Of Cadmos, guard;—show forth thy care divine;
Kypris, do thou, fore-mother of our line,
These ills avert, for from thy blood we came;
Thee we approach with god-invoking prayers. 130
Thou too, Lykeian[1] Lord, thy name
Attesting, as our groans ascend,
Smite thou the hostile host;—[2]
And thou from Leto who dost boast
Thy heavenly birth, thy bow, dread virgin, bend.
Strophe II.
The din of chariot wheels, alas, ah me,
Around our walls I hear;
O Hera, mighty queen!
From axles overburden'd creak the naves. 140
O Artemis most dear!
Madden'd by hurtling spears vext ether raves.
What ails the city? What its doom will be?
God guides the issue to what goal unseen?
Antistrophe II.
A stone-shower hits the towers, alas, ah me,
Striking their very crown.
- ↑ The word λύκειος, as an epithet of Apollo, has been variously interpreted to mean, 1st, the wolf-destroyer, from λύκος, a wolf; 2nd, the Lycian god, from λυκηγενής, Lycian-born; 3rd, the god of light, from a supposed ancient noun, λύκη, light. In the text it is generally understood to bear the first of these significations. Sophocles, in the 'Electra' (6), calls Apollo the wolf-slaying god (λυκοκτόνος).
- ↑ Λύκειος γενοῦ—a pun upon the epithet "Λύκειος"—be a wolf-destroyer to the hostile host.
