Then danced the Dactyls and Curêtes wild, And drowned with yells the cries of mother and child; Big-armed Damnámeneus gan prance and shout: And burly Acmon struck the echoes out: And Kermis leaped and howled: and Titias pranced: And broad Cyllenus tore the air and danced: While deep within the shadowed cave at rest Lay Rhea, with her babe upon her breast.
If any here there be whose impure hands 260 Among pure hands, or guilty heart among Our guiltless hearts be stained with blood or wrong, Let him depart! If there be any here in whom high Zeus Seeing impiety might turn away, Now from our sacrifice and from his sin Let him depart!
I have chosen to praise Hêra the wife, and bring A hymn for the feast on marriage days To the wife of the gods’ king. 271 How on her festival The gods had loving strife, Which should give of them all The fairest gift to the wife. But Earth said, Fair to see Is mine and yields to none, I have grown for her joy a sacred tree, With apples of gold thereon.
Then Hêra, when she heard what Earth had given, Smiled for her joy, and longed and came to see: On dovewings flying from the height of heaven, Down to the golden tree: As tired birds at even Come flying straight to house 285 On their accustomed boughs. ’Twas where, on tortured hands Bearing the mighty pole, Devoted Atlas stands: And round his bowed head roll Day-light and night, and stars unmingled dance, Nor can he raise his glance.
She saw the rocky coast Whereon the azured waves Are laced in foam, or lost In water-lighted caves; The olive island where, Amid the purple seas Night unto Darkness bare The four Hesperides: 300 And came into the shade Of Atlas, where she found The garden Earth had made And fenced with groves around. And in the midst it grew Alone, the priceless stem, As careful, clear and true As graving on a gem. Nature had kissèd Art And borne a child to stir 310 With jealousy the heart Of heaven’s Artificer. From crown to swelling root It mocked the goddess’ praise, The green enamelled sprays The emblazoned golden fruit.
And ’neath the tree, with hair and zone unbound, The fair Hesperides aye danced around, And Ægle danced and sang ‘O welcome, Queen!’ And Erytheia sang ‘The tree is green!’ 320 And Hestia danced and sang ‘The fruit is gold!’ And Arethusa sang ‘Fair Queen, behold!’ And all joined hands and danced about the tree, And sang ‘O Queen, we dance and sing for thee!’