CHORUS.

From the cup of my heart I pour through my lips along [Str. 1. The mingled wine of a joyful and sorrowful song; Wine sweeter than honey and bitterer than blood that is poured From the chalice of gold, from the point of the two-edged sword. For the city redeemed should joy flow forth as a flood, And a dirge make moan for the city polluted with blood. Great praise should the Gods have surely, my country, of thee, [Ant. 1. 1630 Were thy brow but as white as of old for thy sons to see, Were thy hands as bloodless, as blameless thy cheek divine; But a stain on it stands of the life-blood offered for thine. What thanks shall we give that are mixed not and marred with dread For the price that has ransomed thine own with thine own child's head? For a taint there cleaves to the people redeemed with blood, [Str. 2. And a plague to the blood-red hand. The rain shall not cleanse it, the dew nor the sacred flood That blesses the glad live land. In the darkness of earth beneath, in the world without sun, [Ant. 2. 1640 The shadows of past things reign; And a cry goes up from the ghost of an ill deed done, And a curse for a virgin slain.

ATHENA.

Hear, men that mourn, and woman without mate, Hearken; ye sick of soul with fear, and thou Dumb-stricken for thy children; hear ye too, Earth, and the glory of heaven, and winds of the air, And the most holy heart of the deep sea, Late wroth, now full of quiet; hear thou, sun, Rolled round with the upper fire of rolling heaven 1650 And all the stars returning; hills and streams, Springs and fresh fountains, day that seest these deeds. Night that shalt hide not; and thou child of mine, Child of a maiden, by a maid redeemed, Blood-guiltless, though bought back with innocent blood, City mine own; I Pallas bring thee word, I virgin daughter of the most high God Give all you charge and lay command on all The word I bring be wasted not; for this The Gods have stablished and his soul hath sworn, 1660 That time nor earth nor changing sons of man Nor waves of generations, nor the winds Of ages risen and fallen that steer their tides Through light and dark of birth and lovelier death From storm toward haven inviolable, shall see So great a light alive beneath the sun As the awless eye of Athens; all fame else Shall be to her fame as a shadow in sleep To this wide noon at waking; men most praised In lands most happy for their children found 1670 Shall hold as highest of honours given of God To be but likened to the least of thine, Thy least of all, my city; thine shall be The crown of all songs sung, of all deeds done Thine the full flower for all time; in thine hand Shall time be like a sceptre, and thine head Wear worship for a garland; nor one leaf Shall change or winter cast out of thy crown Till all flowers wither in the world; thine eyes Shall first in man's flash lightning liberty, 1680 Thy tongue shall first say freedom; thy first hand Shall loose the thunder terror as a hound To hunt from sunset to the springs of the sun Kings that rose up out of the populous east To make their quarry of thee, and shall strew With multitudinous limbs of myriad herds The foodless pastures of the sea, and make With wrecks immeasurable and unsummed defeat One ruin of all their many-folded flocks Ill shepherded from Asia; by thy side 1690 Shall fight thy son the north wind, and the sea That was thine enemy shall be sworn thy friend And hand be struck in hand of his and thine To hold faith fast for aye; with thee, though each Make war on other, wind and sea shall keep Peace, and take truce as brethren for thy sake Leagued with one spirit and single-hearted strength To break thy foes in pieces, who shall meet The wind's whole soul and might of the main sea Full in their face of battle, and become 1700 A laughter to thee; like a shower of leaves Shall their long galleys rank by staggering rank Be dashed adrift on ruin, and in thy sight The sea deride them, and that lord of the air Who took by violent hand thy child to wife With his loud lips bemock them, by his breath Swept out of sight of being; so great a grace Shall this day give thee, that makes one in heart With mine the deep sea's godhead, and his son With him that was thine helmsman, king with king, 1710 Dead man with dead; such only names as these Shalt thou call royal, take none else or less To hold of men in honour; but with me Shall these be worshipped as one God, and mix With mine the might of their mysterious names In one same shrine served singly, thence to keep Perpetual guard on Athens; time and change, Masters and lords of all men, shall be made To thee that knowest no master and no lord Servants; the days that lighten heaven and nights 1720 That darken shall be ministers of thine To attend upon thy glory, the great years As light-engraven letters of thy name Writ by the sun's hand on the front of the earth For world-beholden witness; such a gift For one fair chaplet of three lives enwreathed To hang for ever from thy storied shrine, And this thy steersman fallen with tiller in hand To stand for ever at thy ship's helm seen, Shall he that bade their threefold flower be shorn 1730 And laid him low that planted, give thee back In sign of sweet land reconciled with sea And heavenlike earth with heaven; such promise-pledge I daughter without mother born of God To the most woful mother born of man Plight for continual comfort. Hail, and live Beyond all human hap of mortal doom Happy; for so my sire hath sworn and I.

PRAXITHEA.

O queen Athena, from a heart made whole Take as thou givest us blessing; never tear 1740 Shall stain for shame nor groan untune the song That as a bird shall spread and fold its wings Here in thy praise for ever, and fulfil The whole world's crowning city crowned with thee As the sun's eye fulfils and crowns with sight The circling crown of heaven. There is no grief Great as the joy to be made one in will With him that is the heart and rule of life And thee, God born of God; thy name is ours, And thy large grace more great than our desire. 1750

CHORUS.

From the depth of the springs of my spirit a fountain is poured of thanksgiving, My country, my mother, for thee, That thy dead for their death shall have life in thy sight and a name everliving At heart of thy people to be. In the darkness of change on the waters of time they shall turn from afar To the beam of this dawn for a beacon, the light of these pyres for a star. They shall see thee who love and take comfort, who hate thee shall see and take warning, Our mother that makest us free; And the sons of thine earth shall have help of the waves that made war on their morning, And friendship and fame of the sea. 1760



NOTES.

v. 497-503. Cf. Eurip. Fr. Erechtheus, 46-49.

v. 522-530. Id. 32-40.

v. 778. AEsch. Supp. 524-6.

v. 983. Soph. Fr. (Oreithyia) 655.

[Greek: hyper te ponton pant' ep' etchata chthonos nyktos te pegas ouranou t' anaptychas, phoibou palaion kepon.]

v. 1163. AEsch. Fr. (Danaides) 38.

[Greek: ombros d' ap' eunaentos ouranou peson ekyse gaian.]

v. 1168. Id.

[Greek: dendrotis hora d' ek notizontos gamou teleios esti.]

v. 1749. 'God born of God.' Soph. Ant. 834. [Greek: theos toi kai theogennes.]

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