STROPHE VI. Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day![n9] Thus sadly I hymn the sorrowful lay, {223} With a shrill-voiced cry, With a sorrow-streaming eye, Well-a-day, woe's me! Thus I grace my own tomb with the wail pouring free, Thus I sing my own dirge, ah me![f9] Ye Apian hills, be kind to me, And throw not back the stranger's note, But know the Libyan wail. Behold how, rent to sorrow's note, My linen robes all loosely float, And my Sidonian veil. ANTISTROPHE VI. Ah! well-a-day! ah! well-a-day! My plighted vows I'll duly pay, Ye gods, if ye will save From the foe, and from the grave My trembling life set free! Surges high, surges high, sorrow's many-billowed sea, And woe towers on woe. Ah me! Ye Apian hills,[n10] be kind to me, And throw not back the stranger's note But know the Libyan wail! Behold how, rent to sorrow's note, My linen robes all loosely float, And my Sidonian veil! STROPHE VII. And yet, in that slight timbered house, well-armed With frequent-plashing oar, Stiff sail and cordage straining, all unharmed By winter's stormy roar, We reached this Argive shore. Safely so far. May Jove, the all-seeing, send As the beginning, so the prosperous end. And may he grant, indeed, That we, a gracious mother's gracious seed, By no harsh kindred wooed, May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued! {224} ANTISTROPHE VII. May she, the virgin daughter of high Jove,[f10] Our virgin litany hear, Our loving homage answering with more love! She that, with face severe, Repelled, in awful fear, Each rude aggressor, in firm virtue cased, Nor knew the lustful touch divinely chaste. And may she grant, indeed, That we, a gracious mother's gracious seed, By no harsh kindred wooed, May live on Apian ground unyoked and unsubdued. STROPHE VIII. But if no aid to us may be, Libya's swart sun-beaten daughters, The rope shall end our toils; and we, Beneath the ground, shall fare to thee, Thou many-guested Jove,[f11] To thee our suppliant boughs we'll spread, Thou Saviour of the weary Dead, Far from the shining thrones of blissful gods above. Ah, Jove too well we know What wrath divine scourged ancient Io, wailing Beneath thy consort's anger heaven-scaling; And even so, On Io's seed may blow A buffeting blast from her of black despairful woe.