to the gods, when I have suffered my doom, I shall come to know my sin; but if the sin is with my judges, I could wish them no fuller measure of evil than they, on their part, mete wrongfully to me.
Ch. Still the same tempest of the soul vexes this maiden with the same fierce gusts.930
Cr. Then for this shall her guards have cause to rue their slowness.
An. Ah me! that word hath come very near to death.
Cr. I can cheer thee with no hope that this doom is not thus to be fulfilled.
An. O city of my fathers in the land of Thebè! O ye gods, eldest of our race!—they lead me hence—now, now—they tarry not!940 Behold me, princes of Thebes, the last daughter of the house of your kings,—see what I suffer, and from whom, because I feared to cast away the fear of Heaven!
str. 1. Ch. Even thus endured Danaë in her beauty to change the light of day for brass-bound walls; and in that chamber, secret as the grave, she was held close prisoner; yet was she of a proud lineage, O my daughter,950 and charged with the keeping of the seed of Zeus, that fell in the golden rain.
But dreadful is the mysterious power of fate; there is no deliverance from it by wealth or by war, by fenced city, or dark, sea-beaten ships.
