Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HIPPOLYTUS: CHORUS, by EURIPIDES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HIPPOLYTUS: CHORUS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: O for wings
Last Line: And keep her spirit inviolate.
Subject(s): Escapes; Fugitives


O for wings,
swift, a bird,
set of God
among the bird-flocks!
I would dart
from some Adriatic precipice,
across its wave-shallows and crests,
to Eradanus' river-source;
to the place
where his daughters weep,
thrice-hurt for Phaeton's sake,
tears of amber and gold which dart
their fire through the purple surface.

I would seek
the song-haunted Hesperides
and the apple-trees
set above the sand drift;
there the god
of the purple marsh
lets no ships pass;
he marks the sky-space
which Atlas keeps --
that holy place
where streams,
fragrant as honey,
pass to the couches spread
in the palace of Zeus:
there the earth-spirit,
source of bliss,
grants the gods happiness.

O ship
white-sailed of Crete,
you brought my mistress
from her quiet palace
through breaker and crash of surf
to love-rite of unhappiness!
Though the boat swept
toward great Athens,
though she was made fast
with ship-cable and ship-rope
at Munychia the sea-port,
though her men stood
on the main-land,
(whether unfriended by all alike
or only by the gods of Crete)
it was evil - the auspice.

On this account
my mistress,
most sick at heart,
is stricken at Kupris
with unchaste thought:
helpless and overwrought,
she would fasten
the rope-noose about the beam
above her bride-couch
and tie it to her white-throat:
she would placate the daemon's wrath,
still the love-fever in her breast,
and keep her spirit inviolate.




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