STROPHE II And if some augur of the land be near, Hearing our piteous cry, Sure he will deem he hears The voice of Tereus' bride,[214] Piteous and sad of soul, The nightingale sore harassed by the kite. 60 ANTISTROPHE II *For she, driven back from wonted haunts and streams,[215] Mourns with a strange new plaint The home that she has lost, And wails her son's sad doom, How he at her hand died, Meeting with evil wrath unmotherly; STROPHE III E'en so do I, to wailing all o'er-given, In plaintive music of Ionian mood,[216] *Vex the soft cheek on Neilos' banks that bloomed, And heart that bursts in tears, And pluck the flowers of lamentations loud, Not without fear of friends, 70 *Lest none should care to help This flight of mine from that mist-shrouded shore. ANTISTROPHE III But, O ye Gods ancestral! hear my prayer, Look well upon the justice of our cause, Nor grant to youth to gain its full desire Against the laws of right, But with prompt hate of lust, our marriage bless. *Even for those who come As fugitives in war The altar serves as shield that Gods regard. STROPHE IV May God good issue give![217] 80 And yet the will of Zeus is hard to scan: Through all it brightly gleams, E'en though in darkness and the gloom of chance For us poor mortals wrapt. ANTISTROPHE IV Safe, by no fall tripped up, The full-wrought deed decreed by brow of Zeus; For dark with shadows stretch The pathways of the counsels of his heart, And difficult to see. STROPHE V And from high-towering hopes He hurleth down 90 To utter doom the heir of mortal birth; Yet sets He in array No forces violent; All that Gods work is effortless and calm: Seated on holiest throne, Thence, though we know not how, He works His perfect will. ANTISTROPHE V Ah, let him look on frail man's wanton pride, With which the old stock burgeons out anew, By love for me constrained, In counsels ill and rash, 100 And in its frenzied, passionate resolve Finds goad it cannot shun; But in deceivèd hopes, Shall know, too late, its woe. STROPHE VI