gue, the tongue of the
Achaeans:

Paint with threads of gold and scarlet, paint the battles fought
for me,
All the wars for Argive Helen; storm and sack by land or sea;
All the tale of loves and sorrows that have been and are to be.

Paint her lips that like a cup have pledged the lips of heroes all,
Paint her golden hair unwhitened while the many winters fall,
Paint the beauty that is mistress of the wide world and its thrall!

Paint the storms of ships and chariots, rain of arrows flying far,
Paint the waves of Warfare leaping up at Beauty like a star,
Like a star that pale and trembling hangs above the waves of War.

Paint the ancient Ilios fallen; paint the flames that scaled the
sky,
When the foe was in the fortress, when the trumpet and the cry
Rang of men in their last onset, men whose hour had dawned to die.

Woe for me once loved of all men, me that never yet have known
How to love the hearts that loved me. Woe for woe, who hear
the moan
Of my lovers' ghosts that perished in their cities overthrown.

Is there not, of Gods or mortals, oh, ye Gods, is there not one--
One whose heart shall mate with my heart, one to love ere all be
done,
All the tales of wars that shall be for my love beneath the sun?

Now the song died away, and the Wanderer once more bethought him of the
Wardens of the Gate and of the battle which he must fight. But as
he braced himself to rush on against the unseen foe the music of the
singing swelled forth again, and whether he willed it or willed it not,
so sweet was its magic that there he must wait till the song was done.
And now stronger and more gladly rang the sweet shrill voice, like the
voice of one who has made moan through the livelong winter night, and
now sees the chariot of the dawn climbing the eastern sky. And thus the
Hathor sang:

Ah, within my heart a hunger for the love unfelt, unknown,
Stirs at length, and wakes and murmurs as a child that wakes to
moan,
Left to sleep within some silent house of strangers and alone.

So my heart awakes, and waking, moans with hunger and with cold,
Cries in pain of dim remembrance for the joy that was of old;
For the love that was, that shall be, half forgot and half
foretold.

Have I dreamed it or remembered? In another world was I,
Lived and love