Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/494

424

With tablets new these statues they shall grace.

Thy words are riddles; plainer be thy speech!

We from these gods forthwith ourselves will hang.

A word I hear piercing my very heart.

Thou hast it now, for I thine eyes have purged.

Divers these troubles, hard to struggle with;

A host of ills bursts o'er me like a flood;

Ruin's unfathomed sea, full hard to cross,

This have I entered: harbour there is none,

For should I spurn your prayers, pollution dire

Thou namest, overtowering arrow's flight.

But if before the walls taking my stand,

I try the issue with Ægyptos' sons,

Thy kinsmen;—bitter is the cost to stain

With blood of men the soil, for women's sake.

Yet needs must I revere the wrath of Zeus,

The suppliants' god; for, among mortal men

No awe more dread. Do thou then, of these maids

The aged sire, these branches in thine arms

Taking, on other shrines of native gods