lying tales,

For garbled words, I hold, are basest ills.

Alas! Alas! Let be!

Never, oh never, had I thought

That words with such strange meaning fraught

Would reach mine ear,

Nor that such horrors, woes, such cruel ill,