Euripides' HELEN Complete

Translated by E. Coleridge.

Euripides Bilingual Anthology  Studies  Euripides in Print

90 pages - You are on Page 74

Chorus: (singing, strophe 1)

Through wooded glen, o'er torrent's flood, and ocean's booming waves
rushed the mountain-goddess, mother of the gods, in frantic haste,
once long ago, yearning for her daughter lost, whose name men dare
not utter; loudly rattled the Bacchic castanets in shrill accord,
what time those maidens, swift as whirlwinds, sped forth with the
goddess on her chariot yoked to wild creatures, in quest of her that
was ravished from the circling choir of virgins; here was Artemis
with her bow, and there the grim-eyed goddess, sheathed in mail, and
spear in hand. But Zeus looked down from his throne in heaven, and
turned the issue otherwhither.

(antistrophe 1)

Soon as the mother ceased from her wild wandering toil, in seeking
her daughter stolen so subtly as to baffle all pursuit, she crossed
the snow-capped heights of Ida's nymphs; and in anguish cast her down
amongst the rocks and brushwood deep in snow; and, denying to man
all increase to his tillage from those barren fields, she wasted the
human race; nor would she let the leafy tendrils yield luxuriant fodder
for the cattle, wherefore many a beast lay dying; no sacrifice was
offered to the gods, and on the altars were no cakes to burn; yea,
and she made the dew-fed founts of crystal water to cease their flow,
in her insatiate sorrow for her child.

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