SPECIMENS

OF

TRANSLATION FROM MEDEA.

Σκαιες δε λεγων, καδέν τι σοφες
Τες πρόσθε βρoτες εκ αν αμαρτοις.

MEDEA.

TELL

ELL me, ye bards, whose skill sublime
First charm’d the ear of youthful Time
With numbers wrapt in heav'nly fire,
Who bade delighted Echo swell
The trembling transports of the lyre,
The murmur of the shell.....
Why to the burst of Joy alone
Accords sweet Music's soothing tone?
Why can no bard, with magic strain,
In slumbers steep the heart of pain?

While varied tones obey your sweep,
The mild, the plaintive, and the deep,
Bends not despairing Grief to hear
Your golden lute, with ravish'd ear?
Oh! has your sweetest shell no power to bind
The fiercer pangs that shake the mind,
And lull the wrath, at whose command
Murder bares his

hand?
When flush'd with joy, the rosy throng
Weave the light dance, ye swell the song!
Cease, ye vain warblers! cease to charm
The breast with other raptures warm?
Cease! till your hand with magic strain
In slumbers steep the heart of pain!

SPEECH OF THE CHORUS IN THE SAME TRAGEDY,

TO DISSUADE MEDEA FROM HER PURPOSE OF

PUTTING HER CHILDREN TO DEATH, AND FLY

ING FOR PROTECTION TO ATHENS.

O

HAGGARD queen! to Athens dost thou guide Thy glowing chariot, steep'd in kindred gore; Or seek to hide thy damned parricide

Where Peace and Mercy dwell for evermore?

The land where Truth, pure, precious, and sublime,

Woos the deep silence of sequester'd bowers, And warriors, matchless since the first of Time,

Reartheirbright banners o'erunconquer'd towers!

Where joyous youth, to Music's mellow strain,

Twines in the dance with Nymphs forever fair, While Spring eternal, on the lilied plain,

Waves amber radiance through the fields of air!

The tuneful Nine, so sacred legends tell,

First wak'd their heavenly lyre these scenes among; Still in your greenwood bowers they love to dwell; Still in your vales they swell the choral song!

For there the tuneful, chaste, Pierian fair,

The guardian nymphs of green Parnassus, now Sprung from Harmonia, while her graceful hair

Wav'd in bright auburn o'er her polish'd brow!

ANTISTROPHE I.

Where silent vales, and glades of green array,

The murm'ring wreaths of cool Cephisus lave, There, as the muse hath sung, at noon of day,

The Queen of Beauty bowd to taste the wave!

And blest the stream, and breath'd across the land,

The soft sweet gale that fans yon summer bowers; And there the sister Loves, a smiling band,

Crown'd with the fragrant wreaths of rosy flowers!

“And go, (she cries) in yonder valleys rove,

With Beauty's torch the solemn scenes illume; Wake in each eye the radiant light of Love,

Breatheon each cheek young Passion's tenderbloom!

Entwine, with myrtle chains, your soft controul,
To

sway the hearts of Freedom's darling kind! With glowing charms enrapture Wisdom's soul,

And mould to grace ethereal Virtue's mind."

STROPHE II.

The land where Heaven's own hallow'd waters play,

Where Friendship binds the generous and the good, Say, shall it hail thee from thy frantic way,

Unholy woman! with thy hands embrued

In thine own children's gore ?....oh! ere they bleed,

Let Nature's voice thy ruthless heart appal! Pause at the bold, irrevocable deed....

The mother strikes....the guiltless babes shall fall!

Think what remorse thy maddening thoughts shall

sting, When dying pangs their gentle bosoms tear; Where shalt thou sink, when ling’ring echoes ring

The screams of horror in thy tortur'd ear?

No! let thy bosom melt to Pity's cry,

In dust we kneel....by sacred Heaven implore... O! stop thy lifted arm, ere yet they die,

Nor dip thy horrid hands in infant gore .....

ANTISTROPHE II.

Say, how shalt thou that barb'rous soul assume?

Undamp'd by horror at the daring plan,
Hast thou a heart to work thy children's doom?

Or hands to finish what thy wrath began?