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Translated by C. T. Brooks
WHEN chariot-race and feast and song | |
| Bade sons of Greece in joyful throng | |
| To Corinth’s narrow isthmus wend, | |
| Old Ibycus, of gods the friend, | |
| Filled with Apollo’s sacred fire, | 5 |
| Sweet master of the immortal lay, | |
| With trusty staff and tuneful lyre, | |
| From Rhegium took his wonted way. | |
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| Already, from its distant height | |
| The Acropolis greets the wanderer’s sight, | 10 |
| And with awed step and reverent brow | |
| He enters Neptune’s pine-grove now. | |
| Naught stirs around him, save a throng | |
| Of friendly cranes that southward fly; | |
| To warmer climes they wheel along | 15 |
| In darkening squadrons through the sky. | |
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| “Thanks, friendly bands! thrice blest be ye, | |
| My fellow-wanderers to the sea! | |
| I read in you a favoring sign; | |
| For, lo! your destiny is mine. | 20 |
| From distant climes long way we come, | |
| And seek a kindly shelter here; | |
| Soon may the stranger find a home | |
| His head to shield, his heart to cheer!” | |
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| With lighter heart and tread more gay | 25 |
| On through the woods he speeds his way; | |
| When, lo! before his startled eyes, | |
| From ambush close two murderers rise. | |
| Now he must meet the fight alone; | |
| But soon he faints before the foe; | 30 |
| His hand the sweet-stringed lyre hath known, | |
| But never bent the stubborn bow. | |
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| He calls on men; to heaven he cries; | |
| There comes no help from earth or skies; | |
| Far as his voice can reach appears | 35 |
| No living thing,—no sound he hears. | |
| “And must I here forsaken die? | |
| Die, all unwept, in foreign land, | |
| And sink, where no avenger ’s nigh, | |
| Beneath the murderer’s barbarous hand?” | 40 |
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| Wounded and spent, he sinks to die; | |
| When, lo! with rustling wings on high, | |
| He hears—for he can see no more— | |
| The cawing cranes fly thickly o’er. | |
| “Ye cranes, that sweep through upper air, | 45 |
| Though hushed be every human breath, | |
| The tidings of my murder bear,” | |
| He cried, and closed his lips in death. | |
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| Erelong the naked corpse is found; | |
| And soon, though marred by many a wound, | 50 |
| His Corinth kinsman well can trace | |
| The features of that long-loved face. | |
| “And is it thus I find thee now,— | |
| I, that had fondly hoped to twine | |
| Around thy glory-gilded brow | 55 |
| The garland of triumphal pine?” | |
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| And all the guests, from far and near, | |
| With sinking heart the tidings hear; | |
| Through wide-spread Greece the pang is borne; | |
| From every soul a friend is torn. | 60 |
| Tumultuous to the judgment hall | |
| The people pour in one wide flood; | |
| For vengeance, vengeance loud they call; | |
| They murmur for the murderer’s blood. | |
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| But how, amid the billowy throng, | 65 |
| That rolls through Corinth’s streets along | |
| To feast and song and chariot-race,— | |
| How the dark murderer shall we trace? | |
| Say, was the horrid outrage done | |
| By cowardly robber, jealous foe? | 70 |
| None knoweth, save the eternal Sun, | |
| Whose eye surveys all things below. | |
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| Haply he walks abroad e’en now | |
| In the great crowd with brazen brow, | |
| And where the blood of vengeance boils, | 75 |
| Bears round with him his guilty spoils. | |
| Perchance e’en at their temple’s door, | |
| Scorning the gods, he may be found, | |
| Or mingling with the crowds that pour | |
| To swell the theatre’s ample bound. | 80 |
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| For there, close crowded row on row, | |
| Till the vast pillars groan below, | |
| Borne thitherward from far and near, | |
| The multitudes of Greece appear. | |
| Wild murmuring, like the billowy deep, | 85 |
| Bank above rank, the nations rise, | |
| In wider, loftier circles sweep, | |
| And soar into the broad blue skies. | |
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| Who can recount, what tongue can name, | |
| The tribes of guests that hither came? | 90 |
| From Theseus’ city, Aulis’ strand, | |
| From Phocis, from the Spartan land, | |
| From all the islands, far and near, | |
| From Asia’s distant shores they throng, | |
| And bend down o’er the stage, to hear | 95 |
| The chorus chant their awful song. | |
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| Forth came, with slow and measured tread, | |
| The ancient chorus, solemn, dread, | |
| And through the theatre’s ample bound | |
| Stately they took their wonted round. | 100 |
| Not thus do mortal women move! | |
| No human dwelling gave these birth! | |
| Their giant bodies tower above | |
| The loftiest breathing forms of earth. | |
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| Black mantles round their loins they wear, | 105 |
| And in their skinny hands they bear | |
| Torches of ruddy, ghastly glow; | |
| And in their cheeks no blood doth flow; | |
| And where o’er human brows the hair | |
| In peaceful ringlets loves to bend, | 110 |
| Fell hissing asps and adders there | |
| Their poisonous, bloated forms extend. | |
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| These, gliding round with awful tread, | |
| Begin the hymn, whose tones so dread | |
| Run with a chill through mortal veins, | 115 |
| And round the sinner weave dark chains. | |
| In tones that every sense confound, | |
| The Furies’ dismal chorus rings, | |
| Curdling each hearer’s blood with sound | |
| That scorns the lyre’s majestic strings. | 120 |
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| “Well, well with him, who, free from sin, | |
| A child’s pure spirit bears within! | |
| From him the avenging demons flee; | |
| He treads life’s pathway fearlessly. | |
| But woe to him whose heart conceals | 125 |
| The murderous deed from mortal sight; | |
| We follow hard upon his heels, | |
| Dread children of the gloomy night. | |
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| “Dreams he by flight to escape our wrath, | |
| Swift-pinioned we pursue his path, | 130 |
| With snaky coil his feet surround, | |
| And bind him trembling to the ground. | |
| Thus we pursue him, dark and dread,— | |
| Not e’en remorse can yield him peace,— | |
| Down to the regions of the dead, | 135 |
| Nor there, e’en there his soul release.” | |
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| So sing they, dancing round and round, | |
| And through the theatre’s ample bound | |
| A deathlike stillness holds the air, | |
| As though a deity were there. | 140 |
| Once more the chorus, solemn, dread, | |
| Through the vast theatre glide around; | |
| They pass with slow and measured tread, | |
| And vanish in the depths profound. | |
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| And now all hearts are heard to beat, | 145 |
| Fluttering ’twixt truth and dark deceit, | |
| Awed by the sense of that dread might, | |
| Which, veiled in everlasting night, | |
| Bids destiny’s stern wheels move round, | |
| As the swift moments glide away, | 150 |
| Is felt in the heart’s depths profound, | |
| But flees before the light of day. | |
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| When all at once, far up on high, | |
| Is heard a wild and startled cry: | |
| “See there! see there, Timotheus! | 155 |
| The cranes! the cranes of Ibycus!”— | |
| And, lo! a gloom o’erspreads the sky, | |
| And, hovering o’er that mighty throng, | |
| A swarm of cranes, thick rustling by, | |
| In darkening squadrons wheel along. | 160 |
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| “Of Ibycus!”—That precious name | |
| Wakes in each heart sad memory’s flame, | |
| And swift, as deep to deep replies, | |
| From mouth to mouth the question flies: | |
| “Of Ibycus, our dear lost friend, | 165 |
| By bloody murderer’s hand laid low? | |
| And what of him may this portend? | |
| This flight of cranes, what may it show?” | |
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| And louder now the questions rise, | |
| And, lightning-like, the omen flies | 170 |
| Through every heart. “Give ear, give ear! | |
| The Furies’ power is witnessed here! | |
| The prayers of vengeance now are heard; | |
| The murderer has his guilt confessed; | |
| Hold fast the man who spoke that word, | 175 |
| And him to whom it was addressed.” | |
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| But he, whose lips that word had passed,— | |
| Ah, fain would he yet hold it fast: | |
| In vain; those lips, with terror pale, | |
| Tell to each eye their guilty tale. | 180 |
| Trembling before the judge they stand; | |
| The stage is now a judgment throne, | |
| And, struck by Heaven’s avenging hand, | |
| Their horrid crime the murderers own. | |
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