Alack, alack! the ravisher— He leaps from boat to beach, he draweth near! Away, thou plunderer accurst! Death seize thee first, Or e’er thou touch me—off! God, hear our cry, Our maiden agony! Ah, ah, the touch, the prelude of my shame. Alas, my maiden fame! O sister, sister, to the altar cling, For he that seizeth me, Grim is his wrath and stern, by land as on the sea. Guard us, O king! Enter the HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Hence to my barge—step swiftly, tarry not. CHORUS. Alack, he rends—he rends my hair! O wound on wound! Help! my lopped head will fall, my blood gush o’er the ground! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Aboard, ye cursèd—with a new curse, go! CHORUS. Would God that on the wand’ring brine Thou and this braggart tongue of thine Had sunk beneath the main— Thy mast and planks, made fast in vain! Thee would I drive aboard once more, A slayer and a dastard, from the shore! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Be still, thou vain demented soul; My force thy craving shall control. Away, aboard! What, clingest to the shrine? Away! this city’s gods I hold not for divine. CHORUS. Aid me, ye gods, that never, never I may again behold The mighty, the life-giving river, Nilus, the quickener of field and fold! Alack, O sire, unto the shrine I cling— Shrine of this land from which mine ancient line did spring! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Shrines, shrines, forsooth!—the ship, the ship be shrine! Aboard, perforce and will-ye nill-ye, go! Or e’er from hands of mine Ye suffer torments worse and blow on blow. CHORUS. Alack, God grant those hands may strive in vain With the salt-streaming wave, When ’gainst the wide-blown blasts thy bark shall strain To round Sarpedon’s cape, the sandbank’s treach’rous grave. HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Shrill ye and shriek unto what gods ye may, Ye shall not leap from out Aegyptus’ bark, How bitterly soe’er ye wail your woe. CHORUS. Alack, alack my wrong! Stern is thy voice, thy vaunting loud and strong. Thy sire, the mighty Nilus, drive thee hence Turning to death and doom thy greedy violence! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Swift to the vessel of the double prow, Go quickly! let none linger, else this hand Ruthless will hale you by your tresses hence. CHORUS. Alack, O father! from the shrine Not aid but agony is mine. As a spider he creeps and he clutches his prey, And he hales me away. A spectre of darkness, of darkness. Alas and alas! well-a-day! O Earth, O my mother! O Zeus, thou king of the earth, and her child! Turn back, we pray thee, from us his clamour and threatenings wild! HERALD OF AEGYPTUS. Peace! I fear not this country’s deities. They fostered not my childhood nor mine age.