Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/257
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ALCESTIS
227
And pipe, adown the winding hill-side paths,
Pastoral marriage-poems to thy flocks
At feed : while with them fed in fellowship,
Through joy i' the music, spot-skin lynxes;ay,
910 And lions too, the bloody company,
Came, leaving Othrus' dell;[1] and round thy lyre,
Phoibos, there danced the speckle-coated fawn.
Pacing on lightsome fetlock past the pines
Tress-topped, the creature's natural boundary.
Into the open everywhere; such heart as
Had she within her, beating joyous beats,
At the sweet reassurance of thy song!
Therefore the lot o' the master is, to live
In a home multitudinous with herds.
920 Along by the fair-flowing Boibian lake,[2]
Limited, that ploughed land and pasture-plain.
Only where stand the sun's steeds, stabled west
I' the cloud, by that mid-air which makes the clime
Of those Molossoi:[3] and he rules as well
925 O'er the Aigaian,[4] up to Pelion's shore,—
Sea-stretch without a port! Such lord have we:
And here he opens house now, as of old.
Takes to the heart of it a guest again:
Though moist the eyelid of the master, still
930 Mourning his dear wife's body, dead but now!
.........
Pastoral marriage-poems to thy flocks
At feed : while with them fed in fellowship,
Through joy i' the music, spot-skin lynxes;ay,
910 And lions too, the bloody company,
Came, leaving Othrus' dell;[1] and round thy lyre,
Phoibos, there danced the speckle-coated fawn.
Pacing on lightsome fetlock past the pines
Tress-topped, the creature's natural boundary.
Into the open everywhere; such heart as
Had she within her, beating joyous beats,
At the sweet reassurance of thy song!
Therefore the lot o' the master is, to live
In a home multitudinous with herds.
920 Along by the fair-flowing Boibian lake,[2]
Limited, that ploughed land and pasture-plain.
Only where stand the sun's steeds, stabled west
I' the cloud, by that mid-air which makes the clime
Of those Molossoi:[3] and he rules as well
925 O'er the Aigaian,[4] up to Pelion's shore,—
Sea-stretch without a port! Such lord have we:
And here he opens house now, as of old.
Takes to the heart of it a guest again:
Though moist the eyelid of the master, still
930 Mourning his dear wife's body, dead but now!
.........
940 They ended, for Admetos entered now;
Having disposed all duteously indoors. ...
950 He would have bidden the hind Presence there
Observe that,—since the corpse was coming out.
Cared for in all things that befit the case.
Carried aloft, in decency and state,
Having disposed all duteously indoors. ...
950 He would have bidden the hind Presence there
Observe that,—since the corpse was coming out.
Cared for in all things that befit the case.
Carried aloft, in decency and state,