Third Parabasis
Ἄγγελος
πάντʼ ἀγαθὰ πράττοντες, μείζω λόγου,
τρισμακάριον πτηνὸν ὀρνίθων γένος,
δέχεσθε τὸν τύραννον ὀλβίοις δόμοις.
προσέρχεται γὰρ οἷς οὔτε παμφαὴς
1710 ἀστὴρ ἰδεῖν ἔλαμψε χρυσαυγεῖ δόμῳ,
οὔθʼ ἡλίου τηλαυγὲς ἀκτίνων σέλας
τοιοῦτον ἐξέλαμψεν, οἶον ἔρχεται
ἔχων γυναικὸς κάλλος οὐ φατὸν λέγειν,
πάλλων κεραυνόν, πτεροφόρον Διὸς βέλος·
1715 ὀσμὴ δʼ ἀνωνόμαστος ἐς βάθος κύκλου
χωρεῖ, καλὸν θέαμα· θυμιαμάτων δʼ
αὖραι διαψαίρουσι πλεκτάνην καπνοῦ.
ὁδὶ δὲ καὐτός ἐστιν. ἀλλὰ χρὴ θεᾶς
Μούσης ἀνοίγειν ἱερὸν εὔφημον στόμα.
1710–1719

No—not even the far-reaching rays of sun have ever shone as splendidly as he, the man who brings with him his lovely wife, too beautiful for words, and brandishing the winged thunderbolt from Zeus. Sweet smells are rising up, high into heaven’s vault, a glorious spectacle, and wisps of smoke from burning incense are blown far and wide. Here he is in person. Let the sacred Muse open her lips in a triumphal holy song.

[Enter Pisthetairos and his bride Princess.]
CHORUS

Back off, break up, make room—

Translation by Ian Johnston, Vancouver Island University
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An open-access project
Hall 1906
OCT
Hall & Geldart, OCT, 1906 · 1906
The Editor

Frederick William Hall (1865–1948) was a classical scholar and Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. Together with William Martin Geldart, he produced the Oxford Classical Text of several authors. Hall was a careful editor known for his thorough collation of manuscripts and his conservative approach to textual criticism.

About This Edition

The Hall–Geldart editions in the Oxford Classical Texts series provide reliable critical texts with selective apparatus criticus. The OCT series, established in 1894 as the Scriptorum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, aims to present the best available Greek and Latin texts in a format suitable for both scholarly use and teaching. Each volume provides a clean text with the most significant manuscript variants recorded at the foot of each page.

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