Yet if this may not be,
We, the dark race sun-smitten, we
Will speed with suppliant wands
To Zeus who rules below, with hospitable hands
Who welcomes all the dead from all the lands:
Yea, by our own hands strangled, we will go,
Spurned by Olympian gods, unto the gods below!
refrain
3
Zeus, hear and save!
The searching, poisonous hate, that Io vexed and
drave,
Was of a goddess: well I know
The bitter ire, the wrathful woe
Of Hera, queen of heaven-
A storm, a storm her breath, whereby we yet are driven!
antistrophe
8
Bethink thee, what dispraise
Of Zeus himself mankind will raise,
If now he turn his face averted from our cries!
If now, dishonoured and alone,
The ox-horned maiden's race shall be undone,
Children of Epaphus, his own begotten son-
Zeus, listen from on high!-to thee our prayers arise.
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