Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/453

Rh Sharing his couch who reigns above,

Or joined with son of heaven in ties of love!

For filled with dread am I to see

Io's love-shunning virgin-state,

Consumed in wanderings dire through Hera's hate.

Wedlock, when equal-yoked, to me

Nought dreadful seemeth, terror-free.

But ne'er may mighty god, with eye of love,

Escape forbidding, mark me from above.

A battle to be fought by none,

Fruitful of fruitless woe, were this;

Nor can I see the end;—for well I wis,

The deep designs of Zeus I may not shun.

Yea verily shall Zeus, though stubborn-souled,

Be humbled yet; such marriage he prepares

Which from his throne of power to nothingness

Shall hurl him down; so shall be all fulfilled

His father Kronos' curse, which erst he spake

What time he fell from his primeval throne.

From such disasters none of all the gods

To Zeus escape can show, save I alone;

I know it and the way. Let him then sit

Fearless, confiding in supernal thunder,

The bolt, fire-breathing, wielding in his hands;

For these shall not avail, but fall he shall,