Aristophanes
From: The Birds
The Nightingale Song (lines 737-51, 769-83)
Come, follow me
Through thickets, up scree,
To a nest
In a cluster of rowan berries,
Where my brown throat
Shall sing what you taught me.
There I shall dance to the nymphs' down-derries,
Where Phrynichus once, like a bee,
Knelt, sucking nectar out of your melodies.
So shall the swans cry
To the River-king
With clamouring wings
And fly
Low over endless marshes.
The sound in a wave
Flows up to heaven.
Winds cease for the cattle to listen,
And the hounds' fur stands on end,
While spirits stumble in breathless astonishment.
Translated by Leo Aylen
Page(s) 243
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