SEMI-CHORUS. Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his mother he goeth— Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny or repel: Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that lovers love well. SEMI-CHORUS. Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should sail to reclaim! Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the carnage of war. Ah, by whose will was it done that o’er the wide ocean they came, Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and by oar? SEMI-CHORUS. Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not tarry but come; Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or withstood: Only I pray that whate’er, in the end, of this wedlock he doom, We as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill to the good.[7] SEMI-CHORUS. Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me— Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard! SEMI-CHORUS. Come what come may, ’tis Fate’s decree. SEMI-CHORUS. Soft is thy word—the doom is hard. SEMI-CHORUS. Thou know’st not what the Fates provide. SEMI-CHORUS. How should I scan Zeus’ mighty will, The depth of counsel undescried? SEMI-CHORUS. Pray thou no word of omen ill. SEMI-CHORUS. What timely warning wouldst thou teach? SEMI-CHORUS. Beware, nor slight the gods in speech. SEMI-CHORUS. Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the bridegroom abhorred! It was thou, it was thou didst release Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it was that restored, The touch of thine hand gave her peace. SEMI-CHORUS. Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills, the lesser I pray— The exile that leaveth me pure. May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers to thy mercy find way! For the hands of thy saving are sure. [_Exeunt omnes._] [1] “ἀερίας ἀπὸ γᾶς.” This epithet may appear strange to modern readers accustomed to think of Egypt as a land of cloudless skies and pellucid atmosphere. Nevertheless both Pindar (_Pyth_ iv 93) and Apollonius Rhodius (iv 267) speak of it in the same way as Aeschylus. It has been conjectured that they allude to the fog banks that often obscure the low coasts—a phenomenon likely to impress the early navigators and to be reported by them. [2] The whole of this dialogue in alternate verses is disarranged in the MSS. The re-arrangement which has approved itself to Paley has been here followed. It involves, however, a hiatus, instead of the line to which this note is appended. The substance of the lost line being easily deducible from the context, it has been supplied in the translation. [3] Poseidon. [4] Here one verse at least has been lost. The conjecture of Bothe seems to be verified, as far as substance is concerned, by the next line, and has consequently been adopted. [5] Cyprus.