Woe and tribulation were made my lot in life, when Alexander first cut his beams of pine in Ida’s woods, to sail across the heaving sea in quest of Helen’s bed, loveliest woman on whom the sun-god turns his golden eye.
ChorusFor here begins trouble’s cycle,and, worse than that, relentless fate; and from one man’s folly came a universal curse, bringing death to the land of Simois, with trouble from an alien shore. The strife the shepherd decided on Ida, between three daughters of the blessed gods,
Chorusbrought as its result war and bloodshed and the ruin of my home;and many a Spartan maiden too is weeping bitter tears in her halls on the banks of fair Eurotas, and many a mother whose sons are slain,is smiting her gray head and tearing her cheeks, making her nails bloody in the furrowed gash.