Page:Tragedies of Euripides (Way 1898) v3.djvu/519

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With Muses, made me bear this hapless child.
For, as I waded through the river's flow,
Lo, I was clasped in Strymon's fruitful couch, 920
What time we came unto Pangaios' ridge,
Whose dust is gold, with flute and lyre arrayed,
We Muses, for great strife of minstrelsy
With Thracia's cunning bard ; and we made blind
Thamyris, who full oft had mocked our skill. 925
And, when I bare thee, shamed before my sisters,
And for my maidenhead, down thy sire's fair swirls
I cast thee; and to nurse thee Strymon chose
Arms of no mortal, but the Fountain-maids.
There reared in glorious fashion by the Nymphs, 930
Thou ruledst Thrace, a king of men, my child.
While through thy native land thou didst achieve
Great deeds of war, I feared not for thy life;
But still I warned thee never to fare to Troy,
Knowing thy doom: but Hector's embassies, 935
And messages untold that elders bare,
Wrought on thee to set forth to aid thy friends.
Athena, thou art cause of all this doom!
Nought did Odysseus, neither Tydeus' son,
With all their doings:^[1]—think not I am blind! 940
And yet thine Athens we with honour crown:
My sister Song-queens chiefly haunt thy land;
And the torch-march of those veiled Mysteries
Did Orpheus teach her, cousin of the dead—
This dead, whom thou hast slain! Musaius too, 945
Thy citizen revered, the chiefest bard
Of men, him Phœbus and the Muses trained:—

1. So MSS.; but "Perform: thou didst it," is Paley's suggestion.