With native corpses strow
This land's ensanguined plain!
Still may youth's gracious flower
Unsickled blow;
Nor Aphrodite's spouse, man-slaying power,
Relentless Ares, mow its blossom down! 650
Antistrophe II.
May offerings blaze in every sacred fane,[1]
By foreign elders throng'd, an honoured train,
That well may fare the State!
Zeus let them hail, the Great,—
The stranger's god, who fate
By hoary law doth rein.
Fresh produce may the fields
For ever bear,
And may dread Artemis, her bow who wields,
View women's travail-pangs and kindly spare. 660
Strophe III.
And let no man-destroying mischief lay
This town in ruins, arming for the fray,
Ares, the source of tears, of ruthless mood,
Danceless and lyreless. May the brood
Of fell disease far from these burghers wing
- ↑ Another reading gives—
"With gifts of honour may the altars blaze,
Crowded with envoys, who shall sound the praise
Of this well-ordered State.
Zeus let them hail, the Great,
The stranger's god, who fate
By law primeval sways."
