thou not? they come. The solemn flutesWarn us away; we must not here be seen
In these our soilèd habits, yet may stand
Where we may hear and see and not be seen.
[Exeunt R.
Enter CHORUS, and from the palace Inachus bearing cakes: he comes to stand behind the altar.
CHORUS.
God of Heaven!
We praise thee, Zeus most high, 180
To whom by eternal Fate was given
The range and rule of the sky;
When thy lot, first of three
Leapt out, as sages tell,
And won Olympus for thee,
Therein for ever to dwell:
But the next with the barren sea
To grave Poseidôn fell,
And left fierce Hades his doom, to be
The lord and terror of hell. 190
(2) Thou sittest for aye
Encircled in azure bright,
Regarding the path of the sun by day,
And the changeful moon by night:{9}
Attending with tireless ears
To the song of adoring love,
With which the separate spheres
Are voicèd that turn above:
And all that is hidden under
The clouds thy footing has furl'd 200
Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder,
The eye that looks on the world.
Semichorus of youths.
Of all the isles of the sea
Is Crete most famed in story:
Above all mountains famous to me
Is Ida and crowned with glory.
There guarded of Heaven and Earth
Came Rhea at fall of night
To hide a wondrous birth
From the Sire's unfathering sight. 210
The halls of Cronos rang
With omens of coming ill,
And the mad Curêtes danced and sang
Adown the slopes of the hill.
Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red
Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun,
he thro' the vaporous west plunged to his bed,
Sunk, and the day was done.
But they, though he was fled,
Such light still held, as oft 220
Hanging in air aloft,
At eve from shadowed ship
The Egyptian sailor sees:
Or like the twofold tip
That o'er the topmost trees
Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames
Quake at the ghostly flames.{10}
Then friendly night arose
To succour Earth, and spread
Her mantle o'er the snows 230
And quenched their rosy red;
But in the east upsprings
Another light on them,
Selêné with white wings
And hueless diadem.
Little could she befriend
Her father's house and state,
Nor her weak beams defend
Hyperion from his fate.
Only where'er she shines, 240
In terror looking forth,
She sees the wailing pines
Stoop to the bitter North:
Or searching twice or thrice
Along the rocky walls,
She marks the columned ice
Of frozen waterfalls:
But still the darkened cave
Grew darker as she shone,
Wherein was Rhea gone 250
Her child to bear and save.
[They dance.
Then danced the Dactyls and Curêtes wild,
And drowned with yells the cries of mother and child;
Big-armed Damnámeneus gan prance and shout:
And burly Acmon struck the echoes out:
And Kermis leaped and howled: and Titias pranced
And broad Cyllenus tore the air and danced:
While deep within the shadowed cave at rest
Lay Rhea, with her babe upon her breast.
{11}
INACHUS.
If any here there be whose impure hands 260
Among pure hands, or guilty heart among
Our guiltless hearts be stained with blood or wrong,
Let him depart!
If there be any here in whom high Zeus
Seeing impiety might turn away,
Now from our sacrifice and from his sin
Let him depart!
Semichorus of maidens.
