Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/385

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HELEN.

329

From pouring the wan stream forth, aye wailing
For her child with inconsolable pain.
(Str. 2)
And the Gods' feasts failed from the altars fuming,
And for men the staff of bread she brake.
Then Zeus, to assuage the wrath overglooming
The soul of the Mighty Mother, spake: 1340
"Pass down, O Worshipful Ones, ye Graces,
And from Dêo banish her wrath's dark traces,
And the grief that hath driven through desolate places
A mother distraught for a daughter's sake.
Go ye too, Muses, with dance and with singing."
Then first of the Blessed Ones Kypris the fair
Caught up the brass of the voice deep-ringing,
And the skin-strained tambourine she bare.
Then Demeter smiled, and forgat her grieving,
In her hands for a token of peace receiving 1350
The flute of the deep wild notes far-cleaving
The gorges; and gladness lulled her care.
(Ant. 2)
Princess, did flame unconsecrated
Of rites unhallowed in thy bowers shine,^[1]
And so of the Mighty Mother hated
Wast thou?—O child, and was this sin thine,
To have lived of the Goddess's altar unrecking?
Yet atonement may come of the fawn-skin decking
Thy limbs, bedappled with dark spots flecking
Its brown, and if greenness of ivy twine 1360

↑ Of the two interpretations of this probably corrupt passage, that which conveys a conjecture of remissness in sacrifice (cf. Hippolytus, 145—150) is more probable than a reference to an intrigue with Paris, the existence of which, for the real Helen, had been disproved, and any suggestion of which would have implied insulting scepticism.

[1] Of the two interpretations of this probably corrupt passage, that which conveys a conjecture of remissness in sacrifice (cf. Hippolytus, 145—150) is more probable than a reference to an intrigue with Paris, the existence of which, for the real Helen, had been disproved, and any suggestion of which would have implied insulting scepticism.

[1]