_This epithalamium may have been written for the wedding of a friend of
the poet’s_. _The idea is said to have been borrowed from an old poem by
Stesichorus_. _The epithalamium was chanted at night by a chorus of
girls_, _outside the bridal chamber_. _Compare the conclusion of the
hymn of Adonis_, _in the fifteenth Idyl_.
* * * * *
IN Sparta, once, to the house of fair-haired Menelaus, came maidens with
the blooming hyacinth in their hair, and before the new painted chamber
arrayed their dance,—twelve maidens, the first in the city, the glory of
Laconian girls,—what time the younger Atrides had wooed and won Helen,
and closed the door of the bridal-bower on the beloved daughter of
Tyndarus. Then sang they all in harmony, beating time with woven paces,
and the house rang round with the bridal song.
_The Chorus_.
Thus early art thou sleeping, dear bridegroom, say are thy limbs heavy
with slumber, or art thou all too fond of sleep, or hadst thou perchance
drunken over well, ere thou didst fling thee to thy rest? Thou shouldst
have slept betimes, and alone, if thou wert so fain of sleep; thou
shouldst have left the maiden with maidens beside her mother dear, to
play till deep in the dawn, for to-morrow, and next day, and for all the
years, Menelaus, she is thy bride.
O happy bridegroom, some good spirit sneezed out on thee a blessing, as
thou wert approaching Sparta whither went the other princes, that so thou
mightst win thy desire! Alone among the demigods shalt thou have Zeus
for father! Yea, and the daughter of Zeus has come beneath one coverlet
with thee, so fair a lady, peerless among all Achaean women that walk the
earth. Surely a wondrous child would she bear thee, if she bore one like
the mother!
For lo, we maidens are all of like age with her, and one course we were
wont to run, anointed in manly fashion, by the baths of Eurotas. Four
times sixty girls were we, the maiden flower of the land, {98} but of us
all not one was faultless, when matched with Helen.
As the rising Dawn shows forth her fairer face than thine, O Night, or as
the bright Spring, when Winter relaxes his hold, even so amongst us still
she shone, the golden Helen. Even as the crops spring up, the glory of
the rich plough land; or, as is the cypress in the garden; or, in a
chariot, a horse of Thessalian breed, even so is rose-red Helen the glory
of Lacedaemon. No other in her basket of wool winds forth such goodly
work, and none cuts out, from between the mighty beams, a closer warp
than that her shuttle weaves in the carven loom. Yea, and of a truth
none other smites the lyre, hymning Artemis and broad-breasted Athene,
with such skill as Helen, within whose eyes dwell all the Loves.
O fair, O gracious damsel, even now art thou a wedded wife; but we will
go forth right early to the course we ran, and to the grassy meadows, to
gather sweet-breathing coronals of flowers, thinking often upon thee,
Helen, even as youngling lambs that miss the teats of the mother-ewe.
For thee first will we twine a wreath of lotus flowers that lowly grow,
and hang it on a shadowy plane tree, for thee first will we take soft oil
from the silver phial, and drop it beneath a shadowy plane tree, and
letters will we grave on the bark, in Dorian wise, so that the wayfarer
may read: