ALEXANDER HARRINGTON

Chorus

Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

 

Strophe

Still I am master youth enough

To be crying aloud that the sign on the way  for the chiefs of the men in their prime

Was a fav’rable sign

Still there breathes into me

The persuasion of gods

It is suited for age

To be singing the songs of the brave,

To be singing the songs of the brave,

How the furious bird sign

Sent forth the Two- throned

Force of Akhaia,

Commanders

Joined in their minds

of the youth of Akhaia

With spear and

Avenging strong hand

off to the country

Of Teuker

Thus swooped down the kings of the birds to the kings of the ships,

One was black

And one white in the tail

They flew by the hall of the kings

On the side of the hand of the spear

On a towering perch

All could see, they devour a hare,

She is swollen with young and they end her last race

Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

 

Antistrophe

So the wise prophet o’th host

Well perceived the two war-like Atreidae were double in spirit, he knew that the chiefs

Were the feasters o’th hare

Thus he, reading the sign,

 Did proclaim, “Over time

The alliance will seize

Great King Priam’s walled town, his walled town

Great King Priam’s walled town, his walled town

But first Fortune will waste down

Common vast sheep herds

Under the towers.

But don’t —

Let Spite from the Gods

Darkly shroud the great bridle

For Troy that

Was forged when the host

First then was mustered

To set forth

For sacrosanct Artemis, pitying, rages against

The winged hounds

Of her father who kill

For sacrifice pregnant and fat,

And quick quivering hare with her babes

Not yet born; she abhors,

She abhors, the fell eagles’ foul feast.

She abhors, she abhors the fell eagles’foul feast.

Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

 

 

Epode

Goddess so good, dearly loving the Blood-thirsty lion’s weak dew drops

Loved by all sucklings of beasts of the fields, she beseeches the omens’ fulfillment both good and the bad. O great

Paian, Apollo, the healer, invoked with the cry of iey!

Don’t let her bring on Danaans cross-wind-caused and ship-stalled failure to

Sail that demands yet a second new sacrifice,

Breaking the law and not passing the lips, it will nurture great strife, it won’t

Fear any man: for there waits a deceitful house-steward, a child-avenger, a Wrath.” (another soloist) Such things

Cried out wise Kalkhas, with great good things, as well, prophecies dooming from

Birds on the road to the kings’ house, with Sadness

(all) Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

Cry, Cry Cry, Cry

Cry, Cry, Cry, Cry

Ai Linos!  Ai Linos cry! But let good in the end overcome

 

Strophe

Nothing matches Zeus

Nothing matches Zeus

Zeus, whoe’er he is,

If the name is sweet to him, I call him that.

Placing all that’s other than

Zeus in scales, nothing matches Zeus

When it is a true necessity

That I cast off vain forboding’s

Heavy weight.

 

Antistrophe

Nothing matches Zeus

Nothing matches Zeus

He that once was great,

Swelled with courage, fighting all,  we speak ‘s name,

Never, even that he’d been.

He who sprang up after met his match,

Nothing matches Zeus

He is down and is no more, but he

That exclaims out Zeus’s Triumph

Finds the truth.

 

 

Strophe

Guiding men to think and

Laying down

Knowledge comes from suffering.

Still in sleep there drips against the heart

Pain that brings the mem’ry of

Mis’ry; wisdom comes against our will and,

Grace by force from awesome gods who

Sit upon the ship’s high deck .

 

Antistrophe

Then the elder lord of

Argive ships ,

Blaming not the prophets, he

Blew with th’unexpected blast of fate

When th’Akhaian host was held

Fast by ration-wasting sail-stopping,

There at Aulis facing Khalkis,

Land where tides do ebb and flow

 

Strophe

From Strumon blew the winds

Of idleness, of hunger, hateful port,

Of minds that wander, waste of ships

And cable, time in camp made double,

The flow’r of Argos wore away by rot.

But then the prophet shrieked another cure

More on’rous to the chiefs than was the bitter storm,

Invoking Artemis so that

The sons of Atreus did beat the earth with staffs;

Unable to restrain their tears

 

Antistrophe

The elder war-lord spoke:

“It is a heavy doom if I don’t act

And heavy, too, to slay my child,

The glory of my house, thus staining

These father’s hands with streams of virgin's blood

But, which of these is free of wrong?

To be a fleet-deserter and betray the host. 

It’s Just That they do now demand a wind-becalming virgin sacrifice with wrath

Oh let the ending turn out well!”

 

 

Strophe

And when he put on the yoke

Of strong necessity,

Infected by his spirit’s breath

Of changing wind, unholy

And impious, then his mind was changed

To think with reckless pride;  

For evil-plotting madness, that’s

The father

Cause of pain, emboldens mortals. 

And

He dared to sacrifice his child,

For’th woman-venging war

First off’ring for the ships.

 

Antistrophe

Her supplications and

Her pleas of "Father!" and

Her maiden life were weighed as naught

By the war-besotted chieftains, and,

Once all had prayed, the father charged

His men with all their force

To lift her like a goat above

The altar,

Wrapped in robes

That fell, she looked ahead

With guard inside her lovely mouth

To hold back any sound

That cursed her father’s house

 

Strophe

They silenced her by force and bridle bit

Her saffron robe then pouring to the ground,

She struck each man with pity-piercing dart

Shot from her eye, she looked as clear and silent as

A painting that desired to speak, as oft

She sang in father’s banquet halls,

So lovely and with stainless voice,

The virgin lovingly had honored

Her cherished father's happy paean

When pouring out the third libation.

 

Antistrophe

The things that happened then I didn’t behold,

Nor do I wish to ever speak of them.

Wise Kalkhas’ art is never unfulfilled

Justice decrees that only those who suffer learn you’ll hear the future when it comes

Say “leave” until that time for if you don’t

You will lament before there’s need

With dawn all will shine clear with sunlight

May things unfold for good as wishes

The Ap’yan land’s sole guard’yan bulwark