XCVI.

"Take these and the fierce oxen, Maia's child—
O'er many a horse and toil-enduring mule,
O'er jagged-jawed lions, and the wild
White-tusked boars, o'er all, by field or pool,
Of cattle which the mighty Mother mild
Nourishes in her bosom, thou shalt rule-
Thou dost alone the veil of death uplift-
Thou givest not-yet this is a great gift."

XCVII.

Thus king Apollo loved the child of May

In truth, and Jove covered them with love and joy. Hermes with Gods and men even from that day Mingled, and wrought the latter much annoy, And little profit, going far astray

Through the dun night. Farewell, delightful Boy, Of Jove and Maia sprung,-never by me,

Nor thou, nor other songs shall unremembered be.

THE CYCLOPS;

A SATYRIC DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

SILENUS.

CHORUS OF SATYRS.

ULYSSES.

THE CYCLOPS.

SILENUS.

O, BACCHUS, what a world of toil, both now
And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
Have I endured for thee!

First, when thou fled'st

The mountain-nymphs who nurst thee, driven afar

By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;

Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,

When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,

No unpropitious fellow combatant,

And driving through his shield my winged spear,
Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,

Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!

And now
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea

I suffer more than all before.

With all my children quaint in search of you,
And I myself stood on the beaked prow

And fixed the naked mast, and all my boys.
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple sea,—
And so we sought you, king. We were sailing
Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
And drove us to this wild Etnean rock;
The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,
The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit,
On this wild shore, their solitary caves,

And one of these, named Polypheme, has caught us
To be his slaves; and so, for all delight

Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,

We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks.

My sons indeed, on far declivities,

Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
But I remain to fill the water casks,

Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
Some impious and abominable meal

To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
And now I must scrape up the littered floor
With this great iron rake, so to receive
My absent master and his evening sheep
In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see
My children tending the flocks hitherward.
Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures
Even now the same, as when with dance and song
You brought young Bacchus to Athea's halls?

CHORUS OF SATYRS.

STROPHE.

Where has he of race divine

Wandered in the winding rocks?
Here the air is calm and fine
For the father of the flocks ;-
Here the grass is soft and sweet,
And the river-eddies meet
In the trough beside the cave,
Bright as in their fountain wave.
Neither here, nor on the dew
Of the lawny uplands feeding?
Oh, you come!—a stone at you
Will I throw to mend your breeding;-
Get along, you horned thing,

Wild, seditious, rambling!

EPODE.

An Iacchic melody

To the golden Aphrodite
Will I lift, as erst did I

Seeking her and her delight

With the Mænads, whose white feet

To the music glance and fleet.
Bacchus, O beloved, where,

Shaking wide thy yellow hair,
Wanderest thou alone, afar?
To the one-eyed Cyclops, we,
Who by right thy servants are,
Minister in misery,

In these wretched goat-skins clad,
Far from thy delights and thee.

* The Antistrophe is omitted.