If aught is spared by night,
It droops before the day;
Ο Thou who wield'st the lightning's blazing might,
Ο Zeus our Father, dart thy thunder him to slay!
Antistroph. III.
And oh! Lykeian king,
That from thy gold-wrought string
Thy arrows might go forth in strength excelling;
And all the flashing rays
That Artemis displays,
Who on the Lykian mountains hath her dwelling!
Thee, Bacchos, I invoke,
Whose name our land hath borne,
Come, wine-flushed, gold-crowned. Mænad-girt, with smoke
Of blazing torch against that God, of Gods the scorn.
462–511.
Stroph. I.
Who was it that the rock of Delphos named,
In speech oracular,
That wrought with bloody hands his deeds dark-shamed?
Well may he wander far,
With footstep swifter and more strong
Than wind-winged steed that flies along;
For on him leaps, in Heaven's own panoply,
With fire and flash, the son of Zeus most High,
And with Him, dread and fell,
The dark Fates follow, irresistible.
Antistroph. I.
For 'twas but now from out the snowy height
Of old Parnassos shone
