Racine: Phaedra

CEDIPUS REX 57
Strophe I.
Chorus.—Who was it that the rock oracular
Of Delphi spake of, working
With bloody hands of all dread deeds most dread ?
Time is it now for him,
Swifter than fastest steed to bend his flight
For, in full armor clad,
Upon him darts, with Are
And lightning flash, the radiant Son of Zeus,
And with Him come in train
The dread and awful Powers,
The Destinies that fail not of their aim.
Antistrophe I.
For from Parnassos' heights, enwreathed with snow.
Gleaming, but now there shone
The oracle that bade us, one and all,
Track the unnamed, unknown;
For, lo ! he wanders through the forest wild.
In caves and over rocks,
As strays the mountain bull,
In dreary loneliness with dreary tread,
Seeking in vain to shun
Dread words from central shrine ;
Yet they around him hover, full of life.
Strophe II.
Fearfully, fearfully the augur moves me.
Nor answering, aye nor no
And what to say I know not, but float on,
And hover still in hopes.
And fail to scan things present or to come.
For not of old, nor now,
Learnt I what cause of strife at variance set
The old Labdakid race
With him, the child and heir of Polybos,
" Delphi, thought of by the Greeks, as Jerusalem was in the Middle AgeSi
AS the centre oi the whole earth.
^^