she her right arm,
As though from hearth and hall she motioned me away.
Wrathful from her I turn, and forthwith hasten out,
Toward the steps, whereon aloft the Thalamos
Rises adorned, thereto the treasure-house hard by;
When, on a sudden, starts the wonder from the floor;
Barring with lordly mien my passage, she herself
In haggard height displays, with hollow eyes, blood-grimed,
An aspect weird and strange, confounding eye and thought.
Yet speak I to the winds; for language all in vain
Creatively essays to body forth such shapes.
There see herself! The light she ventures to confront!
Here are we master, till the lord and monarch comes;
The ghastly brood of Night doth Phoebus, beauty's friend,
Back to their caverns drive, or them he subjugates.

[PHORKYAS _stepping on the threshold, between the door-posts._]

CHORUS

Much have I lived through, although my tresses
Youthfully waver still round my temples;
Manifold horrors have mine eyes witnessed;
Warfare's dire anguish, Ilion's night,
When it fell;

Through the o'erclouded, dust over-shadow'd
Tumult of war, to gods have I hearken'd,
Fearfully shouting; hearken'd while discord's
Brazen voices clang through the field
Rampart-wards.

Ah, yet standing were Ilion's
Ramparts; nathless the glowing flames
Shot from neighbor to neighbor roof,
Ever spreading from here and there,
with their tempest's fiery blast,
Over the night-darkened city.--

Flying, saw I through smoke and glare,
And the flash of the tongued flames,
Dreadful, threatening gods draw near;
Wondrous figures, of giant mould,
Onward striding through the weird
Gloom of fire-luminous vapor.

Saw I them, or did my mind,
Anguish-torn, itself body forth
Phantoms so terrible--never more
Can I tell; but that I this
Horrible shape with eyes behold,
This of a surety know I!
Yea, with my hands could clutch it even,
Did not fear, from the perilous
Venture, ever withhold me.

Tell me, of Phorkyas'
Daughters which art thou?
For to that family
Thee must I liken.
Art thou, may be, one of the gray-born?
One eye only, and but one tooth
Using still alternately?
One of the Graiae art thou?
Darest thou, Horror,
Thus beside beauty,
Or to the searching glance
Phoebus' unveil thee?
Nathless step thou forward undaunted;
For the horrible sees he not,
As his hallowed glances yet
Never gazed upon shadows.

But a tragical fate, alas,
Us, poor mortals, constrain