Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

O shame! O fear and pain! ye make life weary,
A burden hard to bear;
The way of death at times seems not more dreary
Than ours through dark despair.
What is our lot? Toil; toil that knows no ceasing;
Toil wrung by those we hate;
Our conquerors' heaped-up stores of wealth increasing,
Our hands upbuild their state.

Strophe 1.

Fair land unto our chainless fathers giving
The wealth they freely gave
To every stranger, who in thee are living?
The Dorian and the slave.

184

The mighty race that, in old days departed,
Gave kings to thee alone,
For strangers till thy valleys, broken-hearted,
Thy fields no more their own.

Antistrophe 1.

Clear broad Pamissus! still, with many a winding,
Through vale, by vine-clad hill,
Go, wandering on, thy sunny waters, finding
All green and lovely still;
Still on thy banks the bright wild-flowers are growing;
They gaze from out thy waves;
But now the grassy banks that watch thee flowing,
Give back the tread of slaves.

Epode 2.

And thou, strong-walled Andania! heaven-founded,
Our heroes' dwelling-place,
No more within thee, as of old, surrounded
By glory, rule our race.
Within thy stony halls, at ease reclining,
Their feast the strangers hold;
For them our maidens' hands are garlands twining,
The wreaths we wore of old;
Our old ancestral goblets, high o'erbubbling
With wine we may not taste,
For them they crown, while thoughts, old thoughts are doubling
Their shame, with trembling haste.

Strophe 2.

Our race no more the brazen helm are clasping;
The shield no more they raise;
No more their hands the freeman's sword are grasping,
As once, in bygone days.
No; we whose sires, the slaughtered foeman spoiling,
Away the rich arms tore,
Or hew the wood or at the corn-mill toiling,
Of glory dream no more.

185

Antistrophe 2.

O life! O load too heavy for our bearing!
We fain would lay thee by:
Alas! alas! bereft of hope—despairing,
At times 'twere sweet to die!
And why then live? The hope of vengeance, swelling
Within us, lights our lot:
Oh! might our tongues but of their woes be telling,
Our own were then forgot.

CHORUS OF ACHÆAN SLAVES.

Epode 1.

Many a kingly hall hath heard,
Poured in many a burning word,
Our deeds in other days;
Many a bounding choir hath sung,
While the golden lyre hath rung,
Achaia's heroes' praise.

Strophe 1.

Who like them for glory burned?
Ease inglorious from them spurned,
Or joyed, with deep-mouthed hound
And woodland spear, at break of dawn,
To rouse with jocund shout the morn,
While echo laughed around?
Bounding on, Taygetus, who
Fleetlier thy untrodden dew
With flying footsteps beat?
Woody glen and rocky height
Saw outstripped the stag's hot flight
By their pursuing feet.

Antistrophe 1.

Vainly fled the panting hare;
Vainly, glaring in his lair,
At bay the gaunt wolf stood;
Whetted tusk and foamy jaw,
Nought availed the bristly boar,
The monster of the wood.

186

Rushed they on, unknowing fear;
Needed their devouring spear
No second thrust to deal;
On the mountain's shaggy side,
Red, of old, Achaia dyed
In blood the beaming steel.

Epode 2.

Hurler of the thunder, thou,
Zeus, to whom the nations bow,
Whom trembling gods obey;
Thou dost all our triumphs know,
Won ere yet our race lay low,
Our glory past away.
Where the groves of Altis rise,
Oft our fathers won the prize
That life, in worth exceeds;
Oft assembled Hellas there
Saw, from all, our heroes tear
The meed of mightiest deeds.

Strophe 2.

Where Alpheus winding flows,
Whelmed beneath their crashing blows,
The cæstus-wielders fell;
Over hallowed Pisa's plain
Strove the swift of foot in vain
Our heroes' hopes to quell;
Oft the pride of Hellas hung
O'er the rushing car and flung
Unheeded vows in air,
Toiling towards the goal, behind,
While, before, our steeds of wind
The victory gathered there.

Antistrophe 2.

Many a brawny wrestler there
Poured in vain to heaven the prayer
To foil our might of yore;

187

Writhing in our strangling clasp,
Hurled from out our deadly grasp,
They fell to strive no more.
Oft the spear by others thrown
Sought, while, quivering, found alone
The prize the one we hurled;
Oft the ponderous iron, flung
O'er thy plain, Olympia, sung
From us the farthest whirled.

Epode 3.

Many a mighty bard hath told
How, when through the battle rolled
The thunder of their shout,
God-sprung heroes, smote with dread,
Trembling stood, or, turning, led
The pale and shrieking rout.
Battling from the whirling car,
Burst they through the ranks of war;
Who durst their onset stay?
Sank the iron wall of shields;
Fled the dread of fighting fields
Before their onward way.

Strophe 3.

Gods, they cleft the stormy fight;
Backwards rolled the battle; flight
The herald of their path.
On, where danced their sable plume,
In their brazen bucklers' gloom,
Marched devouring wrath.
There the howl of slaughter rang;
There, of falling arms the clang,
Achaia's vengeance told;
Glory there with foot of wind
Tracked by heaps of slain, behind,
Our battle-path of old.

188

Antistrophe 3.

Nought might helm or shield avail,
Nought the strength of iron mail,
When fled their thirsting spear;
Death the quivering javelin strode;
Fell the chief who battling rode;
Fell the charioteer.
Graspers of the golden hilt,
Who like them the keen sword gilt
In darkly rushing gore?
Vaunted arms of proof were vain;
Prone through helm and bone and brain
Its way their blue steel tore.