by Mrs. Browning, and of the ‘Suppliants’ by Morshead, who has also translated the Atridean trilogy under the title of ‘The House of Atreus.’  Goldwin Smith has translated portions of six of the plays in his ’Specimens of Greek Tragedy.’  Many translations of the ‘Agamemnon’ have been made, among others by Milman, by Symmons, by Lord Carnarvon, and by Fitzgerald.  Robert Browning also translated the play, with appalling literalness.

THE COMPLAINT OF PROMETHEUS

PROMETHEUS (alone)

O holy Aether, and swift-winged Winds,
And River-wells, and laughter innumerous
Of yon Sea-waves!  Earth, mother of us all,
And all-viewing cyclic Sun, I cry on you,—­
Behold me a god, what I endure from gods! 
Behold, with throe on throe,
How, wasted by this woe,
I wrestle down the myriad years of Time! 
Behold, how fast around me
The new King of the happy ones sublime
Has flung the chain he forged, has shamed and bound me! 
Woe, woe! to-day’s woe and the coming morrow’s
I cover with one groan.  And where is found me
A limit to these sorrows? 
And yet what word do I say?  I have foreknown
Clearly all things that should be; nothing done
Comes sudden to my soul—­and I must bear
What is ordained with patience, being aware
Necessity doth front the universe
With an invincible gesture.  Yet this curse
Which strikes me now, I find it hard to brave
In silence or in speech.  Because I gave
Honor to mortals, I have yoked my soul
To this compelling fate.  Because I stole
The secret fount of fire, whose bubbles went
Over the ferrule’s brim, and manward sent
Art’s mighty means and perfect rudiment,
That sin I expiate in this agony,
Hung here in fetters, ’neath the blanching sky. 
Ah, ah me! what a sound,
What a fragrance sweeps up from a pinion unseen
Of a god, or a mortal, or nature between,
Sweeping up to this rock where the earth has her bound,
To have sight of my pangs, or some guerdon obtain—­
Lo, a god in the anguish, a god in the chain! 
The god Zeus hateth sore,
And his gods hate again,
As many as tread on his glorified floor,
Because I loved mortals too much evermore. 
Alas me! what a murmur and motion I hear,
As of birds flying near! 
And the air undersings
The light stroke of their wings—­
And all life that approaches I wait for in fear.

From E.B.  Browning’s Translation of ‘Prometheus.’

A PRAYER TO ARTEMIS

STROPHE 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.

ANTISTROPHE 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.