Book of illustrations : Ancient Tragedy

Of all that warble their melodious song
The charmed woods among,
Thee, tearful nightingale, I call:
O come, and from thy dark-plumed throat
Swell sadly-sweet thy melancholy note.
Euripides: Helena 1191.

19

Flight of Cranes
O might we through the liquid sky
Wing'd like the birds of Lybia fly;
Birds, which the change of seasons know,
And, left the wintry storms and snow,
Their leader's well-known call obey.
O'er many a desert dry and cultured plain
He guides the marshall'd train,
And cheers with jocund notes their way.
Ye birds that through th' aerial height
Your course with clouds light-sailing share,
Your flight amidst the Pleiads hold,
And where Orion nightly flames in gold;
Then on Eurota's banks alight,
And this glad message bear:
"Your king from Troy shall reach once more,
With conquest crown'd, his native shore."
Euripides: Helena 1603.

20

A Storm
So is it as a wave
Of ocean's billowing surge
(Where Thrakian storm-winds rave,
And floods of darkness from the depths emerge,)
Rolls the black sand from out the lowest deep,
And shores re-echoing wail, as rough blasts o'er them sweep.
Sophocles: Antigone 586 [Plumptre].

21

Steering their rough course o'er this boisterous main,
Form'd in a ring beneath whose waves
The Nereid train in high-arch'd caves
Weave the light dance, and raise the sprightly song,
Whilst whisp'ring in their swelling sails
Soft Zephyrs breathe, or southern gales
Piping amidst their tackling play,
As their bark ploughs its wat'ry way
Those hoary cliffs, the haunts of birds, among,
To that wild strand, the rapid race
Where once Achilles deigned to grace.
Euripides: Iphigenia among the Tauri 492.
(Specimens of Gnomic Verses)

22

Amongst barbarians all are slaves, save one. Helena 311.

23

He is no lover who not always loves. Daughters of Troy 1148.

24

What our necessities demand, becomes
Of greater moment than to conquer Troy.
Andromache 427.

25

'Tis not the counsel, but the speaker's worth,
That gives persuasion to his eloquence.
Hecuba 266.

26

Skilful leech
Mutters no spell o'er sore that needs the knife.
Ajax 581.

27

It is through God that man or laughs or mourns. Ajax 385.

28

No mortal man
May therefore be call'd happy, till you see
The last of all his days, and how, that pass'd,
He to the realms of Pluto shall descend.
Andromache 114.

29

All human things
A day lays low, a day lifts up again;
But still the gods love those of order'd soul.
Ajax 130.