Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays eBook

To bring pollution on a stranger’s name. 
Therefore I rede you, bring no shame on me
Now when man’s eye beholds your maiden prime. 
Lovely is beauty’s ripening harvest-field,
But ill to guard; and men and beasts, I wot,
And birds and creeping things make prey of it. 
And when the fruit is ripe for love, the voice
Of Aphrodite bruiteth it abroad,
The while she guards the yet unripened growth. 
On the fair richness of a maiden’s bloom
Each passer looks, o’ercome with strong desire,
With eyes that waft the wistful dart of love. 
Then be not such our hap, whose livelong toil
Did make our pinnace plough the mighty main: 
Nor bring we shame upon ourselves, and joy
Unto my foes.  Behold, a twofold home—­
One of the king’s and one the people’s gift—­
Unbought, ’tis yours to hold,—­a gracious boon. 
Go—­but remember ye your sire’s behest,
And hold your life less dear than chastity.

CHORUS

  The gods above grant that all else be well. 
  But fear not thou, O sire, lest aught befall
  Of ill unto our ripened maidenhood. 
  So long as Heaven have no new ill devised,
  From its chaste path my spirit shall not swerve.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Pass and adore ye the Blessed, the gods of the city
      who dwell
  Around Erasinus, the gush of the swift immemorial
      tide.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Chant ye, O maidens; aloud let the praise of
      Pelasgia swell;
  Hymn we no longer the shores where Nilus to ocean
      doth glide.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Sing we the bounteous streams that ripple and gush
      through the city;
  Quickening flow they and fertile, the soft new life of
      the plain.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Artemis, maiden most pure, look on us with grace
      and with pity—­
  Save us from forced embraces:  such love hath no
      crown but a pain.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Yet not in scorn we chant, but in honour of
      Aphrodite;
  She truly and Hera alone have power with Zeus and
      control. 
  Holy the deeds of her rite, her craft is secret and
      mighty,
  And high is her honour on earth, and subtle her
      sway of the soul.

SEMI-CHORUS

  Yea, and her child is Desire:  in the train of his
      mother he goeth—­
  Yea and Persuasion soft-lipped, whom none can deny
      or repel: 
  Cometh Harmonia too, on whom Aphrodite bestoweth
  The whispering parley, the paths of the rapture that
      lovers love well.

SEMI-CHORUS