When shipwreckt, mid the wide Ægean seas,
The wearied sailor prays to heav’n for ease;
When the dark clouds o’er Cynthia’s splendour low’r,
And glimmering stars refuse to lend their pow’r;
For ease, for ease, the warlike Thracian cries,
In vain, for ease, the quiver’d Parthian sighs:
That blessing, Grosphus, never can be sold
For blushing purple, or for blazing gold.
For neither wealth, nor regal power control
The wretched tumults of the madd’ning soul.10
And care, alas! will pour her baleful crowd
Around the vaulted mansions of the proud.
Happy the man, whose humble board is spread
With the coarse viands that his fathers fed.
Nor trembling Fear, nor Av’rice, sordid guest!
Can e’er disturb his lightly-peaceful rest.
Why do we waste, in things that ne’er may be,
The flying hours of short mortality?
Fools that we are!—Oh, wherefore do we run
To climates mellow’d by another sun?20
When roves the exile from his native sky,
Say!—can he ever hope himself to fly?
Ah, no!—for care is swifter than the hind,—
For care is swifter than the eastern wind.
How blest that soul, which, moderately gay,
Unheeds the morrow, and enjoys to-day;—
Sweetens with smiles, the bitterness of strife,
For perfect bliss can ne’er be found in life!
Achilles fell, in life’s primæval day;
The hand of time, Tithonus wore away.30
And that long life, by Fate denied to thee,
Perhaps, indulgent, she may give to me.
A hundred herds adorn thy fertile fields,
For thee, Sicilia, hundred oxen yields;
For thee, the courser eager snuffs the plain,
Bows his proud neck, and seems to court the rein;
For thee, with long, and loosely-sweeping flow,
The Lybian dye reveals its purple glow.
To me, propitious Fate, with kindly hand,
Has giv’n some portion of paternal land,40
And deign’d the lays of Horace to inspire,
With one bright beam of ancient Graia’s fire;
And whilst in talent, and in virtue proud,
To scorn the malice of the vulgar crowd.
Translation
OF THE FIRST CHORUS
IN THE
ŒDIPUS TYRRANNUS OF SOPHOCLES.
Written at Fourteen.