大合唱:啊，穿着得体的皮靴的旅行者的头啊，你为什么要找谁呢?你从哪里来，以什么方式来到这美丽的夜莺附近?我探究的目的是要知道。但你若又聋又哑、一句我说的话也不明白、就挥挥手、表示明白。阿尔克曼:我沿着勃天之路来到这里。合唱:骑马航行，还是用脚划桨?用速度打球，我的双腿搭档。合唱:在阳光灿烂还是阴雨绵绵的宙斯之下?装饰我鞋子的是穆德的妹妹，而不是他自己。合唱:知道你的名字不会使我很不高兴。阿尔克曼:并不是所有人想要的都能得到。 CHORUS: Might I then hear at what thy presence shoots. ALCMAEON: A shepherd's questioned mouth informed me that-- CHORUS: What? for I know not yet what you will say. ALCMAEON: Nor will you ever, if you interrupt. CHORUS: Proceed, and I will hold my speechless tongue. ALCMAEON: This house was Eriphyle's, no one else's. CHORUS: Nor did he shame his throat with shameful lies. ALCMAEON: May I then enter, passing through the door? CHORUS: Go chase into the house a lucky foot. And, O my son, be, on the one hand, good, And do not, on the other hand, be bad; For that is much the safest plan. ALCMAEON: I go into the house with heels and speed. CHORUS Strophe In speculation I would not willingly acquire a name For ill-digested thought; But after pondering much To this conclusion I at last have come: LIFE IS UNCERTAIN. This truth I have written deep In my reflective midriff On tablets not of wax, Nor with a pen did I inscribe it there, For many reasons: LIFE, I say, IS NOT A STRANGER TO UNCERTAINTY. Not from the flight of omen-yelling fowls This fact did I discover, Nor did the Delphine tripod bark it out, Nor yet Dodona. Its native ingunuity sufficed My self-taught diaphragm. Antistrophe Why should I mention The Inachean daughter, loved of Zeus? Her whom of old the gods, More provident than kind, Provided with four hoofs, two horns, one tail, A gift not asked for, And sent her forth to learn The unfamiliar science Of how to chew the cud. She therefore, all about the Argive fields, Went cropping pale green grass and nettle-tops, Nor did they disagree with her. But yet, howe'er nutritious, such repasts I do not hanker after: Never may Cypris for her seat select My dappled liver! Why should I mention Io? Why indeed? I have no notion why. Epode But now does my boding heart, Unhired, unaccompanied, sing A strain not meet for the dance. Yes even the palace appears To my yoke of circular eyes (The right, nor omit I the left) Like a slaughterhouse, so to speak, Garnished with woolly deaths And many sphipwrecks of cows. I therefore in a Cissian strain lament: And to the rapid Loud, linen-tattering thumps upon my chest Resounds in concert The battering of my unlucky head. ERIPHYLE (within): O, I am smitten with a hatchet's jaw; And that in deed and not in word alone. CHORUS: I thought I heard a sound within the house Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy. ERIPHYLE: He splits my skull, not in a friendly way, Once more: he purposes to kill me dead. CHORUS: I would not be reputed rash, but yet I doubt if all be gay within the house. ERIPHYLE: O! O! another stroke! that makes the third. He stabs me to the heart against my wish. CHORUS: If that be so, thy state of health is poor; But thine arithmetic is quite correct.