From a l'ase in the Hermitage Museum at S. Petersburg.
5th Century B. C.

p. 89

90

(2nd Turn.)

There's one glory o' these
Fields, of all fields

Known to my hearing

Which not Asia yields:

Peloponnese'

Broad heritance

Boasts not a rearing :

Th' uncultivated

Plant, self-created;

The terror of the foeman's lance;

They fill the ground in

A rich abounding—

Grey-greenleaved olive-trees,

Lusty to nourish:

Which youth enraged

And captain aged

Vainly strives to reduce,
Hacking amain :

Havoc is vain,

For the eye of Zeus

Watches aye and wi' steely glance

Pallas sees that they flourish!

(2nd Counter-turn.)

Once more, Mother o' Towns,

Praise be rehearsed,

Title of honour !

No mean Deity erst,—
Crown of her crowns,

Pride o' the place—

Laid this upon her:

Renown for oarscraft,

For steeds and horsecraft.
O Son of Cronos, by the grace
Of thee, Poseidon,

She puts this pride on :

These our streets were the first,

Here did he render

The Horse not idle

By Bit and Bridle.
And our oarages leap
Peerlessly mann'd

Over the deep,

Fitted apt to the hand;

Five-score-footing, a Mermaid race

Takes our bark for a tender!

Ant. O region highly magnified in praise,
'Tis time to illustrate the glorious phrase !
Ed. Why, child, what news?

Ant.

O father, Creon 'tis Approaching, and a troop of men of his. Ed. My well-beloved Signiors, now the sun Of my deliv'rance from your hands must come ! Cho. Old as I am, it shall not fail: be bold: Here is folk whose force is not grown old!

[Enter CREON, attended by a few men.
Cre. Sirs, and most noble denizens of the land,
Some fear of my advance, I understand,
Takes instant hold upon your eyes. Forbear
Your trembling, and the untoward greeting spare.
I come not hither as on action bent,

For I am old, and this your government
For power I know may match the best in Greece;
Thus old, my mission is by ways of peace
To bring this man back to Cadmean ground,
On no one man's commission, rather bound
On public errand, as by birth a chief
Mourner in all the nation at his grief.

And now consent, unhappy dipus,

Come home: the voice of Thebes unanimous
Recalls you duly: I, not least, recall—
For (were I not the vilest wretch of all)
I suffer at your sorrowful old age,
To see this doleful foreign pilgrimage,—
A hungry waif for ever, penniless,
With one to lead him: little did I guess
To such abjection she would fall away
As fall'n, poor soul, I find her-day by day
To you and your condition ministrant