CHORUS. Curse on your cause, Ye gods that are younger! O'er the time-hallowed laws Rough ye ride, as the stronger. Of the prey that was ours Ye with rude hands bereave us, 'Mid the dark-dreaded Powers Shorn of honor ye leave us. Behold, on the ground From a heart of hostility, I sprinkle around Black gouts of sterility! A plague I will bring With a dry lichen spreading; No green blade shall spring Where the Fury is treading. To abortion I turn The birth of the blooming, Where the plague-spot shall burn Of my wrath, life-consuming. I am mocked, but in vain They rejoice at my moaning; They shall pay for my pain, With a fearful atoning, Who seized on my right, And, with wrong unexampled, On the daughters of Night High scornfully trampled. {167} ATHENA. Dishonoured are ye not: Spit not your rancour On this fair land remediless. Rests my trust On Jove, the mighty, I of all the gods Sharing alone the strong keys that unlock His thunder-halls:[n53] but this I name not here. Yield thou: cast not the seed of reckless speech To crop the land with woe. Soothing the waves Of bitter anger darkling in thy breast, Dwell in this land, thy dreadful deity Sistered with me. When thronging worshippers Henceforth shall cull choice firstlings for thine altars, Praying thy grace to bless the wedded rite, And the child-bearing womb--then honoured so, How wise my present counsel thou shalt know. CHORUS. VOICE 1. I to dwell 'neath the Earth All clipt of my glory, In the dark-chambered Earth, I, the ancient, the hoary! VOICE 2. I breathe on thee curses, I cut through thy marrow, For the insult that pierces My heart like an arrow. VOICE 3. Hear my cry, mother Night, 'Gainst the gods that deceived me! With their harsh-handed might Of my right they bereaved me.