O wretched piety! O filial love!
If now my mother's death I should prevent,
I wrong my father; if I let her die,
'Gainst her I sin. Crime stands on either hand;
Yet must I check her and true crime withstand. 1030
Chorus: The sacred singer's word was true
Which once on Thracian Rhodope,
Orpheus, the heavenly Muse's son,
Sang to his lute Pierian:
That naught for endless life is made. 1035
At his sweet strains the rushing stream
Its uproar stilled, and all its waves
Paused in forgetfulness of flight;
And while the waters stayed to hear, 1040
The tribes far down the Hebrus' stream
Deemed that their river was no more.
All wingéd creatures of the wood
And e'en the woods themselves came near
To listen; or, if far on high
Some bird was wheeling through the air, 1045
To that sweet music swift he fell
On drooping wings. The mountains came:
Rough Athos with its Centaur herd,
And Rhodope, its drifted snows
Loosed by the magic of that song, 1050
Stood by to hear. The Dryads left
The shelter of their oaken trunks
And gathered round the tuneful bard.
The beasts came, too, and with them came 1055
Their lairs; hard by the fearless flocks
The tawny Afric lion crouched;
The timid does feared not the wolves;
And serpents crawled forth to the light,
Their venom quite forgot. 1060
When through the doors of Taenara
He made his way to the silent land,
Sounding his mournful lyre the while,
The glooms of Tartara were filled
