Εἰρήνα βαθύπλουτε καὶ καλλίστα μακάρων θεῶν, ζῆλός μοι σέθεν, ὡς χρονίζεις. δέδοικα δὲ μὴ πρὶν πόνοις ὑπερβάλῃ με γῆρας, πρὶν σὰν χαρίεσσαν ὥραν προσιδεῖν καὶ καλλιχόρους ἀοιδὰς φιλοστεφάνους τε κώμους. ἴθι μοι, πότνα, πόλιν. τὰν δ’ ἐχθρὰν στάσιν εἶργ’ ἀπ’ οἴ- κων τὰν μαινομέναν τ’ ἔριν θηκτῷ τερπομέναν σιδάρῳ. A paraphrase might run thus:— O Peace, thou givest plenty as from a deep spring: there is no beauty like unto thine, no, not even among the blessed gods. My heart yearneth within me, for thou tarriest; I grow old and thou returnest not. Shall weariness overcome mine eyes before they see thy bloom and thy comeliness? When the lovely songs of the dancers are heard again, and the thronging feet of them that wear garlands, shall grey hairs and sorrow have destroyed me utterly? Return, thou Holy One, to our city: abide not far from us, thou that quenchest wrath. Strife and bitterness shall depart, if thou art with us: madness and the edge of the sword shall flee away from our doors. Matthew Arnold’s _Merope_ has the same plot and includes a recognition-scene which probably resembles the lost original closely. His conception of Polyphontes is thoroughly Euripidean. Of the other lost plays little can be said here. Still amid this faint glow of star-dust many marvellous things are to be discerned—words of tremulous tenderness from the _Danae_ describing the charm of infancy; a line from _Ino_ which in its powerful grimness recalls Æschylus, “like a lone beast, he lurks in caves unlit”;[817] out of the _Polyidus_ the celebrated query, Who knows of life that it is aught but death, And death aught else than life beyond the grave?[818] From an unknown drama comes a line which owes its preservation to St. Paul[819]: φθείρουσιν ἤθη χρήσθ’ ὁμιλίαι κακαί, “evil communications corrupt good manners”. Euripides’ cosmopolitan sympathy nowhere finds finer expression than in the distich Where’er spreads Heaven the eagle cleaves his path; Where’er lies earth the righteous are at home.[820] But the student must at his leisure explore the marvels of these rock-pools left by the retiring ocean. One majestic passage[821] from the _Cretans_ shall suffice to close this survey. The lines are from a march sung by the Curetes or priests of the Cretan Zeus, and show that even in the Hellenic world the monastic spirit was not unknown:— Thou whom the Tyrian princess bare To mighty Jove, thou Lord of Crete, To whom her hundred cities bow, Lo, I draw near thy judgment-seat, Quitting my home, yon hallowed place Where beams of cypress roof the shrine, By far-brought axes lopped and hewn, Close knit by oxen’s blood divine. Pure is my life’s unbroken calm Since Zeus to bliss these eyes unsealed; The feast of quivering flesh I shared While through the dark strange thunder pealed.