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Chorus
O to be nestling ’neath some pathless cavern, there by god’s creating hand to grow into a bird amid the winged tribes!
Away would I soar to Adrians wave-beat shore and to the waters of Eridanus; where a father’s hapless daughters
1
in their grief for Phaethon
735
distil into the glooming flood the amber brilliance of their tears.
740
O to be nestling ’neath some pathless cavern, there by god’s creating hand to grow into a bird amid the winged tribes!
Away would I soar to Adrians wave-beat shore and to the waters of Eridanus; where a father’s hapless daughters
1
in their grief for Phaethon
735
distil into the glooming flood the amber brilliance of their tears.
740
Chorus
And to the apple-bearing strand of those minstrels in the west I then would come, where ocean’s lord
no more to sailors grants a passage o’er the deep dark main, finding there the heaven’s holy bound, upheld by Atlas, where water from ambrosial founts wells up beside the couch of Zeus inside his halls,
745
and holy earth, the bounteous mother, causes joy to spring in heavenly breasts.
750
And to the apple-bearing strand of those minstrels in the west I then would come, where ocean’s lord
no more to sailors grants a passage o’er the deep dark main, finding there the heaven’s holy bound, upheld by Atlas, where water from ambrosial founts wells up beside the couch of Zeus inside his halls,
745
and holy earth, the bounteous mother, causes joy to spring in heavenly breasts.
750
Chorus
O white-winged bark, that o’er the booming ocean-wave didst bring
my royal mistress from her happy home, to crown her queen ’mongst sorrow’s brides! Surely evil omens from either port, at least from Crete, were with that ship, what time to glorious Athens it sped its way,
755
and the crew made fast its twisted cable-ends upon the beach of Munychus, and on the land stept out.
760
O white-winged bark, that o’er the booming ocean-wave didst bring
my royal mistress from her happy home, to crown her queen ’mongst sorrow’s brides! Surely evil omens from either port, at least from Crete, were with that ship, what time to glorious Athens it sped its way,
755
and the crew made fast its twisted cable-ends upon the beach of Munychus, and on the land stept out.
760
Chorus
Whence comes it that her heart
is crushed, cruelly afflicted by Aphrodite with unholy love; so she by bitter grief o’erwhelmed will tie a noose within her bridal bower to fit it to her fair white neck,
765
too modest for this hateful lot in life, prizing o’er all her name and fame, and striving thus to rid her soul of passion’s sting.
770
Whence comes it that her heart
is crushed, cruelly afflicted by Aphrodite with unholy love; so she by bitter grief o’erwhelmed will tie a noose within her bridal bower to fit it to her fair white neck,
765
too modest for this hateful lot in life, prizing o’er all her name and fame, and striving thus to rid her soul of passion’s sting.
770
Hippolytus. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1906.
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