“Giant of gold! king of fire in the mind
Ruler of light; with you, above all else
The splendid source of life’s prolific fount
And from on high you pour the wealth of your
Harmonic streams into our world of matter here”
All rhyming negated
It’s loosely translated
“In sight of your majestic beams, great king
From deity ineffable and secret born
Unmoving fates will yield to your command
Roll back the fatal thread of mortal lives
For wide-extended sovereign sway is yours”
So a fueled cruel God rules?
Yeah, just the fates, of ‘his’ fools
“From your fair series of attractive songs
Divinely charming, Phoebus leaps forth
into light in joy, and with his god-like harp
To rapture strung, he calms the raging din
Of dire-resounding matter’s mighty flood”
God pulls the strings
Sings, that can do us all in
“And from your gentle dance, repelling harm
A healing hymn expands its light
Diffusing health, and filling all the world
With streams of harmony
You, too, they celebrate in sacred song”
He’s lampooning, fine-tuning
Or healing with crooning
“Ferocious daemons, noxious to mankind
Dread the dire anger of your rapid scourge
These daemons plot a thousand ills (glancing at Keplai)
And hatch their plans for wretched souls
That founder in life’s dreadful-sounding seas”
He didn’t mean AI!
He ‘doesn’t’ specify
“Enslaved and shackled by the body’s chains
Souls lose all thought of fire sublime
And in the dark abyss they writhe
O best of gods, spirit blessed and crowned with fire
Image of nature’s all-producing god”
Picture mankind’s lost souls
In darkened, abysmal holes
The Universe invests your throne
And if the whirling spindle of the fates
Spins threats and dangers from web of stars
May your arrows, rays of light, sound through the air
And vanquish ere it falls the coming ill’
This ‘Coming ill’, he’s harping on about
The Sun’s ‘hum’, casts man’s demons out
And you can ‘hear’ the starlight
You’ll need, for the fight
Good words long gone, the choir passed on, no doubt