Such was the fate of lovely Danaë
Locked in a brazen prison,
As secret as the grave,
Where day never broke.
Yet she was a princess, too,
And Zeus in a rain of gold poured love upon her.
O child, child,
No power in wealth or war
No ship that rides the angry sea
Can prevail against Destiny's hand!
And Dryas' son, that savage king,
Was sealed by furious Dionysus
In a cavern of deaf stone
To punish his jeering.
His bawling died among echoes.
So pining to silence meekly at last he learned
What dreadful power he'd mocked
When he'd profaned the revels
And ignited the wrath of the nine
Implacable Sisters that love shrill flutes.
Then there's the nightmare story
Of horrors done where a dark ledge splits the sea,
On Bosporus cliffs
Where the surf beats the gray opposing shores.
How a king's new woman, sick
With jealousy for the queen he'd imprisoned
Blinded his two sons' eyes,
The weaving-needle in her bloody hands
Plunging four times
While grinning Ares watched.
Forlorn, tears and blood mingled
Those sons whose mother was of heavenly birth!
Her father was the God of the North Wind,
And she was cradled by gales,
And she raced with young colts on glittering hills
And walked untrammeled in the open light:
Yet on her at last, my child, the Fates laid hard hands,
As now they do upon you.