ANTISTROPHE I. O Thou who with blessing anointed, Wert born when by Fate 'twas appointed, With thy name to all ages a sign![f6] In this land of the mother that bore thee, Her toils we remember before thee, Where she cropped the green mead with the kine. {221} O strange were her fortunes, and stranger The fate that hath chased me from danger To the home of the heifer divine. O son, with the mother that bore thee, Stamp my tale with thy truth for a sign! STROPHE AND ANTISTROPHE II. While we cry, should there haply be near us An Argive, an augur,[f7] to hear us, When our shrill-piercing wail His ear shall assail, 'Tis the cry he will deem, and none other, Of Procne, the woe-wedded mother, The hawk-hunted nightingale;[f8] Sad bird, when its known streams it leaveth, And with fresh-bleeding grief lonely grieveth, And telleth the tale, With a shrill-voiced wail, How the son that she loved, and none other, Was slain by his fell-purposed mother, The woe-wedded nightingale! STROPHE III. Even so from the Nile summer-tinted, With Ionian wailings unstinted,[n6] My cheek with the keen nail I tear; And I pluck, where it bloweth, Griefs blossom that groweth In this heart first acquainted with care; And I fear the fierce band, From the far misty land,[n7] Whom the swift ships to Argos may bear. ANTISTROPHE III. Ye gods of my race, seeing clearly The right which ye cherish so dearly, To the haughty your hatred declare! 'Gainst the right ye will never Chaste virgins deliver, The bed of the lawless to share; From the god-fenced altar Each awe-struck assaulter Back shrinks. Our sure bulwark is there. {222} STROPHE IV. O would that Jove might show to men His counsel as he planned it; But ah! he darky weaves the scheme, No mortal eye hath scanned it. It burns through darkness brightly clear To whom the god shall show it; But mortal man, through cloudy fear, Shall search in vain to know it. ANTISTROPHE IV. Firm to the goal his purpose treads, His will knows no frustration; When with his brow the mighty god Hath nodded consummation. But strangely, strangely weave their maze His counsels, dusky wending, Concealed in densely-tangled ways From human comprehending. STROPHE V. From their high-towering hopes the proud In wretched rout he casteth. No force he wields; his simple will, His quiet sentence blasteth. All godlike power is calm;[n8] and high On thrones of glory seated, Jove looks from Heaven with tranquil eye, And sees his will completed. ANTISTROPHE V. Look down, O mighty god, and see How this harsh wedlock planning, That dry old tree in saplings green, The insolent lust is fanning! Madly he hugs the frenzied plan With perverse heart unbending, Hot-spurred, till Ruin seize the man, Too late to think of mending.