KING. Thy father will return anon; meanwhile I go to call the assembly of the people,[n34] And in thy favour move them, if I can. Thy father, too, I'll aptly train, how he Should woo their favour. Wait ye here, and pray The native gods to crown your heart's desire. I go to speed the business; may Persuasion And Chance, with happy issue pregnant, guide me! CHORAL HYMN. STROPHE I. King of all kings, high-blest above Each blest celestial nature, Strength of the strong, all-glorious Jove, All crowning Consummator![n35] Hear thou our prayer: the proud confound; With hate pursue the hateful, And plunge in purpling pools profound The black-bench'd bark, the fateful! ANTISTROPHE I. Our ancient line from thee we trace Our root divinely planted; Look on these sisters with the grace To that loved maid once granted, Our mother Io; and renew Sweet memory in the daughters Of her thy gentle touch who knew By Nile's deep-rolling waters. STROPHE II. Here, even here, where 'mid the browsing kine, My Argive mother fed her eye divine, With rich mead's flowery store, {236} My Libyan foot I've planted; hence by the brize[n36] Divinely fretted with fitful oar she hies[n37] From various shore to shore, God-madded wanderer. Twice the billowy wave She crossed; and twice her fated name she gave To the wide sea's straitened roar. ANTISTROPHE II. Spurred through the Asian land with swiftest speed She fled, where Phrygian flocks far-pasturing feed; Then restless travelled o'er Mysia, where Teuthras holds his fortress high, Cilician and Pamphylian heights, and nigh Where roaring waters pour From fountains ever fresh their torrent floods, And Aphrodite's land whose loamy roods Swell with the wheaten store.[f16] STROPHE III. Thence by her wingéd keeper stung, she speeds To the land divine, the many-nurturing meads, And to the snow-fed stream, Which like impetuous Typhon,[f17] vasty pours Its purest waves, that the salubrious shores From pestilent taint redeem.[f18] Here from harsh Hera's madly-goading pest, From hattering chase of undeserved unrest, At length by the holy stream. ANTISTROPHE III. She rests. Pale terror smote their hearts who saw. The unwonted sight beheld with startled awe The thronging sons of Nile; Nor dared to approach this thing of human face,[n38] Portentous-mingled with the lowing race, Treading the Libyan soil. Who then was he, the brize-stung Io's friend, With charms of soothing virtue strong to end Her weary-wandering toil?