Page:The Dramas of Aeschylus (Swanwick).djvu/432

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362
Prometheus Bound.

Chorus.

Unseemly woe thou bearest. Driven astray 480
Flounders thy judgment, and like sorry leech
Falling distemper'd, spiritless thou art,
Nor remedies canst find thyself to cure.


Prometheus.

Hearken the rest, and thou wilt marvel more
What arts and what resources I devised.
This chief of all; if any one fell sick,
No help there was, diet nor liniment,
Nor healing draught; but men, for lack of drugs
Wasted away, till I to them revealed
Commixtures of assuaging remedies 490
Which may disorders manifold repel.
Of prophecies the various modes I fixed,
And among dreams did first discriminate
The truthful vision. Voices ominous,
Hard to interpret, I to them made known:
And way-side auguries, the flight of birds
With crooked talons, clearly I defined;
Showed by their nature which auspicious arc,
And which ill-omened—taught the modes of life
Native to each, and what, among themselves
Their feuds, affections, and confederacies. 500
Touching the smoothness of the vital parts,
And what the hue most pleasing to the gods,
I taught them, and the mottled symmetry
Of gall and liver. Thighs encased in fat
With the long chine I burnt, and mortals guided