CHORAL SONG FROM THE (BACCHE›

Ο

N THE mountains wild 'tis sweet

When faint with rapid dance our feet,
Our limbs on earth all careless thrown

With the sacred fawn-skins strown,

To quaff the goat's delicious blood,

A strange, a rich, a savage food.
Then off again the revel goes

O'er Phrygian, Lydian mountain brows;
Evoë! Evoë! leads the road,

Bacchus's self the maddening god!

And flows with milk the plain, and flows with wine,
Flows with the wild bees' nectar-dews divine;
And soars, like smoke, the Syrian incense pale—
The while the frantic Bacchanal

The beaconing pine torch on her wand
Whirls around with rapid hand,
And drives the wandering dance about,
Beating time with joyous shout,
And casts upon the breezy air
All her rich luxuriant hair;
Ever the burthen of her song:-
"Raging, maddening, haste along,
Bacchus's daughters, ye the pride
Of golden Tmolus's fabled side;
While your heavy cymbals ring.
Still your Evoë! Evoë!' sing!"
Evoë! the Evian god rejoices

In Phrygian tones and Phrygian voices,
When the soft holy pipe is breathing sweet,
In notes harmonious to her feet,

Who to the mountain, to the mountain speeds;

Like some young colt that by its mother feeds,
Gladsome with many a frisking bound,

The Bacchanal goes forth and treads the echoing ground.

Translation of H. H. Milman.

ION'S SONG

[The boy Ion is in charge of the temple at Delphi, and his duties include driving away the birds.]

B

EHOLD! behold!

Now they come, they quit the nest

On Parnassus's topmost crest.

Hence! away! I warn ye all!
Light not on our hallowed wall!
From eave and cornice keep aloof,
And from the golden gleaming roof!
Herald of Jove! of birds the king!
Fierce of talon, strong of wing,-
Hence! begone! or thou shalt know
The terrors of this deadly bow.
Lo! where rich the altar fumes,
Soars yon swan on oary plumes.
Hence, and quiver in thy flight

Thy foot that gleams with purple light,
Even though Phoebus's harp rejoice
To mingle with thy tuneful voice;
Far away thy white wings shake
O'er the silver Delian lake.
Hence! obey! or end in blood

The music of thy sweet-voiced ode.

Away! away! another stoops!
Down his flagging pinion droops;
Shall our marble eaves be hung

With straw nests for your callow young?
Hence, or dread this twanging bow,
Hence, where Alpheus's waters flow;
Or the Isthmian groves among
Go and rear your nestling young.
Hence, nor dare pollute or stain
Phoebus's offerings, Phoebus's fane.
Yet I feel a sacred dread,

Lest your scattered plumes I shed;
Holy birds! 'tis yours to show
Heaven's auguries to men below.

Translation of H. H. Milman.

5579

SONGS FROM THE HIPPOLYTUS ›

From Three Dramas of Euripides': copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

E

I

ROS, Eros, thou whose eyes with longing

Overflow; who sweet delight

Bringest to the soul thou stormest,

Come not, prithee, sorrow-laden,

Nor too mighty, unto me!
Neither flaming fire is stronger,

Nor the splendor of the stars,
Than the shaft of Aphrodite,
Darting from the hands of Eros,
Who is child of Zeus supreme.

Vainly, vainly, by the stream Alpheios,
Or in Phoibos's Pythian fane,

Hellas heaps the slaughtered oxen!
Eros, of mankind the tyrant,
Holder of the key that locks
Aphrodite's dearest chambers,
Is not honored in our prayers,
Though he comes as the destroyer,
Bringing uttermost disaster

Unto mortals, when he comes.

II

Oh, for some retreat afar sequestered!

May some god into a bird

Flitting 'mid the wingèd throng transform me!
Where the Adriatic's wave

Breaks upon the shore I fain would hasten;

Or to the Eridanos,

Where into the purple tide,

Mourning over Phaeton,

Evermore the wretched maidens

Drop their amber-gleaming tears.

Gladly would I seek the fertile shore-land
Of Hesperian minstrelsy,

Where the sea lord over purple waters
Bars the way of mariners;

Setting there, to be upheld by Atlas,
Heaven's holy boundary.

There ambrosial fountains flow

From the place where Zeus abides,
And the sacred land of plenty

Gives delight unto the gods.

O thou white-winged Cretan vessel,
That across the ever-smiting
Briny billow of the ocean
Hither hast conveyed my queen,
From her home of royal splendor,
Wretched in her wedded bliss!
For to both of evil omen
Surely, or at least for Crete,
Thou to glorious Athens flitted,
Where in the Munychian harbor
They unbound their twisted cables
And set foot upon the shore.

Therefore is she broken-hearted,
Cursed with an unholy passion
By the might of Aphrodite;
Wholly overwhelmed by woe;
In the chamber of her nuptials,
Fitted to her snowy neck,

She will hang the cord suspended,

Showing thus her reverence

For the god by men detested,

Eager most for reputation,

And releasing so her spirit

From the love that brought her pain.

III

Truly, the anxious attention bestowed by the gods upon mortals, When it recurs to my mind, greatly assuages my grief:

Yet am I quickly bereft of the hope and conviction I cherished, Pondering over the deeds, over the fortunes of men.

Change is but followed by change, in our erring mortal existence.

Oh that Heavenly Fate, responding to prayer, would accord us
Fortune to happiness joined, courage undaunted by pain!

May my repute be neither exceedingly great nor ignoble!
Still with the changing day easily changing my ways,
May I forever enjoy a life of prosperous fortune.

Clear no more are my thoughts, when I see this trouble unhoped-for, See the illustrious star of Athena

Driven before the paternal wrath to a far habitation!

O ye sands on the shore of the city!

O ye glades in which, attendant on holy Dictynna,

Once with his hounds fleet-footed he hunted!

Never again shalt thou yoke and guide thy coursers Venetian
Over the track that encircles Limna.

Sleepless once was the Muse by the lyre in the halls of thy fathers;
Now is she silent; and stript of their garlands

Lie in the long deep grass the retreats of the daughter of Leto:
Maidens contend not for thee in thy exile.

I with my tears for thy sorrows will share in thy destiny hapless.
Ah, thy mother, how wretched! in vain were the pangs of her travail!
Frenzied am I of the gods! Ye close-linked Graces, ah, wherefore
Forth from this his home and out of the land of his fathers,
Send ye a youth ill-fated, who nowise of crime has been guilty?

IV

Restive hearts of god and mortal,

Thou, O Kypris, captive leadest,

While upon his shimmering pinions.

Round them swift-winged Eros flits.

Over earth he hovers ever,

And the salt resounding sea.

Eros charms the heart to madness,
Smitten by his golden arrow;

Charms the hounds upon the mountain,
Creatures of the land and wave,

Wheresoever Helios gazes;

Even man,- - and royal honors

Thou alone, O Kypris, hast from all!

HIPPOLYTUS RAILS AT WOMANKIND

From Three Dramas of Euripides': copyright 1889, by W. C. Lawton, and reprinted by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

ZEUS, pray why-a specious curse for men
Hast thou set women in the light of day?

For if thou wouldst engender humankind,

Through women thou shouldst not have furnished them,
But in thy fanes depositing as pay

Or gold or iron or the weighty bronze,

Men ought to buy the race of children, each