Ourania sends me ….
in a ship brimming with … gifts,
songs!
Though Apollo isn’t here now,
whether he’s at blossoming Hebrus
or among swans with question-mark
necks,
when he returns to Delphi
his chorus will sing for him.
In the meantime, we

sing how he departed from Oechalia
once fire brought it under control,
him, Amphitryon’s son, the bold
and daring one came to the cliffs
scoured by sea surge where
from among his stolen herds
he slaughtered 9 bragging bulls
to supreme Zeus, the Cenean cloud
shaker; 2 bulls to Poseidon,
master of the earth,
but for Athena of the thousand yard stare
the grim virgin,
he gave a single horned cow
never put under training…
Meanwhile the agency that acts

through this very power, weaves
into Daraneira’s mind a deeply
thoroughly fleshed-out scheme
when she heard the news
pregnant with grief, of the fate
of white-limbed Iole —
how Zeus’ bold and warlike son
brought her home as spoil
to be his favorite wife.
Her plan was as sharp and cold
as a butcher’s knife.
Her own rage destroyed her,
but also the darkly disguised
daimon, her robe itself
covering the future
and her union with the
insatiable gift
of the Centaur.

___________________
Thanks especially to Ann Pippin Burnett for The Art of Bacchylides
and to H. Maehler for his Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics: Bacchylides, A Selection