No More Learning

I shudder, I shiver, I perish with fear:
Overseas though I fled,
Yet nought it avails; my pursuers are near!

DANAUS

Children, take heart; they who decreed to aid
Thy cause will arm for battle, well I ween.

CHORUS

But desperate is Aegyptus' ravening race,
With fight unsated; thou too know'st it well.

In their wrath they o'ertake us; the prow is deep-dark
In the which they have sped,
And dark is the bench and the crew of the bark!

DANAUS

Yea but a crew as stout they here shall find,
And arms well steeled beneath a noon-day sun.

CHORUS

Ah yet, O father, leave us not forlorn!
Alone, a maid is nought, a strengthless arm.
With guile they Pursue me, with counsel malign,
And unholy their soul;
And as ravens they seize me, unheeding the shrine!

DANAUS

Fair will befall us, children, in this chance,
If thus in wrath they wrong the gods and you.

CHORUS

Alas, nor tridents nor the sanctity
Of shrines will drive them, O my sire, from us!

Unholy and daring and cursed is their ire,
Nor own they control
Of the gods, but like jackals they glut their desire!

DANAUS

Ay, but _Come wolf, flee jackal_, saith the saw;
Nor can the flax-plant overbear the corn.

CHORUS

Lustful, accursed, monstrous is their will
As of beasts ravening--'ware we of their power!

DANAUS

Look you, not swiftly puts a fleet to sea,
Nor swiftly to its moorings; long it is
Or e'er the saving cables to the shore
Are borne, and long or e'er the steersmen cry,
_The good ship swings at anchor--all is well_.
Longest of all, the task to come aland
Where haven there is none, when sunset fades
In night.
_To pilot wise_, the adage saith,
_Night is a day of wakefulness and pain_.
Therefore no force of weaponed men, as yet
Scatheless can come ashore, before the bank
Lie at her anchorage securely moored.
Bethink thee therefore, nor in panic leave
The shrine of gods whose succour thou hast won
I go for aid--men shall not blame me long,
Old, but with youth at heart and on my tongue
[_Exit_ DANAUS.

CHORUS

O land of hill and dale, O holy land,
What shall befall us? whither shall we flee,
From Apian land to some dark lair of earth?

O would that in vapour of smoke I might rise to the
clouds of the sky,
That as dust which flits up without wings I might pass
and evanish and die!
I dare not, I dare not abide: my heart yearns, eager
to fly;
And dark is the cast of my thought; I shudder and
tremble for fear.
My father looked forth and beheld: I die of the sight
that draws near.
And for me be the strangling cord, the halter made
ready by Fate,
Before to my body draws nigh the man of my horror
and hate.
Nay, ere I will own him as lord, as handmaid to
Hades I go!
And oh, that aloft in the sky, where the dark clouds
are frozen to snow,
A refuge for me might be found, or a mountain-top
smooth and too high

For the foot of the goat, where the vulture sits lonely,
and none may descry
The pinnacle veiled in the cloud,
the highest and sheerest of all,
Ere to wedlock that rendeth my heart,
and love that is loveless, I fall!
Yea, a prey to the dogs and the birds of the mount
will I give me to be,--
From wailing and curse and pollution it is death,
only death, sets me free:
Let death come upon me before
to the ravisher's bed I am thrust;
What champion, what saviour but death can I find,
or what refuge from lust?
I will utter my shriek of entreaty,
a prayer that shrills up to the sky,
That calleth the gods to compassion,
a tuneful, a pitiful cry,
That is loud to invoke the releaser.
O father, look down on the fight;
Look down in thy wrath on the wronger,
with eyes that are eager for right.
Zeus, thou that art lord of the world,
whose kingdom is strong over all,
Have mercy on us! At thine altar for refuge
and safety we call.