Gathered in fear upon the lofty prow, And sacrifice with snow-white lambs, the wind And the huge billow bursting close behind, Even then beneath the weltering waters bear The staggering ship-they suddenly appear, On yellow wings rushing athwart the sky, And lull the blasts in mute tranquillity,
And strew the waves on the white ocean's bed, Fair omen of the voyage; from toil and dread, The sailors rest, rejoicing in the sight, And plough the quiet sea in safe delight.
I SING the glorious Power with azure eyes, Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise, Trilogenia, town-preserving maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed The everlasting Gods that shape to see, Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Ægis-bearing Jove; Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed; Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide,
And lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion's son long time Checked his swift steeds, till where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view. Child of the Ægis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others' praise shall unremembered be.
O BACCHUS, what a world of toil, both now And ere these limbs were overworn with age, Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled'st The mountain nymphs who nurst thee, driven afar By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee; Then in the battle of the sons of Earth, When I stood foot by foot close to thy side, No unpropitious fellow combatant,
And, driving through his shield my winged spear, Consider now,
Slew vast Enceladus.
Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies! And now I suffer more than all before.
For, when I heard that Juno had devised A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea With all my children quaint in search of you, And I myself stood on the beaked prow And fixed the naked mast; and all my boys, Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple
And so we sought you, king. We were sailing Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose, And drove us to this wild Etnean rock; The one-eyed children of the Ocean God, The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit, On this wild shore, their solitary caves; And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us
To be his slaves; and so, for all delight Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody, We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks. My sons indeed, on far declivities,
Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
But I remain to fill the water casks,
Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering Some impious and abominable meal
To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it! And now I must scrape up the littered floor With this great iron rake, so to receive My absent master and his evening sheep In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see My children tending the flocks hitherward. Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures Even now the same as when with dance and song
You brought young Bacchus to Athaa's halls?
Where has he of race divine Wandered in the winding rocks? Here the air is calm and fine For the father of the flocks;— Here the grass is soft and sweet, And the river-eddies meet In the trough beside the cave, Bright as in their fountain wave.— Neither here, nor on the dew Of the lawny uplands feeding? Oh, you come !-a stone at you Will I throw to mend your breeding;- Get along, you horned thing,
Wild, seditious, rambling!
An Iacchic melody
To the golden Aphrodite Will I lift, as erst did I
Seeking her and her delight
With the Mænads, whose white feet To the music glance and fleet. Bacchus, O beloved, where, Shaking wide thy yellow hair, Wanderest thou alone, afar? To the one-eyed Cyclops, we,
*The Antistrophe is omitted.
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