ACT IV. SCENE 5. <br /> <br />SONG OF THE FATES. <br /> <br /> <br />The deities dread! <br />The mastery hold they <br />In hands all-eternal, <br />And use them, unquestioned, <br />What manner they like. <br /> <br />Let him fear them doubly, <br />Whom they have uplifted! <br />On cliffs and on clouds, oh, <br />Round tables all-golden, <br />he seats are made ready. <br /> <br />When rises contention, <br />The guests are humid downwards <br />With shame and dishonor <br />To deep depths of midnight, <br />And vainly await they, <br />Bound fast in the darkness, <br />A just condemnation. <br /> <br />But they remain ever <br />In firmness unshaken <br />Round tables all-golden. <br />On stride they from mountain <br />To mountain far distant: <br />From out the abysses' <br />Dark jaws, the breath rises <br />Of torment-choked Titans <br />Up tow'rds them, like incense <br />In light clouds ascending. <br /> <br />The rulers immortal <br />Avert from whole peoples <br />Their blessing-fraught glances, <br />And shun, in the children, <br />To trace the once cherish'd, <br />Still, eloquent features <br />Their ancestors wore. <br /> <br />Thus chanted the Parae; <br />The old man, the banish'd, <br />In gloomy vault lying, <br />Their song overheareth, <br />Sons, grandsons remembereth, <br />And shaketh his head.<br /><br />Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/from-iphigenia-in-tauris/
