ODES. ODE TO PITY. O THOU, the friend of man, assign'd When first Distress, with dagger keen, a By Pella's bard, a magic name, By all the griefs his thought could frame, Long, Pity, let the nations view Thy sky-worn robes of tenderest blue, a Euripides, of whom Aristotle pronounces, on a comparison of him with Sophocles, that he was the greater master of the tender passions, ἦν τραγικώτερος. But wherefore need I wander wide Deserted stream, and mute? Wild Arunb too has heard thy strains, There first the wren thy myrtles shed And while he sung the female heart, With youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art, Come, Pity, come, by Fancy's aid, E'en now my thoughts, relenting maid, Its southern site, its truth complete, In all who view the shrine. There Picture's toils shall well relate The buskin'd Muse shall near her stand, With each disastrous tale. 15 20 25 30 35 b The river Arun runs by the village of Trotton in Sussex, where Otway had his birth. There let me oft, retired by day, Allow'd with thee to dwell: There waste the mournful lamp of night, To hear a British shell! 40 ODE TO FEAR. THOU, to whom the world unknown, Ah Fear! ah frantic Fear! I know thy hurried step, thy haggard eye! Lifts her red arm, exposed and bare : с On whom that ravening brood of Fate, Who lap the blood of sorrow, wait: 5 10 15 20 c Alluding to the Kuvaç äpuкTovg of Sophocles. See the Electra. Who, Fear, this ghastly train can see, 35 EPODE. In earliest Greece, to thee, with partial choice, The grief-full Muse addrest her infant tongue; The maids and matrons, on her awful voice, Silent and pale, in wild amazement hung. Yet he, the bardd who first invoked thy name, 30 But who is he whom later garlands grace, Who left a while o'er Hybla's dews to rove, 35 With trembling eyes thy dreary steps to trace, Where thou and furies shared the baleful grove? Wrapt in thy cloudy veil, the incestuous queen d Æschylus. f e Jocasta. οὐδ ̓ ἔτ ̓ ὠρώρει βοή, See the Edip. Colon. of Sophocles. ·40 |