distrust the gods, to whom we have appealed." And so he goes away to arouse the city, and the Chorus are left alone. Fain would they find a hiding-place, but there is none. Fain would they be like the smoke that rises up into the clouds of Zeus and vanishes, or like the dust that passes out of sight. Any form of death were welcome, rather than this hateful marriage. "Ah!" they say,—
"Ah! might I find a place in yon high vault
Where the rain-clouds are passing into snow,
Or lonely precipice,
Whose summit none can see,
Rock where the vulture haunts,
Witness for me of my abysmal fall,
Before the marriage that will pierce my heart
Becomes my dreaded doom."
And the answering band replies:—
"I shrink not from the thought of being the prey
Of dogs and birds that haunt the country round,
For death shall make me free
From ills all lamentable;
Yea, let death rather come
Than the worse doom of hated marriage-bed.
What other refuge now remains for me.
That marriage to avert?"
And still they appeal to God, "whose eyes look upon the thing that is equal," without whom nothing comes to the children of men. Their appeal is interrupted by the arrival of a herald who comes on behalf of the sons of Ægyptus, to command the Danaids to
