Dwellest, fair Queen, beside the streams of pastoral Acragas!
Propitious greet, with favour of Heaven and man's goodwill,
The crown, at Pytho's festival that glorious Midas won;
And welcome him, victorious in that fair art,—of old
That Pallas found, when wailed the Gorgons bold,
And she to music wove their dismal moan.
Antistrophe.
For maiden-shrieks and hiss of horrible snakes she heard,
Forth flowing in plaintive strain with weary anguish fraught;
What time as Perseus did to death that sister-triad's third,
And ruin to the hosts of Seriphos' island brought;
And blindness therewithal he poured on Phorcus' immortal race;
And Polydectes rued the gift, the son of Danae gave
To him, perforce that made her wife and slave;
When headless lay Medusa fair of face,
Strophe.
Slain by the hero, sprung, they say, from a golden rain!
But, when from his peril she had saved her champion dear,
Maiden Athene fashioned then the flute with its varied strain,
To echo back the wailing that smote upon her ear,
As clamorously forth from fell Euryale's maw it came.
So found the goddess,—and forthwith on mortal man bestowed,
And named the strain her 'many-headed mode;'
Memorial fair of each frequented game!
