The Poems of Sappho: Erotika: Dithyrambs: The Cretan Dance
The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O'Hara, [1910]
As the moon in all her splendor
Slowly rose above the forest,
Silent stood the Cretan women
Round the altar.
Girdled close their clinging tunics,
Made of some transparent fabric,
Traced the every curve and lissome
Of their bodies.
With revering eyes uplifted
To the round and rising planet,
Soon its drifting beams of silver
Lit their faces.
Soft and clear its sphere effulgent,
Full defined above the treetops,
Steeped in pale unearthly glamor
All the landscape.
When the argent glimmer rested
On the altar piled with garlands,
And its glow unveiled the marble
Aphrodite;
Linking hands, the Cretan women
Moving gracefully with metric
Steps began to dance a measure
To the Goddess.
All so light their feet unsandalled
Pressed the velvet grass in treading,
That they scarcely bruised its tender
Blooming verdure.
Slowly turning in a circle
To the east, their voices chanted
In a plaintive note the sacred
Ithyphallics;
Then they paused, their steps retracing
Toward the west, and answered strophe
By antistrophe with choric
Tones accordant;
With the aftersong epodic,
Standing all before the altar,
Lo! the hymn in praise of Paphos
Was completed.