Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/73

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Barbarian chattel! Stubborn impudence!

Dost thou brave death!—Soon will I make thee rise

From this thy session, yea, of thine own will;

Such lure have I for thee:—yet will I hide

The word: the deed itself shall soon declare.

Ay, sit thou fast!—though clamps of molten lead

Encompassed thee, yet will I make thee rise,

Ere come Achilles' son, in whom thou trustest.

I do trust Strange that God hath given to men

Salves for the venom of all creeping pests,

But none hath ever yet devised a balm

For venomous woman, worse than fire or viper:

So dire a mischief unto men are we.

Herald of woes, to the glen deep-hiding

In Ida came Zeus's and Maia's son ;

As who reineth a triumph of white steeds, guiding

The Goddesses three, did the God pace on.

With frontlet of beauty, with trappings of doom,

For the strife to the steadings of herds did they come,

To the stripling shepherd in solitude biding,

And the hearth of the lodge in the forest lone.