Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 1336

This call'st thou marvelous,

Daughter of Creta?

Unto the bard's pregnant word

Hast thou perchance never listened?

Hast thou not heard of Ionia's,

Ne'er been instructed in Hellas'

Legends, from ages primeval,

Godlike, heroical treasure?

All, that still happeneth

Now in the present,

Sorrowful echo 'tis,

Of days ancestral, more noble;

Equals not in sooth thy story

That which beautiful fiction,

Than truth more worthy of credence,

Chanted hath of Maia's offspring!

This so shapely and potent, yet

Scarcely-born delicate nursling,

Straight have his gossiping nurses

Folded in purest swaddling fleece,

Fastened in costly swathings,

With their irrational notions.

Potent and shapely, ne'ertheless,

Draws the rogue his flexible limbs,

Body firm yet elastic,

Craftily forth; the purple shell,

Him so grievously binding,

Leaving quietly in its place;

As the perfected butterfly,

From the rigid chrysalid,

Pinion unfolding, rapidly glides,

Boldly and wantonly sailing through

Sun-impregnated ether.

So he, too, the most dextrous,

That to robbers and scoundrels,

Yea, and to all profit-seekers,

He a favoring god might be,

This he straightway made manifest,

Using arts the most cunning.

Swift from the ruler of ocean he

Steals the trident, yea, e'en from Arès

Steals the sword from the scabbard;

Arrow and bow from Phoebus too,

Also his tongs from Hephæstos

Even Zeus', the father's, bolt,

Him had fire not scared, he had ta'en.

Eros also worsted he,

In limb-grappling, wrestling match;

Stole from Cypria as she caressed him,

From her bosom, the girdle.

(An exquisite, purely melodious lyre-music resounds from the cave. All become attentive, and appear soon to be inwardly moved; henceforth, to the pause indicated, there is a full musical accompaniment.)