A Prayer For Artemis
HE IV Though Zeus plan all things right, Yet is his heart's desire full hard to trace; Nathless in every place Brightly it gleameth, e'en in darkest night, Fraught with black fate to man's speech-gifted race.
HE IV Steadfast, ne'er thrown in fight, The deed in brow of Zeus to ripeness brought; For wrapt in shadowy night, Tangled, unscanned by mortal sight, Extend the pathways of his secret thought.
HE V From towering hopes mortals he hurleth prone To utter doom; but for their fall No force arrayeth he; for all That gods devise is without effort wrought. A mindful Spirit aloft on holy throne By inborn energy achieves his thought.
HE V But let him mortal insolence behold:-- How with proud contumacy rife, Wantons the stem in lusty life My marriage craving;--frenzy over-bold, Spur ever-pricking, goads them on to fate, By ruin taught their folly all too late.
HE VI Thus I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well,
O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
HE VI My nuptial right in Heaven's pure sight Pollution were, death-laden, rude; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Alas for sorrow's murky brood! Where will this billow hurl me?
Where? Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer; Full well,
O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand, While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and Sidonian veil.
HE
II The oar indeed and home with sails Flax-tissued, swelled with favoring gales, Staunch to the wave, from spear-storm free, Have to this shore escorted me, Nor so far blame I destiny. But may the all-seeing Father send In fitting time propitious end; So our dread Mother's mighty brood, The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued!
HE
II Meeting my will with will divine, Daughter of Zeus, who here dost hold Steadfast thy sacred shrine,-- Me,
Artemis unstained, behold, Do thou, who sovereign might dost wield, Virgin thyself, a virgin shield; So our dread Mother's mighty brood The lordly couch may 'scape, ah me, Unwedded, unsubdued!
Aeschylus Aeschylus
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