Into bondage to dames of Mycenæ the spear-won daughters
Of Thebes,—to the Trident of Lerna, the fountain-waters
Amymonian, at stroke of Poseidon that leapt,—
When his net of thraldom around them is swept?
Never, ah never, O Artemis Queen,190
Zeus' child, with the tresses of golden sheen,
Bowed under bondage may I be seen!
Old Servant.
Daughter, pass in, and 'neath the roofs abide
Thy maiden bowers within; for thy desire
Hast thou attained, even all thou fain wouldst see.195
Lo, to the royal halls a woman-throng
Comes, now confusion through the town hath passed.
And scandal-loving still is womankind;
For, so they find slight cause for idle talk,
More they invent. Strange pleasure women take200
To speak of sister-women nothing good.
[Exeunt Old Servant and Antigonê.
Enter Chorus.
Chorus.
(Str. 1)
Afar from the tides against Tyre's walls swelling,
For Loxias chosen an offering,
From the Isle of Phœnicia I came, to be thrall
Unto Phœbus, to serve in his palace-hall
Where 'neath crags of Parnassus, with arrowy fall
Of the snow oversprent, he hath made him a dwelling.
O'er Ionian seas did it waft me, the wing
Of the oar, while the West-wind's chariot sped
Over the furrows unharvested210
That from Sicily roughened;—before him fled
