CHORUS.-Not yet, however; but procure for me too a share of gratification. Let us first learn the malady of this maiden, from her own tale of her extremely baleful mischances and of the sequel of her afflictions let her be informed by thee.

PROM.-It is thy part", Io, to minister to the gratification of these now before thee, as well for other imperative reasons as that they are the sisters of thy father. Since to give loose to weeping and lamentation on occasions when one is sure to win a tear from the listeners, is well worth the while.

10.-I know not how I can be entitled to disobey you; and in a plain tale ye shall learn every tittle that ye desire and yet I am ashamed even to speak of the tempest that hath been rained upon me from heaven, and the utter marring of my person, whence they suddenly came upon me, lost creature that I am! For P visions of the night flitting without intermission into my maiden bower, were enticing me with smooth language: "O damsel, great favourite of fortune, why dost thou long time cherish maidenhood, when it is in thy power to achieve a 'match the very noblest? for Jupiter hath been fired from thy charms with the shaft of passion, and longs with thee to enjoy love's raptures: and thou, my child, spurn not away from thee the couch of Jupiter, but go forth to Lerna's fertile mead, to the folds and ox-stalls of thy father, that the eye of Jove may have respite from its longing." By these was I unhappy beset every night,

dreams such as

n See Matthiæ's Gr. Gr. §. 264. 3.

• Inachus, whose existence as king of Argos is disputed, was, as a river, descended from Oceanus and Tethys.

P Est enim To гAP officium inchoare narrationem, non secus ac μèv dǹ et pèv ovv cf. S. Matth. i. 18. Habetque hunc usum Latinorum Nam. Sic dicturus Cicero pro Archia, §. 3. narrationem hoc modo incipit, "Nam ut primum a pueris excessit Archias." Hoogeveen.

Surely this is something more than a periphrasis for Zɛùç, as Matthiæ, Gr. Gr. §. 430. 6. explains it.

until at length I ventured to tell my sire of the dreams that haunted me by night. So he used to despatch both to Pytho and to Dodona' many a messenger to consult the oracles, that he might learn what it behoved him to perform or to say, so as to do what was well-pleasing to the divinities. And they used to come bringing report back of oracles ambiguously worded, indistinct, and phrased abstrusely. But at last an explicit response came to Inachus, plainly charging and directing him to thrust me forth both from my home and my country, to wander an outcast to earth's remotest limits; and that, if he would not, a fiery-visaged thunderbolt should come" from Jupiter, and utterly blot out his whole race. Overcome by oracles of Loxias such as these, loath did he expel and exclude me loath from his dwelling: but the bit of Jupiter* perforce constrained him to do this. And straightway my person and my mind were distorted, and horned, as ye see, stung by the keenly-biting breeze, I rushed with maniac leaping to the salubrious stream of Cerchneia, and the fountain of Lerna;—and the earthborn neatherd Argus of untempered fierceness, kept dogging me, peering after my footsteps with numerous eyes. Him, how

The scholiast, in a fit of hypercriticism, detects an anachronism here, the oracle of Dodona having been founded by the Pelasgi after the time of Deucalion.

S

Synonymorum coacervatio et rem ipsam sc. ambiguitatem oraculorum auget sed etiam commotum Jûs animum ostendit. Schutz.

.....

apeToç, used of animals which, being consecrated to some god, were allowed to roam at large through the pastures. "Crediderim equidem," remarks Dr. Butler, "poetam ex idearum consociatione, quam vocant, Ioï in vaccam mutatæ hoc epitheton tribuisse, at quam eleganter!"

u podεiv, Dr. Elmsley remarks, would signify venisse, and cannot be understood to imply venturum esse: he therefore would have read πuρwπòv 'AN Aids μodεiv. Edinb. Rev. xvii. 236.

× Compare the phraseology of the prophecy of Isaiah concerning Sennacherib. 2 Kings, xix. 28.

Y άkrýv, the conjectural emendation proposed by Dr. Blomfield in his note, is received by Haupt, who points out the occurrence of the phrase in Pindar, Olymp. vii. 33.

D

ever, an unlooked-for sudden fate bereaved of life; but I hornet-stricken am driven by the scourge divine from land to land. Thou hearest what hath taken place, and if thou art able to say what pangs there remain for me, declare them; and do not, from compassion to me, join in soothing me with false tales, for I pronounce fabricated statements a most foul [moral] malady.

CHORUS.-Ah! ah! forbear! Never never did I presume that a tale so strange would come to my ears, or that sufferings thus horrible to witness and horrible to endure, outrages, terrors with their doubly-cutting poignancy would chill my spirit. Woe's me! woe's me! O Fate! Fate! I shudder as I behold the condition of Io.

PROM.-Prematurely, however, art thou sighing, and art full of terror. Hold, until thou shalt also have heard the residue.

CHORUS.-Say on; inform me fully: to the distempered indeed it is delicious to get a clear knowledge beforehand of the sequel of their sorrows.

PROM. Your former desire at any rate ye won from me lightly; for first of all ye desired to be informed by her recital of the affliction that attaches to herself. Now give ear to the sequel, what sort of sufferings it is the fate of this young damsel before you to undergo at the hand of Juno: thou too, offspring of Inachus, lay to heart my words, that thou mayest be fully informed of the termination of thy pilgrimage. In the first place, after turning thyself from this spot towards the orient, traverse plains that never feel the plough; and thou wilt reach the

с

• Wellauer retains the old order of the words αὐτον αἰφνίδιος μόρος, but eludes the anomaly of an anapæst in the fifth place by a synizesis in the termination log. The Quarterly Reviewer agrees with Dr. Elmsley in favouring the idea of writing ἀφνίδιος.

a See Matthiæ's Gr. Gr. §. 487.5.

b It may save my readers much trouble and vexation, if, instead of attempting to trace the wanderings of Io, they bear in mind Dr. Blomfield's note on v. 732.

On the variation of the tenses here, see Matthiæ's Gr. Gr. §. 511.

pastoral Scythians, who, raised from off the ground, inhabit wattled dwellings on well-wheeled cars, equipped with bows that carry to a great distance; to whom take thou care not to draw near, but to pass on out of their land, bringing thy feet to approach the rugged shores d that roar with the breakers. And on thy left hand dwell the Chalybians, workers of iron, of whom thou must needs beware, for they are barbarous and not accessible to strangers. And thou wilt come to the river Hybristes that has not its name for nothing, which do not thou cross, for it is not fordable, until thou shalt have come to Caucasus itself, loftiest of mountains, where from its very brow the river pours forth its might of waters. And surmounting its peaks that reach nigh unto the stars, thou must go into a southward track, where thou wilt come to the host of Amazons who hold men in abhorrence, who hereafter shall make a settlement, Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon, where lies the rugged Salmydessian sea-gap3, inhospitable to mariners, a step-mother to ships; and they will conduct thee on thy way, and that right blithely. Thou shalt come too to the Cimmerian isthmus, hard by the very portals of the deep that leave but a narrow passage, which thou undauntedly must leave, and cross the Mæotic frith; and there shall exist for evermore among mortals a famous legend concerning thy passage, and after thy name it shall be called the Bosphorush; and after

d One of the rules laid down by Dawes is, that in the Attic poets a final short vowel is universally made long before an inceptive p.

The rule is thus qualified by the Quarterly Reviewer of Dr. Blomfield. "When the final short vowel is in the second syllable of the foot, the power of the p, in the following word, coinciding with the metrical ictus, makes the syllable long, as v. 1059; but when it is in the first syllable of the foot, it continues short."

e See Matthiæ's Gr. Gr. §. 378.

f Wellauer takes this for the proper name of the river. glossary. Dr. E. D. Clarke identifies it with the Kuban. or Quarterly Review, ix. 173.

See Dr. Blomfield's
Travels, ii. 104. 4to.

yválos Compare Virgil. Georg. iv. 467. Tænarias fauces—. h The Cimmerian Bosphorus, now the Straits of Caffa.

having quitted European ground, thou shalt come to the Asiatic continent. Does not then the sovereign of the gods seem to you to be violent alike towards the whole creation? for he a god lusting to enjoy the charms of this mortal fair one, hath brought upon her these wanderings. And a bitter wooer, maiden, hast thou found for thy hand; for account with thyself that the words which thou hast now heard are not even yet in prologue.

10.-Woe is me! ah! ah!

PROM.-Thou too in thy turn art crying out and whining: what, I wonder, wilt thou do when thou learnest the residue of thy ills?

CHORUS.-What! hast thou aught of suffering left to tell

to her?

PROM.-Aye, a tempestuous sea of baleful calamities. 10. What advantage then is it for me to live? but why did I not quickly fling myself from this rugged rock, so that dashing on the plain I had rid myself of all my pangs? for better is it once to die, than all one's days to suffer horribly.

PROM.-Verily thou wouldst ill bear the agonies that I am enduring who am not doomed to die. For this would be an escape from sufferings. But now there is no limit to my hardships set before me, until Jove shall have been deposed from his sovereignty.

.

10. -What! is it possible that Jupiter should ever be deposed from his government?

i "åv non cum Stanleio vertendum est tu rursus exclamas, nam Io nondum antea super Promethei narratione ingemuerat. . . . . . . sed Chorus potius v. 708. querulas et suspiria effuderat. Itaque av hoc loco vicissim significat." Schutz.

κ ἀπηλλάγην. "Quoties prior sententiæ pars non quod factum sit, sed quid fieri oportuerit, designat, particulæ iva, wç, öлws indicativum post se adsciscunt, modo de re præsenti aut præterita sermo sit. Nam de re futura adhibetur subjunctivus aut optativus." Dr. Elmsley, note on Soph. Ed. Tyr. 1389. Compare Dr. Monk's note on Eur. Hipp. 643. Hermann, Obs. on Viger. 350. and Matthiæ's Gr. Gr. §. 520.