Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1896) v2.djvu/391
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HELEN.
335
1470When with rapture night's pulses shall quiver
For him whom the overcast quoit
Of Phœbus in contest did smite,[1]
Whence the God to Laconia's nation
Gave charge that they hallow the day
With slaughter of kine for oblation:—
And thy daughter whom, speeding away,
Ye left, shall ye find, for whom never
Hath the spousal-torch yet flashed bright.
(Str. 2)
Oh through the welkin on pinions to fleet
Where from Libya far-soaring
1480The cranes by their armies flee fast from the sleet
And the storm-waters pouring,
By their shepherd, their chief many-wintered, on-led,
At his whistle swift-wheeling,
As o'er plains whereon never the rain-drops were shed,
Yet where vineyards are purple, where harvests are red,
His clarion is pealing:—
O winged ones, who, blent with the cloud-spirits' race,
With necks far-stretching fly on,
'Neath the Pleiades plunge through abysses of space,
1490 'Neath the night-king Orion:
Crying the tidings, down heaven's steep glide,
To Eurotas descending,—
Cry "Atreides hath brought low Ilium's pride,
And homeward is wending!"
(Ant. 2)
And ye, in your chariot o'er highways of sky
O haste from the far land
For him whom the overcast quoit
Of Phœbus in contest did smite,[1]
Whence the God to Laconia's nation
Gave charge that they hallow the day
With slaughter of kine for oblation:—
And thy daughter whom, speeding away,
Ye left, shall ye find, for whom never
Hath the spousal-torch yet flashed bright.
(Str. 2)
Oh through the welkin on pinions to fleet
Where from Libya far-soaring
1480The cranes by their armies flee fast from the sleet
And the storm-waters pouring,
By their shepherd, their chief many-wintered, on-led,
At his whistle swift-wheeling,
As o'er plains whereon never the rain-drops were shed,
Yet where vineyards are purple, where harvests are red,
His clarion is pealing:—
O winged ones, who, blent with the cloud-spirits' race,
With necks far-stretching fly on,
'Neath the Pleiades plunge through abysses of space,
1490 'Neath the night-king Orion:
Crying the tidings, down heaven's steep glide,
To Eurotas descending,—
Cry "Atreides hath brought low Ilium's pride,
And homeward is wending!"
(Ant. 2)
And ye, in your chariot o'er highways of sky
O haste from the far land
- ↑ The festival of the Hyacinthia was held yearly at Amyclae, in memory of Hyacinthus, who was accidentally killed by the quoit of Apollo, who loved him.