SERV. Well, thus 'tis rightly done: but why 'tis so I cannot tell, nor any man here knows; Save that our master when he sacrificeth, As thou wilt hear anon, speaketh of fire; And fire he saith is good for gods and men; And the gods have it and men have it not: 170 And then he prays the gods to send us fire; And we, against they send it, must have wood Laid ready thus as I have shewn thee here. PR. To-day he sacrificeth? SERV. Ay, this noon. Hark! hear'st thou not? they come. The solemn flutes Warn us away; we must not here be seen In these our soilèd habits, yet may stand Where we may hear and see and not be seen. [_Exeunt R._ _Enter_ CHORUS, _and from the palace_ INACHUS _bearing cakes: he comes to stand behind the altar_. _CHORUS._ God of Heaven! We praise thee, Zeus most high, 180 To whom by eternal Fate was given The range and rule of the sky; When thy lot, first of three Leapt out, as sages tell, And won Olympus for thee, Therein for ever to dwell: But the next with the barren sea To grave Poseidôn fell, And left fierce Hades his doom, to be The lord and terror of hell. 190 (2) Thou sittest for aye Encircled in azure bright, Regarding the path of the sun by day, And the changeful moon by night: Attending with tireless ears To the song of adoring love, With which the separate spheres Are voicèd that turn above: And all that is hidden under The clouds thy footing has furl'd 200 Fears the hand that holdeth the thunder, The eye that looks on the world. _Semichorus of youths._ Of all the isles of the sea Is Crete most famed in story: Above all mountains famous to me Is Ida and crowned with glory. There guarded of Heaven and Earth Came Rhea at fall of night To hide a wondrous birth From the Sire's unfathering sight. 210 The halls of Cronos rang With omens of coming ill, And the mad Curêtes danced and sang Adown the slopes of the hill. Then all the peaks of Gnossus kindled red Beckoning afar unto the sinking sun, he thro' the vaporous west plunged to his bed, Sunk, and the day was done. But they, though he was fled, Such light still held, as oft 220 Hanging in air aloft, At eve from shadowed ship The Egyptian sailor sees: Or like the twofold tip That o'er the topmost trees Flares on Parnassus, and the Theban dames Quake at the ghostly flames.