Full well, O land,

My voice barbaric thou canst understand;
While oft with rendings I assail

My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.

ANTISTROPHE VI.

My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight
Pollution were, death-laden, rude;

Ah woe is me! woe! woe!
Alas for sorrow's murky brood!
Where will this billow hurl me?

Where?

Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer;
Full well, O land,

My voice barbaric thou canst understand,
While oft with rendings I assail
My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.

STROPHE VII.

The oar indeed and home with sails
Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales,
Stanch to the wave, from spear-storm free,
Have to this shore escorted me,
Not so far blame I destiny.
But may the all-seeing Father send
In fitting time propitious end;
So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued !

VOL. 1-6

ANTISTROPHE VII.

Meeting my will with will divine,
Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold
Steadfast thy sacred shrine, -

Me, Artemis unstained, behold.

Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield,
Virgin thyself, a virgin shield;

So our dread Mother's mighty brood
The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me,
Unwedded, unsubdued!

THE DEFIANCE OF ETEOCLES.

(From Miss Swanwick's Translation of "The Seven Against Thebes.")

MESSENGER.

Now at the Seventh Gate the seventh chief,

Thy proper mother's son, I will announce,
What fortune for this city, for himself,

With curses he invoketh:

on the walls

Ascending, heralded as king, to stand,
With pæans for their capture; then with thee
To fight, and either slaying near thee die,

Or thee, who wronged him, chasing forth alive,
Requite in kind his proper banishment.
Such words he shouts, and calls upon the gods
Who o'er his race preside and Fatherland,
With gracious eye to look upon his prayers.
A well-wrought buckler, newly forged, he bears,
With twofold blazon riveted thereon,

For there a woman leads, with sober mien,

A mailed warrior, enchased in gold;

Justice her style, and thus the legend speaks: -
“This man I will restore, and he shall hold
The city and his father's palace homes."
Such the devices of the hostile chiefs.

"T is for thyself to choose whom thou wilt send;
But never shalt thou blame my herald-words.
To guide the rudder of the State be thine!

ETEOCLES.

O heaven-demented race of Edipus,
My race, tear-fraught, detested of the gods!
Alas, our father's curses now bear fruit.
But it beseems not to lament or weep,

Lest lamentations sadder still be born.
For him, too truly Polyneikes named,

What his device will work we soon shall know;
Whether his braggart words, with madness fraught,
Gold-blazoned on his shield, shall lead him back.
Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
Guided his deeds and thoughts, this might have been;
But neither when he fled the darksome womb,
Or in his childhood, or in youth's fair prime,

Or when the hair thick, gathered on his chin,

Hath Justice communed with, or claimed him hers,
Nor in this outrage on his Fatherland

Deem I she now beside him deigns to stand.
For Justice would in sooth belie her name,
Did she with this all-daring man consort.
In these regards confiding will I go,

Myself will meet him. Who with better right?
Brother to brother, chieftain against chief,
Foeman to foe, I'll stand. Quick, bring my spear,
My greaves, and armor, bulwark against stones.

THE VISION OF CASSANDRA.

(From Edward Fitzgerald's Version of the "Agamemnon.")

PHOEBUS APOLLO !

CASSANDRA.

CHORUS.

Hark!

The lips at last unlocking.

CASSANDRA.

Phoebus! Phoebus!

CHORUS.

Well, what of Phoebus, maiden? though a name 'Tis but disparagement to call upon

In misery.

CASSANDRA.

Apollo Apollo! Again!

Oh, the burning arrow through the brain!

Phoebus Apollo! Apollo!

CHORUS.

Seemingly

Possessed indeed

whether by

CASSANDRA.

Phoebus! Phoebus!

Through trampled ashes, blood, and fiery rain,
Over water seething, and behind the breathing

Hither, whither, Phoebus? And with whom,

Down to what slaughter-house!

Foh! the smell of carnage through the door
Scares me from it-drags me toward it —
Phoebus Apollo! Apollo !

CHORUS.

One of the dismal prophet-pack, it seems,
That hunt the trail of blood. But here at fault -
This is no den of slaughter, but the house

Of Agamemnon.

CASSANDRA.

Down upon the towers,

Phantoms of two mangled children hover—and a famished

man,

At an empty table glaring, seizes and devours!

CHORUS.

Thyestes and his children! Strange enough
For any maiden from abroad to know,

Or, knowing

CASSANDRA.

And look! in the chamber below

The terrible Woman, listening, watching,
Under a mask, preparing the blow

In the fold of her robe

CHORUS.

Nay, but again at fault:

For in the tragic story of this House
Unless, indeed the fatal Helen-

No woman

CASSANDRA.

No Woman-Tisiphone! Daughter

Of Tartarus-love-grinning Woman above,
Dragon-tailed under- honey-tongued, Harpy-clawed,
Into the glittering meshes of slaughter

She wheedles, entices him into the poisonous
Fold of the serpent-

CHORUS.

Peace, mad woman, peace!

Whose stony lips once open vomit out

Such uncouth horrors.

CASSANDRA.

I tell you the lioness

Slaughters the Lion asleep; and lifting

Her blood-dripping fangs buried deep in his mane,
Glaring about her insatiable, bellowing,

Bounds hither-Phoebus Apollo, Apollo, Apollo!
Whither have you led me, under night alive with fire,

Through the trampled ashes of the city of my sire,

From my slaughtered kinsmen, fallen throne, insulted shrine,

Slave-like to be butchered, the daughter of a royal line!

DANGERS OF PROSPERITY.

(From Edward Fitzgerald's Version of the " Agamemnon.")

ABOUT the nations runs a saw,

That Over-good ill fortune breeds;
And true that, by the mortal law,
Fortune her spoilt children feeds
To surfeit, such as sows the seeds
Of Insolence, that, as it grows,
The flower of Self-repentance blows.