Aeschylus, Fragments 115–135: Prometheus the Fire-Kindler to the Archer-Maidens

And linen-lint and long bands of raw flax

And do thou guard thee well lest a blast strike thy face; for it is sharp, and deadly-scorching its hot breaths.

Like the goat, you’ll mourn for your beard, you will.

Both silent, when there is need, and speaking in season

A wretched piteous dove, in quest of food, dashed amid the winnowing-fans, its breast broken in twain

Would that I might get a mantle like unto the heavens!

And now it behooves to bring water for feet that bear a god. Where is the bronze-wrought tub with lion-base?

Do thou, the master of the house, leer well and mark!

Nay, is it some field-mouse so monstrous large?

Now [I came] to bid farewell to Zagreus and to his sire, the hospitaler.

And in the sinews of the dead there is no blood.

But in thee there is no vigour nor veins that flow with blood.

’Tis a beetle of Aetna, toiling violently.

For the stranger a garland, an ancient crown, the best of bonds, as Prometheus said.

The Sphinx, the Watch-dog that presideth over evil days

Most glorious of the Achaeans, wide-ruling son of Atreus, learn of me!

For a single path leads to the house of Hades.

Not yet has any day, without its game, sent Actaeon homeward empty-handed, rich in toil only.

For in pure maidens, knowing not the marriage-bed, the glance of the eyes sinks from shame.

The burning gaze of a young woman, such as hath tasted man, shall not escape me; for I have a spirit keen to mark these things.

The dogs destroyed their master utterly.