Barrows, Samuel J.: The isles and shrines of Greece (Boston, 1898)

306 THE ISLES AND SHRINES OF GREECE

THE DELPHIC HYMN TO APOLLO.

[Sung by Attic men and maids in honor of the victory over the Gauls 279 b. c]
Greek words and musical notes discovered at Delphi, October, 1893.

Translated by Francis Greenleaf Allinson, Ph.D.

Thee with the cithara famed, I '11 sing,

Son of great Zeus.
Thou by this snowy peak from thy shrine
Fore-shewest to mortals words divine ;
Thou madest the oracle's tripod thine
From guard of the dragon, implacable, fierce,
Whom, mottled and coiling, thy arrows pierce.
Now Galatan war-god's sibilant sting

Dost conquer and bruise.

Daughters of Zeus whose thunder rolls,

Fair armed, come. •
Dowered with Helicon's leafy knolls,
Praise with your dances, praise with song
Golden-haired Phcebus, your blood and kin,
Who near Parnassus — these hill-tops twin —
Haunts where Castalia's fountain leaps
And visits precipitous Delphic steeps,

Th' oracle's home.

Glorious Attica's city of might,

Come with thy band.
Vows are fitting : thy dwellings stand
Scathless in armed Athena's land ;
On consecrate altars Hephaestus burns
Thighs of young bulls ; while Araby's smoke
Curls to Olympus : the flutes invoke
Melodies shrill with quavering turns;
The cithara, sweet-voiced, golden, bright,

Hymneth its praise —
And all who have share in this Attic rite

Their anthems raise.