Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky
A western Crescent, borne impetuously.
Then is made full the circle of her light,

And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright,
Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,
A wonder and a sign to mortal men.

The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power
Mingled in love and sleep-to whom she bore,
Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare
Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.

Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,
Fair-haired and favourable, thus with thee,
My song beginning, by its music sweet
Shall make immortal many a glorious feat
Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well
Which minstrels, servants of the muses, tell.

TO THE EARTH, MOTHER OF ALL.

UNIVERSAL mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee;
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,

All things that fly, or on the ground divine

Live, move, and there are nourished-these are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!

The life of mortal men beneath thy sway

Is held; thy power both gives and takes away! Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish, All things unstinted round them grow and flourish. For them, endures the life-sustaining field

Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield

Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled.
Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free,

The homes of lovely women, prosperously;
Their sons exult in youth's new budding gladness,
And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness,
With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song,
On the soft flowers the meadow-grass among,
Leap round them sporting-such delights by thee
Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.

Mother of gods, thou wife of starry Heaven,
Farewell be thou propitious, and be given
A happy life for this brief melody,

Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.

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 fledst
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 I suffer more than all before.
For, when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
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 Athaa'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.

Silenus. Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive

The gathered flocks into the rock-roofed cave.

Chorus. Go! But what needs this serious haste, O facher!

Silenus. I see a Grecian vessel on the coast,

And thence the rowers, with some general,

* The Antistrophe is omitted.

Approaching to this cave.

About their necks

Hang empty vessels, as they wanted food,

And water-flasks.-O miserable strangers!

Whence come they, that they know not what and who
My master is, approaching in ill hour

The inhospitable roof of Polypheme,

And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?

Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear,

Whence coming, they arrive the Etnean hill. '

Ulysses. Friends, can you show me some clear water spring, The remedy of our thirst? Will any one

Furnish with food seamen in want of it?
Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived
At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe
This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.
First let me greet the elder.-Hail !

Silenus.

Hail thou, O Stranger! Tell thy country and thy race. Ulysses. The Ithacan Ulysses and the king Of Cephalonia.

Silenus.

Oh! I know the man,

Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.

Ulysses. I am the same, but do not rail upon me.-
Silenus. Whence sailing do you come to Sicily?

Ulysses. From Ilion, and from the Trojan toils.

Silenus. How touched you not at your paternal shore?
Ulysses. The strength of tempests bore me here by force.
Silenus. The self-same accident occurred to me.

Ulysses. Were you then driven here by stress of weather?
Silenus. Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus.
Ulysses. What land is this, and who inhabit it
Silenus. Etna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.

Ulysses. And are there walls, and tower-surrounded towns?
Silenus. There are not.-These lone rocks are bare of men.
Ulysses. And who possess the land? the race of beasts?
Silenus. Cyclops, who live in caverns, not in houses.
Ulysses. Obeying whom? Or is the state popular?
Silenus. Shepherds: no one obeys any in aught.

Ulysses. How live they? do they sow the corn of Ceres?

Silenus. On milk and cheese, and on the flesh of sheep.

Ulysses. Have they the Bromian drink from the vine's stream?

Silenus. Ah! no; they live in an ungracious land.

Ulysses. And are they just to strangers?-hospitable? Silenus. They think the sweetest thing a stranger brings, Is his own flesh.

Ulysses.

What do they eat man's flesh?

Silenus. No one comes here who is not eaten up.

Ulysses. The Cyclops now-where is he? Not at home?
Silenus. Absent on Etna, hunting with his dogs.

Ulysses. Know'st thou what thou must do to aid us hence?

فية

Silenus. I know not: we will help you all we can.
Ulysses. Provide us food, of which we are in want.
Silenus. Here is not anything, as I said, but meat.
Ulysses. But meat is a sweet remedy for hunger.
Silenus. Cow's milk there is, and store of curdled cheese.
Ulysses. Bring out: I would see all before I bargain.
Silenus. But how much gold will you engage to give?
Ulysses. I bring no gold, but Bacchic juice.

Silenus.
O joy!
"Tis long since these dry lips were wet with wine.
Ulysses. Maron, the son of the God, gave it me.
Silenus. Whom I have nursed a baby in my arms.
Ulysses. The son of Bacchus, for your clearer knowledge.
Silenus. Have you it now?-or is it in the ship?
Ulysses. Old man, this skin contains it, which you see.
Silenus. Why this would hardly be a mouthful for me.
Ulysses. Nay, twice as much as you can draw from thence.
Silenus. You speak of a fair fountain, sweet to me.
Ulysses. Would you first taste of the unmingled wine?
Silenus. 'Tis just-tasting invites the purchaser.
Ulysses. Here is the cup, together with the skin.

Silenus. Pour: that the draught may fillip my remembrance.
Ulysses. See!

Silenus. Papaiapax! what a sweet smell it has !
Ulysses. You see it then?—

Silenus.

By Jove, no! but I smell it.

Ulysses. Taste, that you may not praise it in words only.
Silenus. Babai! Great Bacchus calls me forth to dance!
Joy! joy!

Ulysses. Did it flow sweetly down your throat?

Silenus. So that it tingled to my very nails.

Ulysses. And in addition I will give you gold.

Silenus. Let gold alone! only unlock the cask.

Ulysses. Bring out some cheeses now, or a young goat.
Silenus. That will I do, despising any master.

Yes, let me drink one cup, and I will give

All that the Cyclops feed upon their mountains.

*

Chorus. Ye have taken Troy, and laid your hands on Helen?
Ulysses. And utterly destroyed the race of Priam.

Silenus.

*

*

*

The wanton wretch! She was bewitched to see
The many-coloured anklets and the chain

Of woven gold which girt the neck of Paris,
And so she left that good man Menelaus.
There should be no more women in the world
But such as are reserved for me alone.-

*

See, here are sheep, and here are goats, Ulysses;
Here are unsparing cheeses of pressed milk;
Take them; depart with what good speed ye may;