Nor dark spray-dashing coursers of the main
Against great Destiny may once rebel.
He too in darksome durance was compressed, I 2
King of Edonians, Dryas’ hasty son,
In eyeless vault of stone
Immured by Dionysus’ hest,
All for a wrathful jest.
Fierce madness issueth in such fatal flower.
He found ’twas mad to taunt the Heavenly Power,
Chilling the Maenad breast
Kindled with Bacchic fire, and with annoy
Angering the Muse that in the flute hath joy.
And near twin rocks that guard the Colchian sea, II 1
Bosporian cliffs ’fore Salmydessus rise,
Where neighbouring Ares from his shrine beheld
Phineus’ two sons by female fury quelled.
With cursèd wounding of their sight-reft eyes,
That cried to Heaven to ’venge the iniquity.
The shuttle’s sharpness in a cruel hand
Dealt the dire blow, not struck with martial brand.
But chiefly for her piteous lot they pined, II 2
Who was the source of their rejected birth.
She touched the lineage of Erechtheus old;
Whence in far caves her life did erst unfold,
Cradled ’mid storms, daughter of Northern wind,
Steed-swift o’er all steep places of the earth.
Yet even on her, though reared of heavenly kind,
The long-enduring Fates at last took hold.
Enter Tiresias, led by a boy.
Tiresias. We are come, my lords of Thebes, joint wayfarers,
One having eyes for both. The blind must still
Thus move in frail dependence on a guide.
Cr. And what hath brought thee, old Tirésias, now?
Ti. I will instruct thee, if thou wilt hear my voice.
Cr. I have not heretofore rejected thee.
Ti. Therefore thy pilotage hath saved this city.
