410
The Suppliants.
Danaos.
Then dally not; be your design achieved.
[The Chorus place themselves near Danaos.]
Chorus.
O Zeus! my sorrows pity ere I die.
Danaos.
If He be gracious, all may yet be well.
Chorus.
******
Danaos.
Now do ye invocate this bird of Zeus.[1]
Chorus.
Lo! we invoke the Sun's sustaining beams.
Danaos.
Apollo too, pure god, exile from heaven. 210
Chorus.
Knowing this lot, he can for mortals feel.
Danaos.
So may he now, and stand our prompt ally.
- ↑ "The bird of Zeus" is interpreted by the scholiast to mean the sun, for it arouses us from sleep as the cock does. Pausanias distinctly asserts that the cock was considered sacred to the sun (lib. v. 25, 5); and that the sun was worshipped by the Argives (lib. ii. 18, 3). Probably there was some fancied connection between ἀλέκτωρ and ἠλέκτωρ, the Homeric title of the sun (Il. xix. 398; Hymn. ad Apoll. 369).—Paley.
