PRAISE OF COLONUS (from "Oedipus at Colonus")
by: Sophocles
- TRANGER,
thou art standing now
- On Colonus' sparry brow;
- All the haunts of Attic ground,
- Where the matchless coursers bound,
- Boast not, through their realms of bliss,
- Other spot as fair as this.
- Frequent down this greenwood dale,
- Mourns the warbling nightingale,
- Nestling 'mid the thickest screen
- Of the ivy's darksome green;
- Or where, each empurpled shoot
- Drooping with its myriad fruit,
- Curled in many a mazy twine,
- Blooms the never-trodden vine,
- By the god's protecting power
- Safe from sun and storm and shower.
- Bacchus here, the summer long,
- Revels with the goddess throng,
- Nymphs who erst, on Nyssa's wild,
- Reared to man the rosy child.
-
- Here Narcissus, day by day,
- Buds, in clustering beauty gay,
- Sipping aye, at morn and even,
- All the nectar dews of heaven,
- Wont amid your locks to shine,
- Ceres fair, and Proserpine.
- Here the golden Crocus gleams,
- Murmur here unfailing streams,
- Sleep the bubbling fountains never,
- Feeding pure Cephisus river,
- Whose prolific waters daily
- Bid the pastures blossom gayly,
- With the showers of spring-tide blending,
- On the lap of earth descending.
- Here the Nine, to notes of pleasure,
- Love to tread their choral measure,
- Venus, o'er those flowerets gliding,
- Oft her rein of gold is guiding.
-
- Now a brighter boast than all
- Shall my grateful song recall;
- Yon proud shrub, that will not smile,
- Pelops, on thy Doric isle,
- Nor on Asiatic soil,
- But unsown, unsought by toil,
- Self-engendered, year by year,
- Springs to life a native here.
- Tree the trembling foeman shuns,
- Garland for Athena's sons,
- May the olive long be ours,
- None may break its sacred bowers,
- None its boughs of silvery gray
- Young or old may bear away:
- Morian Jove, with look of love,
- Ever guards it from above,
- Blue-eyed Pallas watch unsleeping
- O'er her favorite tree is keeping.
-
- Swell the song of praise again;
- Other boons demand my strain,
- Other blessings we inherit,
- Granted by the mighty Spirit;
- On the sea and on the shore,
- Ours the bridle and the oar.
- Son of Saturn old! whose sway
- Stormy winds and waves obey,
- Thine be honor's well-earned meed,
- Tamer of the champing steed:
- First he wore on Attic plain
- Bit of steel and curbing rein.
- Oft too o'er the waters blue,
- Athens, strain thy laboring crew;
- Practiced hands the bark are plying,
- Oars are bending, spray is flying,
- Sunny waves beneath them glancing,
- Sportive Nereids round them dancing,
- With their hundred feet in motion,
- Twinkling 'mid the foam of ocean.
This English translation, by Joseph
Anstice, of 'Praise of Colonus' is reprinted from Greek Poets
in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The
Riverside Press, 1893. |
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