No More Learning

So long as Heaven have no new ill devised,
From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.

SEMI-CHORUS

Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city
who dwell
Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial
tide.

SEMI-CHORUS

Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of
Pelasgia swell;
Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean
doth glide.

SEMI-CHORUS

Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush
through the city;
Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of
the plain.

SEMI-CHORUS

Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace
and with pity--
Save us from forced embraces: such love hath no
crown but a pain.

SEMI-CHORUS

Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of
Aphrodite;
She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and
control.
Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and
mighty,
And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her
sway of the soul.

SEMI-CHORUS

Yea, and her child is Desire: in the train of his
mother he goeth--
Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny
or repel:
Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth
The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that
lovers love well.

SEMI-CHORUS

Ah, but I tremble and quake lest again they should
sail to reclaim!
Alas for the sorrow to come, the blood and the
carnage of war.
Ah, by whose will was it done that o'er the wide
ocean they came,
Guided by favouring winds, and wafted by sail and
by oar?

SEMI-CHORUS

Peace! for what Fate hath ordained will surely not
tarry but come;
Wide is the counsel of Zeus, by no man escaped or
withstood:
Only I Pray that whate'er, in the end, of this wedlock
he doom,
We as many a maiden of old, may win from the ill
to the good. [7]

[Footnote: 7: The ambiguity of these two lines is reproduced from
the original. The Semi-Chorus appear to pray, in one aspiration,
that the threatened wedlock may never take place, and, _if_ it does
take place, may be for weal, not woe.
]

SEMI-CHORUS

Great Zeus, this wedlock turn from me--
Me from the kinsman bridegroom guard!

SEMI-CHORUS

Come what come may, 'tis Fate's decree.

SEMI-CHORUS

Soft is thy word--the doom is hard.

SEMI-CHORUS

Thou know'st not what the Fates provide.

SEMI-CHORUS

How should I scan Zeus' mighty will,
The depth of counsel undescried?

SEMI-CHORUS

Pray thou no word of omen ill.

SEMI-CHORUS

What timely warning wouldst thou teach?

SEMI-CHORUS

Beware, nor slight the gods in speech.

SEMI-CHORUS

Zeus, hold from my body the wedlock detested, the
bridegroom abhorred!
It was thou, it was thou didst release
Mine ancestress Io from sorrow: thine healing it
was that restored,
The touch of thine hand gave her peace.

SEMI-CHORUS

Be thy will for the cause of the maidens! of two ills,
the lesser I pray--
The exile that leaveth me pure.
May thy justice have heed to my cause, my prayers
to thy mercy find way!
For the hands of thy saving are sure.
[_Exeunt omnes_.





THE PERSIANS




ARGUMENT

Xerxes, son of Darius and of his wife Atossa, daughter of Cyrus,
went forth against Hellas, to take vengeance upon those who had
defeated his father at Marathon.