Third Stasimon

CHORUS. Some Women.And hast thou turned from the Altar of frankincense,And given to the Greek thy temple of Ilion?The flame of the cakes of corn, is it gone from hence,The myrrh on the air and the wreathed towers gone?And Ida, dark Ida, where the wild ivy grows,The glens that run as rivers from the summer-broken snows,And the Rock, is it forgotten, where the first sunbeam glows,The lit house most holy of the Dawn?

Others.The sacrifice is gone and the sound of joy,The dancing under the stars and the night-long prayer:The Golden Images and the Moons of Troy,The Twelve Moons and the mighty names they bear:My heart, my heart crieth, O Lord Zeus on high,Were they all to thee as nothing, thou throned in the sky,Throned in the fire-cloud, where a City, near to die,Passeth in the wind and the flare?

A Woman.Dear one, O husband mine,Thou in the dim dominionsDriftest with waterless lips,Unburied; and me the shipsShall bear o'er the bitter brine,Storm-birds upon angry pinions,Where the towers of the Giants shineO'er Argos cloudily,And the riders ride by the sea.

Others.And children still in the GateCrowd and cry,A multitude desolate,Voices that float and waitAs the tears run dry:'Mother, alone on the shoreThey drive me, far from thee:Lo, the dip of the oar,The black hull on the sea!Is it the Isle Immortal,Salamis, waits for me?Is it the Rock that broodsOver the sundered floodsOf Corinth, the ancient portalOf Pelops' sovranty?'

A Woman.Out in the waste of foam,Where rideth dark Menelaus,Come to us there, O whiteAnd jagged, with wild sea-lightAnd crashing of oar-blades, come,O thunder of God, and slay us:While our tears are wet for home,While out in the storm go we,Slaves of our enemy!

Others.And, God, may Helen be there,With mirror of gold,Decking her face so fair,Girl-like; and hear, and stare,And turn death-cold:Never, ah, never moreThe hearth of her home to see,Nor sand of the Spartan shore,Nor tombs where her fathers be,Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling,Nor the towers of Pitane;For her face was a dark desireUpon Greece, and shame like fire,And her dead are welling, welling,From red Simois to the sea!