Chorus
And let no murderous havoc come upon [680] the realm to ravage it, by arming Ares—foe to the dance and lute, parent of tears—and the shout of civil strife. [685] And may the joyless swarm of diseases settle far from the heads of the inhabitants, and to all the young people may Lyceus1be graciously disposed.
1 The epithet Lyceus, often applied to Apollo, was commonly connected with the belief that he was the destroyer and protector of wolves (λύκοι). As a destructive power he is invoked to ward off enemies (Aesch. Seven 145); as an averter of evil he protects herds, flocks, and the young. According to Pausanias (Paus. 2.19.3) Danaus established a sanctuary in honor of Lyceus at Argos, where, in later times, the most famous of all Apollo's temples was consecrated to him under the title of “Wolf-god.”
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.