Page:The Tragedies of Aeschylus - tr. Potter - 1812.pdf/88

44 Shall e’er relent, e’er suffer my firm mind

To sink to womanish softness, to fall prostrate,

To stretch my supplicating hands, entreating

My hated foe to free me from these chains.

Far be that shame, that abject weakness from me.

I see thou art implacable, unsoften’d

By all the mild entreaties I can urge;

But like a young steed rein’d, that proudly struggles

And champs his iron curb, thy haughty soul

Abates not of its unavailing fierceness.

But pride, disdaining to be ral’d by reason,

Sinks weak and valueless. But mark me well,

If not obedient to my words, a storm,

A fiery and inevitable deluge

Shall burst in threefold vengeance on thy head.

First, his fierce thunder wing’d with lighting flames

Shall rend this rugged rock, and cover thee

With hideous ruin: long time shalt thou lie

Astonied in its rifted sides, till dragg’d

Again to light; then shall the bird of Jove,

The rav'ning eagle, lur’d with scent of blood,

Mangle thy body, and each day returning,

An uninvited guest, plunge his fell beak,

And feast and riot on thy black’ning liver.

Expect no pause, no respite, till some god

Comes to relieve thy pains, willing to pass

The dreary realms of ever-during night ,

The dark descent of Tartarus profound.

Weigh these things well; this is no fiction drest