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Chorus
Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,
oh! guide as well the hand that fills by day a cup of death, against those to whom my revered mistress is sending a philtre of the gore that dripped from hellish Gorgon’s severed head,
1050
yea, ’gainst him who would obtrude upon the halls of the Erechthidae. Never may alien, from alien stock, lord it o’er my city,
1055
no! none save noble Erechtheus’ sons!
1060
Daughter of Demeter, goddess of highways, queen as thou art of haunting powers of darkness,
oh! guide as well the hand that fills by day a cup of death, against those to whom my revered mistress is sending a philtre of the gore that dripped from hellish Gorgon’s severed head,
1050
yea, ’gainst him who would obtrude upon the halls of the Erechthidae. Never may alien, from alien stock, lord it o’er my city,
1055
no! none save noble Erechtheus’ sons!
1060
Chorus
For if this deadly deed and my lady’s aims pass unfulfilled, and the right moment for her daring go by, and with it the hope which now sustains her, either will she seize the whetted knife
or fasten the noose about her neck, and by ending one sorrow by another will go down to other phases of existence. For never will that daughter of a noble line,
1065
while life is hers, endure within the sunshine of her eyes the sight of alien rulers in her halls.
1070
For if this deadly deed and my lady’s aims pass unfulfilled, and the right moment for her daring go by, and with it the hope which now sustains her, either will she seize the whetted knife
or fasten the noose about her neck, and by ending one sorrow by another will go down to other phases of existence. For never will that daughter of a noble line,
1065
while life is hers, endure within the sunshine of her eyes the sight of alien rulers in her halls.
1070
Chorus
I blush for that god of song,
if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus’ fair springs, a sleepless votary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus,
1075
the moon, and Nereus’ fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o’er the sea and the eternal rivers’ tides, join the dance in honour
1080
of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; where this vagabond, by Phoebus favoured, thinks to reign, entering into other men’s hard toil.
1085
I blush for that god of song,
if this stranger is to witness the torch-dance, that heralds in the twentieth dawn, around Callichorus’ fair springs, a sleepless votary in midnight revels, what time the star-lit firmament of Zeus,
1075
the moon, and Nereus’ fifty daughters, that trip it lightly o’er the sea and the eternal rivers’ tides, join the dance in honour
1080
of the maiden with the crown of gold and her majestic mother; where this vagabond, by Phoebus favoured, thinks to reign, entering into other men’s hard toil.
1085
Chorus
Look to it, all ye bards, who, in malicious strains, expose our amours and unholy bonds of lawless love; see how far our
1090
virtue surpasses man’s disloyalty. Change the burden of your song and keep your spiteful verse to brand man’s faithlessness. For this scion of the stock of Zeus
1095
shows himself a heedless wight, denying to the mistress of his halls the lot of mutual offspring, and, paying all his court to some strange love,
1100
hath gotten him a bastard son.
1105
Look to it, all ye bards, who, in malicious strains, expose our amours and unholy bonds of lawless love; see how far our
1090
virtue surpasses man’s disloyalty. Change the burden of your song and keep your spiteful verse to brand man’s faithlessness. For this scion of the stock of Zeus
1095
shows himself a heedless wight, denying to the mistress of his halls the lot of mutual offspring, and, paying all his court to some strange love,
1100
hath gotten him a bastard son.
1105
Ion. Euripides. Edward P. Coleridge (Translator). London. 1906.
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