Of pictured wounds and death and slaughter.--Ah, too long On trifling ills I dwell. These were my virgin deeds. Now that a mother's pains I've felt, my larger heart 50 Must larger crimes conceive. Then passion, gird thyself, Put on thy strength, and for the issue now prepare! Let my rejection pay as dread a fee as when, Of old, through impious deeds of blood, I came to him. Come, break through slow delay, and let the home once won By crime, by equal deeds of crime be done away! 55 _Chorus_ [_chanting the epithalamium for the nuptials of_ Jason _and_ Creüsa]: Now on our royal nuptials graciously smiling, Here may the lords of heaven and the deeps of the ocean Come while the people feast in pious rejoicing! First to the gods who sway the scepter of heaven, Pealing forth their will in the voice of thunder, Let the white bull his proud head bow in tribute. 60 Then to the fair Lucina, her gift we offer, White as the driven snow, this beautiful heifer, Still with her neck untouched by the yoke of bondage. Thou who alone canst rule the heart of the war-god, Thou who linkest in peace the opposing nations, Out of thy generous hand abundance pouring-- 65 Thee we offer a daintier gift, O Concord! Thou who, on the marriage torches attending, Night's dark gloom with favoring hand dispellest, Hither come with languishing footstep drunken, Binding thy temples fair with garlands of roses! 70 Star of the evening, thou who to twilight leadest The day, and hailest again the dawn of the morning, All too slowly thou com'st for lovers impatient, Eager to see thy sign in the glow of the sunset. The fairest of girls is she, 75 The Athenian maids outshining, Or the Spartan maiden with armor laden, No burden of war declining. Not by Alpheus' sacred stream, Nor Boeotia's musical water, Is there any fair who can compare 80 With our lovely Corinthian daughter. Our Thessalian prince excels, In beauty of form and face, Even Bacchus, the son of the fierce-flaming one, Who yokes the wild tigers in place. 85 The murmuring tripod's lord, Though the fairest in heavenly story, The twins with their star bright gleaming afar-- All yield to our Jason in glory. 90 When in her train of courtly maidens she mingles-- Like the bright sunshine paling the starry splendor, 95 Or the full moonlight quenching the Pleiads' brilliance, So does she shine, all peerless, of fair ones the fairest.