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ÆSCHYLUS.

ESCHYLUS, the greatest of the Greek dramatists; born at Eleusis, Attica, 525 B.C.; died at Gela, Sicily, 456 B.C. Of his very

numerous works (72 or even 90 dramas), seven tragedies only remain: "The Suppliants," one of his earliest productions; "The Persians," founded on the contemporary triumph of Greece over the invading Persian hosts; "The Seven against Thebes," the only extant member of a tetralogy, the other members of which were "Laius," "Edipus," and "The Sphinx." The grand tragedy, "Prometheus Bound," is the sole survivor of a trilogy. The other three extant-"Agamemnon," "The Choëphori," and " "Eumenides" -form a trilogy.

THE BINDING OF PROMETHEUS.

(From "Prometheus Bound," Translation of Plumptre.) PROMETHEUS is led in by HEPHÆSTOS and others: HEPHÆSTOS speaks :]

O THOU, of Themis, wise in Counsel, son,
Full of deep purpose, lo! against my will,

I fetter thee against thy will with bonds

Of bronze that none can loose, to this lone height
Where thou shalt know nor voice nor face of man,
But scorching in the hot blaze of the Sun,
Shalt lose thy skin's fair beauty. Thou shalt long
For starry-mantled night to hide day's sheen,
For sun to melt the rime of early dawn;
And evermore the weight of present ill
Shall wear thee down. Unborn as yet is he

Who shall release thee: this the fate thou gain'st
As due reward for thy philanthropy.

For thou, a god, not fearing wrath of gods,

In thy transgression gav'st their power to men;
And therefore on this rock of little ease
Thou still shalt keep thy watch, nor lying down,
Nor knowing sleep, nor even bending knee;
And many groans and wailing profitless
Thy lips shall utter; for the mind of Zeus
Remains inexorable. Who holds a power
But newly gained is ever stern of mood.

THE WARNING OF HERMES TO PROMETHEUS.

(From "Prometheus Bound," Translation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.)

I HAVE, methinks, said much in vain;

For still thy heart, beneath my shower of prayers,
Lies dry and hard-nay, leaps like a young horse
Who bites against the new bit in his teeth,
And tugs and struggles against the new-tried rein
Still fiercest in the feeblest thing of all-
Which sophism is, since absolute Will disjoined
From perfect Mind is worse than weak. Behold,
Unless my words persuade thee, what a blast
And whirlwind of inevitable woe

Must sweep persuasion through thee! For at first
The Father will split up this jut of rock

With the great thunder and the bolted flame,

And hide thy body where a hinge of stone

Shall catch it like an arm; and when thou hast passed
A long black time within, thou shalt come out
To front the sun while Zeus's winged hound,
The strong carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down
To meet thee, self-called to a daily feast,
And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off
The long rags of thy flesh, and batten deep
Upon thy dusky liver. Do not look

For any end moreover to this curse,

Or ere some God appear, to accept thy pangs
On his own head vicarious, and descend
With unreluctant step the darks of hell
And gloomy abysses around Tartarus.

Then ponder this! this threat is not a growth
Of vain invention; it is spoken and meant!

King Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie

Consummating the utterance by the act: -
So, look to it, thou! - take heed- and nevermore
Forget good counsel to indulge self-will.

THE COMPLAINT OF PROMETHEUS.

From "Prometheus Bound," Translation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.) PROMETHEUS (alone).

O HOLY Æther, and swift-winged Winds,

And River-wells, and laughter innumerous Of yon Sea-waves! Earth, mother of us all, And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,

Behold me a god, what I endure from gods!
Behold, with throe on throe,

How, wasted by this woe,

I wrestle down the myriad years of Time!
Behold, how fast around me

The new King of the happy ones sublime

Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! Woe, woe! to-day's woe and the coming morrow's

I cover with one groan. And where is found me

A limit to these sorrows?

And yet what word do I say? I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe

With an invincible gesture. Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech. Because I gave
Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate. Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferrule's brim, and manward sent
Art's mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,

Hung here in fetters, 'neath the blanching sky.
Ah, ah me! what a sound,

What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen

Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,

Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound, To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain

Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain!

As

The god Zeus hateth sore,

And his gods hate again,

many as tread on his glorified floor,

Because I loved mortals too much evermore.

Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,

As of birds flying near!

And the air undersings

The light stroke of their wings

And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.

A PRAYER TO ARTEMIS.

(From Miss Swanwick's Translation of "The Suppliants.")

STROPHE IV.

THOUGH Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace ; Nathless in every place

Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.

ANTISTROPHE IV.

Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight,
The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought;
For wrapt in shadowy night,

Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight,
Extend the pathways of his secret thought.

STROPHE V.

From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone
To utter doom: but for their fall

No force arrayeth he; for all

That gods devise is without effort wrought.

A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne

By inborn energy achieves his thought.

ANTISTROPHE V.

But let him mortal insolence behold:
How with proud contumacy rife,
Wantons the stem in lusty life
My marriage craving;- frenzy over-bold,
Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate,
By ruin taught their folly all too late.

STROPHE VI.

Thus I complain, in piteous strain,
Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill;
Ah woe is me! woe! woe!

Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill
I pour, yet breathing vital air.

Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer!