Page:Tragedies of Sophocles (Plumptre 1878).djvu/523

Rh If aught is spared by night,

It droops before the day;

Ο Thou who wield'st the lightning's blazing might,

Ο Zeus our Father, dart thy thunder him to slay!

And oh! Lykeian king,

That from thy gold-wrought string

Thy arrows might go forth in strength excelling;

And all the flashing rays

That Artemis displays,

Who on the Lykian mountains hath her dwelling!

Thee, Bacchos, I invoke,

Whose name our land hath borne,

Come, wine-flushed, gold-crowned. Mænad-girt, with smoke

Of blazing torch against that God, of Gods the scorn.

Who was it that the rock of Delphos named,

In speech oracular,

That wrought with bloody hands his deeds dark-shamed?

Well may he wander far,

With footstep swifter and more strong

Than wind-winged steed that flies along;

For on him leaps, in Heaven's own panoply,

With fire and flash, the son of Zeus most High,

And with Him, dread and fell,

The dark Fates follow, irresistible.

For 'twas but now from out the snowy height

Of old Parnassos shone