I will conceal in fire, and when I see Turn round the brand and dry the pupil up. Chorus. Joy! I am mad with joy at your device. Uly. And then with you, my friends, and the old man, We'll load the hollow depth of our black ship, And row with double strokes from this dread shore. Share in the blinding him with the red brand? I would have some communion in his death. Uly. Doubtless: the brand is a great brand to hold. Chorus. Oh! I would lift an hundred waggon loads, If like a wasp's nest I could scoop the eye out Of the detested Cyclops. Ye know the close device-and when I call, The dear companions who sailed here with me. CHORUS. Come! who is first, that with his hand SEMICHORUS I. Song within. Listen! listen! he is coming, Let us with some comic spell By all means he must be blinded, SEMICHORUS II. Happy those made odorous With the dew which sweet grapes weep, To the village hastening thus, Seek the vines that soothe to sleep, Having first embraced thy friend, And thou, O Sleep, nursling of gloomy night, And things divine are subject to her power. CHORUS. Soon a crab the throat will seize Raging let him fix the doom, O, I long to dance and revel Leaving this abandoned home- Uly. Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace, Until his eye be tortured out with fire. Chorus. Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air. Within-it is delightfuly red hot. Chorus. You then command who first should seize the stake To burn the Cyclops' eye, that all may share In the great enterprise. Semichorus I. We are too few, We cannot at this distance from the door Thrust fire into his eye. Semichorus II. And we just now Have become lame; cannot move hand or foot. Chorus. The same thing has occurred to us--our ankles Are sprained with standing here, I know not how. Uly. What, sprained with standing still? Chorus. Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence. And there is dust Uly. Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me then? Chorus. With pitying my own back and my backbone, I know a famous Orphic incantation To make the brand stick of its own accord Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken And parch up to dust, The Etnean hind! Scoop and draw, But beware lest he claw Your limbs near his maw. Cyc. Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders. Chorus. For you are wicked. Cyc. I perish! And besides miserable. Chorus. What, did you fall into the fire when drunk? Cyc. 'Twas Nobody destroyed me. Chorus. Why then no one I say 'twas Nobody Why then you are not blind. Nay, Cyc. I wish you were as blind as I am. It cannot be that no one made you blind. Cyc. You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody? Cyc. It was that stranger ruined me:-the wretch For wine is strong and hard to struggle with. Have they escaped, or are they yet within? Chorus. They stand under the darkness of the rock And cling to it. Cyc. At my right hand or left? Chorus. Close on your right. Now they escape you there. Not on that side. I've cracked my skull. Cyc. Not there, although you say so. Cyc. Where then? Chorus. They creep about you on your left. Uly. I keep with care this body of Ulysses. Far from you Cyc. What do you say? You proffer a new name. I should have done ill to have burned down Troy Cyc. Ai! ai! the ancient oracle is accomplished; Uly. I bid thee weep-consider what I say, To mine own land, o'er the Sicilian wave. Cyc. Not so, if whelming you with this huge stone I can crush you and all your men together; I will descend upon the shore, though blind, Groping my way down the steep ravine. Chorus. And we, the shipmates of Ulysses now, Will serve our Bacchus all our happy lives. TRANSLATIONS FROM MOSCHUS. I. WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed, II. PAN loved his neighbour Echo-but that child The Satyr loved with wasting madness wild The bright nymph Lyda,—and so the three went weeping. As Pan loved Echo, Echo loved the Satyr; The Satyr, Lyda-and thus love consumed them. And thus to each-which was a woful matter To bear what they inflicted, justice doomed them; For inasmuch as each might hate the lover, Each loving, so was hated.-Ye that love not Be warned-in thought turn this example over, That when ye love, the like return ye prove nɔt. SONNET. From the Italian of Dante. DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI. GUIDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I, With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be, Companions of our wandering, and would grace SCENES FROM THE "MAGICO PRODIGIOSO" OF CALDERON. CYPRIAN as a Student; CLARIN and MOSCON as poor Scholars, with books. Cyp. In the sweet solitude of this calm place, This intricate wild wilderness of trees And flowers and undergrowth of odorous plants, Leave me; the books you brought out of the house To me are ever best society. And whilst with glorious festival and song Of a proud temple to great Jupiter, And bears his image in loud jubilee To its new shrine, would consume what still Go and enjoy the festival; it will You, my friends, Be worth the labour, and return for me When the sun seeks its grave among the billows, Dance like white plumes upon a hearse ;-and here Mos. I cannot bring my mind, Great as my haste to see the festival Certainly is, to leave you, sir, without Just saying some three or four hundred words. How is it possible that on a day Of such festivity, you can bring your mind To come forth to a solitary country With three or four old books, and turn your back Cla. |