PR. There is fire. IN. On earth this day! PR. There is fire on earth this day. IN. This is a sacred place, a solemn hour, 360 Thy speech is earnest: yet even if thou speak truth, O welcome messenger of happy tidings, And though I hear aright, yet to believe Is hard: thou canst not know what words thou speakest Into what ears: they never heard before This sound but in old tales of happier times, In sighs of prayer and faint unhearted hope: Maybe they heard not rightly, speak again! PR. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day. IN. Yes, yes, again. Now let sweet Music blab 370 Her secret and give o'er; here is a trumpet That mocks her method. Yet 'tis but the word. Maybe thy fire is not the fire I seek; Maybe though thou didst see it, now 'tis quenched, Or guarded out of reach: speak yet again And swear by heaven's truth is there fire or no; And if there be, what means may make it mine. PR. There is, O king, fire on the earth this day: But not as thou dost seek it to be found. IN. How seeking wrongly shall I seek aright? 380 PR. Thou prayest here to Zeus, and him thou callest Almighty, knowing he could grant thy prayer: That if 'twere but his will, the journeying sun Might drop a spark into thine outstretched hand: That at his breath the splashing mountain brooks That fall from Orneæ, and cold Lernè's pool Would change their element, and their chill streams Bend in their burning banks a molten flood: That at his word so many messengers Would bring thee fire from heaven, that not a hearth 390 In all thy land but straight would have a god To kneel and fan the flame: and yet to him, It is to him thou prayest. IN. Therefore to him. PR. Is this thy wisdom, king, to sow thy seed Year after year in this unsprouting soil? Hast thou not proved and found the will of Zeus A barren rock for man with prayer to plough? IN. His anger be averted! we judge not god Evil, because our wishes please him not. Oft our shortsighted prayers to heaven ascending 400 Ask there our ruin, and are then denied In kindness above granting: were 't not so, Scarce could we pray for fear to pluck our doom Out of the merciful withholding hands. PR. Why then provokest thou such great goodwill In long denial and kind silence shown? IN. Fie, fie! Thou lackest piety: the god's denial Being nought but kindness, there is hope that he Will make that good which is not:--or if indeed Good be withheld in punishment, 'tis well 410 Still to seek on and pray that god relent. PR. O Sire of Argos, Zeus will not relent.