Pos. Why leap'st thou thus from mood to mood? Thy love and hate both go too far, on whomsoever centred.
Ath. Dost not know the insult done to me and to the shrine I love?
Pos. Surely, in the hour that Aias tore Cassandra thence.
Ath. Yea, and the Achæans did naught, said naught to him.
Pos. And yet 'twas by thy mighty aid they sacked Ilium.
Ath. For which cause I would join with thee to work their bane.
Pos. My powers are ready at thy will. What is thy intent?
Ath. A returning fraught with woe will I impose on them.
Pos. While yet they stay on shore, or as they cross the briny deep?
Ath. When they have set sail from Ilium for their homes. On them will Zeus also send his rain and fearful hail, and inky tempests from the sky; yea, and he promises to grant me his levin-bolts to hurl on the Achæans and fire their ships. And do thou, for thy part, make the Ægean strait to roar with mighty billows and whirlpools, and fill Eubœa's hollow bay with corpses, that Achæans may learn henceforth to reverence my temples and regard all other deities.
Pos. So shall it be, for the boon thou cravest needs but few words. I will vex the broad Ægean sea; and the beach of Myconus and the reefs round Delos, Scyros and Lemnos too, and the cliffs of Caphareus shall be strown with many a corpse. Mount thou to Olympus, and taking from thy father's hand his lightning bolts, keep careful watch against the hour when Argos' host lets slip its cables. A fool is he who sacks the towns of men, with shrines and tombs, the dead man's hallowed home, for at the last he makes a desert round himself, and dies.
Hec. Lift thy head, unhappy lady, from the ground; thy
