Page:Masterpieces of Greek Literature (1902).djvu/211

181 ANTIGONE 181

Strophe I. Chorus. Ο Thou of many iiames,^ use

Of that Cadmeian maid ^

The glory and the joy,

AVhom Zeus as offspring owns,

Zeus, thundering deep and loud, 1200

AVho watchest over famed Italia,^ And reign'st o'er all the bajs that Deo * claims

On fair Eleusis' coast. Bacchos, who dwell'st in Thebes, Ihe mother-town

Of all thy Bacchant train, 1205

Along Ismenus' stream.

And with the dragon's brood ; ^

Antistrophe I. Thee, o'er the double peak Of yonder height the blaze Of flashing fire beholds, 1210

Where nymphs of Corycos ^

^ The exulting hopes of the Chorus, rising• out of Creon's repent- ance, seem purposely brought into contrast ■«ath the tragedy which is passing while they are in the very act of chanting their hymns. This hymn is addressed to Dionysus.

^ Semele, the bride of Zeus, who perished when the God revealed himself as the Thunderer. In dying she gave birth to Dionysus.

^ Southern Italy, the Magna Graecia of the old geographers, is named as famous both for its wines and its cultus of Bacchus. A better reading here is Icaria, a rural district of Attica, — the home of Thespis, the legendary founder of the Greek drama, in the sixth cen- tury before our era. Excavations were conducted there in 18S8 by the American School at Athens.

shipped at Eleusis with secret rites.
 * The goddess Demeter, who with Bacchus (or lacchus) was wor-

^ The people descended from the serpent's teeth sown by Cadmus.

^ From Italia and Eleusis the Chorus passes to Parnassus, as the centre of the Bacchic cultus. On the twin peaks above Delphi flames were said to have been seen, telling of the presence of the God. The Corycian Cave is high up on the mountain.