Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/90

62 But Atalanta's son—no Argive he—

Hurls like a whirlwind at the gates, and shouts

For fire and mattocks, as to raze the town.

But his mid-fury Periklymenus stayed,

The Sea-god's son, who hurled a wain-load crag,

A battlement-coping, down upon his shield,

Spattered abroad the golden head, and rent

The knittings of its bones: the cheeks dark-flushed

Dashed he with blood. No life shall he bear back

To his archer-mother, Maid of Mænalus.

Then, marking how at this gate all went well,

Passed to the next thy son, I following still.

There saw I Tydeus with his serried shields,

With spears Aetolian javelining the height

Of the roofless towers, that from the rampart's crest

Ours fled in panic. But thy son again

Rallies them, as the hunter cheers his hounds;

So manned the walls anew. To other gates

On pressed we, having stayed the mischief there.

But how the madness tell of Kapaneus?

For, grasping the long ladder's scaling rounds,

On came he, and thus haughtily vaunted he,

That not Zeus' awful fire should hold him back

From razing from her topmost towers the town.

Thus crying, ever as hailed the stones on him,

He climbed, with body gathered 'neath his targe,

Aye stepping from smooth ladder-rung to rung.

But, even as o'er the ramparts rose his head,

Zeus smiteth him with lightning: rang again

The earth, that all quailed. From the ladder flew

His limbs abroad wide-whirling slingstone-like:

Heavenward his hair streamed, earthward rained his blood: