he future hath in store.

_Polyphontes_

To-day I reign; the rest I leave to Fate.

_Merope_

For Fate thou wait'st not long; since, in this hour----

_Polyphontes_

What? for so far Fate hath not proved my foe--

_Merope_

Fate seals my lips, and drags to ruin thee.

_Polyphontes_

Enough! enough! I will no longer hear
The ill-boding note which frantic hatred sounds
To affright a fortune which the Gods secure.
Once more my friendship thou rejectest; well!
More for this land's sake grieve I, than mine own.
I chafe not with thee, that thy hate endures,
Nor bend myself too low, to make it yield.
What I have done is done; by my own deed,
Neither exulting nor ashamed, I stand.
Why should this heart of mine set mighty store
By the construction and report of men?
Not men's good word hath made me what I am.
Alone I master'd power; and alone,
Since so thou wilt, I dare maintain it still.

[POLYPHONTES _goes out_.

_The Chorus_

Did I then waver _str._ 1.
(O woman's judgment!)
Misled by seeming
Success of crime?
And ask, if sometimes
The Gods, perhaps, allow'd you,
O lawless daring of the strong,
O self-will recklessly indulged?

Not time, not lightning, _ant._ 1.
Not rain, not thunder,
Efface the endless
Decrees of Heaven--
Make Justice alter,
Revoke, assuage her sentence,
Which dooms dread ends to dreadful deeds,
And violent deaths to violent men.

But the signal example _str._ 2.
Of invariableness of justice
Our glorious founder
Heracles gave us,
Son loved of Zeus his father--for he sinn'd,

And the strand of Euboea, _ant._ 2.
And the promontory of Cenaeum,
His painful, solemn
Punishment witness'd,
Beheld his expiation--for he died.

O villages of OEta _str._ 3.
With hedges of the wild rose!
O pastures of the mountain,
Of short grass, beaded with dew,
Between the pine-woods and the cliffs!
O cliffs, left by the eagles,
On that morn, when the smoke-cloud
From the oak-built, fiercely-burning pyre,
Up the precipices of Trachis,
Drove them screaming from their eyries!
A willing, a willing sacrifice o