Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/42

14 Into bondage to dames of Mycenæ the spear-won daughters

Of Thebes,—to the Trident of Lerna, the fountain-waters

Amymonian, at stroke of Poseidon that leapt,—

When his net of thraldom around them is swept?

Never, ah never, O Artemis Queen,

Zeus' child, with the tresses of golden sheen,

Bowed under bondage may I be seen!

Daughter, pass in, and 'neath the roofs abide

Thy maiden bowers within; for thy desire

Hast thou attained, even all thou fain wouldst see.

Lo, to the royal halls a woman-throng

Comes, now confusion through the town hath passed.

And scandal-loving still is womankind;

For, so they find slight cause for idle talk,

More they invent. Strange pleasure women take

To speak of sister-women nothing good.

[Exeunt Old Servant and Antigonê.

Enter Chorus.

(Str. 1) Afar from the tides against Tyre's walls swelling,

For Loxias chosen an offering,

From the Isle of Phœnicia I came, to be thrall

Unto Phœbus, to serve in his palace-hall

Where 'neath crags of Parnassus, with arrowy fall

Of the snow oversprent, he hath made him a dwelling.

O'er Ionian seas did it waft me, the wing

Of the oar, while the West-wind's chariot sped

Over the furrows unharvested

That from Sicily roughened;—before him fled