AESCHYLUS From Carian flutings, catches of Meletus, Dance-music, dirges. You shall hear directly.. Bring me the lyre. Yet wherefore need a lyre For songs like these? Where’s she that bangs and jangles Her castanets? Euripides’s Muse, Present yourself: fit goddess for fit verse,
DIONYSUS The Muse herself can’t be a wanton? No!
AESCHYLUS Halcyons, who by the ever-rippling
AESCHYLUS Waves of the sea are babbling, Dewing your plumes with the drops that fall From wings in the salt spray dabbling. Spiders, ever with twir-y-r-r-r-rling fingers Weaving the warp and the woof, Little, brittle, network, fretwork, Under the coigns of the roof. The minstrel shuttle’s care. Where in the front of the dark-prowed ships Yarely the flute-loving dolphin skips. Races here and oracles there. And the joy of the young vines smiling, And the tendril of grapes, care-beguiling.
AESCHYLUS O embrace me, my child, O embrace me. (To Dio.) You see this foot?
DIONYSUS I do.
AESCHYLUS And this?
DIONYSUS And that one too.
AESCHYLUS (To Eur.) You, such stuff who compile, Dare my songs to upbraid; You, whose songs in the style Of Cyrene’s embraces are made. So much for them: but still I’d like to show The way in which your monodies are framed. “O darkly-light mysterious Night, What may this Vision mean, Sent from the world unseen With baleful omens rife; A thing of lifeless life, A child of sable night, A ghastly curdling sight,
AESCHYLUS
In black funereal veils, With murder, murder in its eyes, - And great enormous nails? Light ye the lanterns, my maidens, and dipping your jugs in the stream, Draw me the dew of the water, and heat it to boiling and steam; So will I wash me away the ill effects of my dream. God of the sea! My dream’s come true. Ho, lodgers, ho, This portent view. Glyce has vanished, carrying off my cock, My cock that crew! O Mania, help! O Oreads of the rock Pursue! pursue! For I, poor girl, was working within, Holding my distaff heavy and full,
AESCHYLUS
Twir-y-r-r-r-rling my hand as the threads I spin, Weaving an excellent bobbin of wool; Thinking ‘To-morrow I’ll go to the fair, In the dusk of the morn, and be selling it there.’ But he to the blue upflew, upflew, On the lightliest tips of his wings outspread; To me he bequeathed but woe, but woe, And tears, sad tears, from my eyes o’erflow, Which I, the bereaved, must shed, must shed. O children of Ida, sons of Crete, Grasping your bows to the rescue come; Twinkle about on your restless feet, Stand in a circle around her home. O Artemis, thou maid divine, Dictynna, huntress, fair to see, O bring that keen-nosed pack of thine, And hunt through all the house with me. O Heeate, with flameful brands, O Zeus’s daughter, arm thine hands, Those swiftliest hands, both right and left; Thy rays on Glyce’s cottage throw
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