"the wine-dark ivy, / dense and dark"

 "Here, stranger,

here in the land where horses are a glory

you have reached the noblest home on earth

Colonus glistening, brilliant in the sun --

where the nightingale sings on,

her dying music rising clear,

hovering always, never leaving,

down the shadows deepening green

she haunts the glades, the wine-dark ivy,

dense and dark, the untrodden, sacred wood of god

rich with laurel and olives never touched by the sun

untouched by storms that blast from every quarter --

where the Reveler Dionysus strides the earth forever

where the wild nymphs are dancing round him

nymphs who nursed his life."

-- Oedipus at Colonus, trans. Robert Fagles