Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/82

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Her prayers, her cries of "Father," her young life

Were nought to those stern umpires, breathing strife:

So, after prayer, her sire the servants bade,

Stooping, with steeled hearts, to lift the maid

Robe-tangled, kid-like, as for sacrifice,

High o'er the altar; them he also bade,

Guarding her lovely mouth, her bodeful cries,

Stern curse entailing on their houses twain,

With voiceless muzzles forceful to restrain.

Then letting fall her veil of saffron dye,

She smote, with piteous arrow from her eye,

Each murderer; while, passing fair,

Like to a pictured image, voiceless there,

Strove she to speak; for oft in other days,

She in her father's hospitable halls,

With her chaste voice had carolled forth his praise,

What time the walls

Rang to the Pæan's sound,

Gracing her sire, with third libation crowned.

What next befel I know not, nor relate;

Not unfulfill'd were Calchas' words of fate.

For justice doth for sufferers ordain

To purchase wisdom at the cost of pain.

Why seek to read the future? Let it go!

Since dawns the issue clear with dawning day,