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638 Sophocles [663-719]
sail. Now I would have thee be of a good courage, apart from any resolve
of mine, if indeed Phoebus hath sent thee on thy way; still, though I be
not here, my name, I wot, will shield thee from harm.
(THESEUS departs.)
CHORUS {singing)
strophe 1
Stranger, in this land of goodly steeds thou hast come to earth's
fairest home, even to our white Colonus; where the nightingale, a
constant guest, trills her clear note in the covert of green glades,
dwelling amid the wine-dark ivy and the god's inviolate bowers, rich
in berries and fruit, unvisited by sun, unvexed by wind of any storm;
where the reveller Dionysus ever walks the ground, companion of the
nymphs that nursed him.
antistrophe 1
And, fed of heavenly dew, the narcissus blooms morn by morn with
fair clusters, crown of the Great Goddesses from of yore; and the
crocus blooms with golden beam. Nor fail the sleepless founts whence
the waters of Cephisus wander, but each day with stainless tide he
moveth over the plains of the land's swelling bosom, for the giving
of quick increase; nor hath the Muses' quire abhorred this place, nor
Aphrodite of the golden rein.
strophe 2
And a thing there is such as I know not by fame on Asian ground,
or as ever born in the great Dorian isle of Pelops,—a growth unconquered,
self-renewing, a terror to the spears of the foemen, a growth
which mightily flourishes in this land,—the grey-leafed olive, nurturer
of children. Youth shall not mar it by the ravage of his hand,
nor any who dwells with old age; for the sleepless eye of the Morian3
Zeus beholds it, and the grey-eyed Athena.
antistrophe 2
And another praise have I to tell for this the city our mother, the
gift of a great god, a glory of the land most high; the might of
horses, the might of young horses, the might of the sea.
For thou, son of Cronus, our lord Poseidon, hast throned her in
this pride, since in these roads first thou didst show forth the curb
that cures the rage of steeds. And the shapely oar, apt to men's
hands, hath a wondrous speed on the brine, following the hundredfooted
Nereids.