Hail! thou swift Phoenician ship of Sidon! dear to the rowers, mother to the foam, leader of fair dolphins' gambols, what time the deep is hushed and still, and Ocean's azure child, the queen of calm, takes up her parable and says: "Away! and spread your canvas to the ocean-breeze. Ho! sailors, ho! come grip your oars of pine, speeding Helen on her way to the sheltered beach where Perseus dwelt of yore."antistrophe 1It may be thou wilt find the daughters of Leucippus beside the brimming river or before the temple of Pallas, when at last with dance and revelry thou joinest in the merry midnight festival of Hyacinthus, him whom Phoebus slew in the lists by a quoit hurled o'er the mark;wherefore did the son of Zeus ordain that Laconia's land should set apart that day for sacrifice; there too shalt thou find the tender maid, whom ye left in your house, for as yet no nuptial torch has shed its light for her.
strophe 2
Oh! for wings to cleave the air in the track of Libyan cranes, whose serried ranks leave far behind the wintry storm at the shrill summons of some veteran leader, who raises his exultant cry as he wings his way o'er plains that know no rain and yet bear fruitful increase. Ye feathered birds with necks outstretched, comrades of the racing clouds, on on! till ye reach the Pleiads in their central station and Orion, lord of the night; and as ye settle on Eurotas'
banks proclaim the glad tidings that Menelaus hath sacked the city of Dardanus, and will soon be home.
antistrophe 2
Ye sons of Tyndareus at length appear, speeding in your chariot through the sky, denizens of heaven's courts beneath the radiant whirling stars, guide this lady Helen safely o'er the azure main, across the foam-flecked billows of the deep-blue sea, sending the mariners a favouring gale from Zeus; and from your sister snatch the ill-repute of wedding with a barbarian, even the punishment bequeathed to her from that strife on Ida's mount, albeit she never went to the land of Ilium, to the battlements of Phoebus.
(The SECOND MESSENGER enters in haste, as THEOCLYMENUS comes out of the palace.)SECOND MESSENGERO king, at last have I found thee in the palace; for new tidings of woe art thou soon to hear from me.
THEOCLYMENUS
How now?
MESSENGER
Make haste to woo a new wife; for Helen hath escaped.
THEOCLYMENUS
Borne aloft on soaring wings, or treading still the earth?
MESSENGER
Menelaus has succeeded in bearing her hence; 'twas he that brought the news of his own death.
THEOCLYMENUS
O monstrous story! what ship conveyed her from these shores? Thy tale is past belief.
MESSENGER
The very ship thou didst thyself give the stranger; and that thou mayest briefly know all, he is gone, taking thy sailors with him.
THEOCLYMENUS
How was it? I long to know, for I never thought that a single arm could master all those sailors with whom thou wert despatched.
MESSENGER
Soon as the daughter of Zeus had left this royal mansion and come unto the sea, daintily picking her way, most craftily she set to mourn her husband, though he was not dead but at her side. Now when we reached thy docks well walled, we began to launch the fastest of Sidonian ships, with her full complement of fifty rowers, and each task in due succession followed; some set up the mast, others ranged the oars with their blades ready, and stored the white sails within the hold, and the rudder was let down astern and fastened securely.
