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Home  »  library  »  poem  »  A Parody of Euripides’s Lyric Verse

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

A Parody of Euripides’s Lyric Verse

By Aristophanes (c. 448–c. 388 B.C.)

From ‘The Frogs

HALCYONS ye by the flowing sea

Waves that warble twitteringly,

Circling over the tumbling blue,

Dipping your down in its briny dew,

Spi-i-iders in corners dim

Spi-spi-spinning your fairy film,

Shuttles echoing round the room

Silver notes of the whistling loom,

Where the light-footed dolphin skips

Down the wake of the dark-prowed ships,

Over the course of the racing steed

Where the clustering tendrils breed

Grapes to drown dull care in delight,

Oh! mother make me a child again just for to-night!

I don’t exactly see how that last line is to scan,

But that’s a consideration I leave to our musical man.