Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/506

436 Lest that my lengthened flight no profit bring.

Father, I faint through dread.

Children, since ratified the Argives' vote,

Take courage; well I know, for you they'll fight.

Insatiate of battle, fierce and lewd

Ægyptos' race;—to one who knows I speak.

In timbered ships, blue-prowed, their rage to wreak,

Hither with many a follower, sable-hued,

In prosperous wrath they sped.

Ay, but they here a numerous host will find,

With thews well hardened in the noon-tide heat.

Oh leave me not alone, father, I pray;

Woman abandoned to herself is nought.

In her no war-god dwells. Crafty are they

In mind and counsel; dissolute in thought,

Neither, like crows, for altars care they aught.

Our interest, children, it would much avail

Wore they to gods as hateful as to thee.

No awe of gods before whose shrines we stand,

Or of these sacred tridents, O my sire,