Of that Sophocles, credit to Ferté-Milon.
Once while riding on a journey,
Pensive along the route that displeased me,
I found love in the middle of the road
In a vagrant's scant attire.
Brilliant star, Phoebe with outspread wings, O name of night that grows and wanes, favor my way through the gloomy forest where my errant soul takes its modest steps! In the grotto with hollow sounds, whose entrance is ivy-covered, on the rock topped with the familiar she-goat, on the lake, on the pond, on the tranquil waters, on the enamelled banks where reeds moan, she likes to see the trembling of thy melancholy fires.
Phoebe, O Cynthia, from the first season my soul was drunk with thy lovely light; observing thy diverse faces in their orb, beneath thy gentle influence, she composed verses. Above Nicias, Eryx, Siris and the sandy Iolchos, Timolus and the grand Epidorus, and Green Sidon, her piety reveres this rock of Latmos where thou loved.
It is the autumn wind in the lane, sister, hearken, and the fall of willow and beach tree leaves on the water, and the hoar-frost in the valley.
And come, like those drooping great ladies, to him who is thinking of thee, in the silence when thy light spinning-wheel dies, O sister of the sweet marjoram.
Loose—'tis the hour—thy hair fairer than the hemp thou spinnest....