Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/458

388 No torture is there, no device whereby

Zeus shall persuade me to reveal these things

Before these woe-inflicting bonds be loosed.

Let then his blazing lightnings hurtle down;

With white-winged snow and earth-born thunderings

Let him in ruin whelm and mingle all;

For none of these shall bend my will to tell

By whom from empery he needs must fall.

Mark now if helpful this may seem to thee.

Of old my course was looked to and resolved.

Take heart, foolish one, take heart at length

To deal discreetly with these present ills.

Idly, as though a wave thou should'st exhort,

Thou troublest me. Harbour no more the thought

That I, in terror at the will of Zeus,

Effeminate of mind shall e'er become,

And supplicate whom hugely I abhor,

With woman-aping palms to heaven upturned,

To loose me from these fetters. Not a whit.

Much may I speak, it seems, and speak in vain;

For nothing moved or softened is thy heart

By prayers; but thou, like newly yokèd colt,