That was when you still ruled this beautiful world,
Holding the light leading-strings of joy,
You still led happy generations of 
Beautiful beings out of the land of myth!
Oh, that was when blissful service to you still shone,
How totally different it was, it was different then!
That was when people still placed garlands in your temple,
Venus Amathusia!

That was when you used the magical drapery of poetry
And you still wrapped it lovingly around truth - 
That was when the fullness of life flowed throughout creation
And what could never be experienced WAS experienced.
In order to press it to loving breasts
People were bestowed with the exalted nobility of nature,
Their eyes were illuminated and everything pointed
To everything bearing the trace of a god.

But now where, according to our sages,
A ball of fire is spinning soullessly,
At that time Helios was steering his golden chariot,
Helios, in his quiet majesty.
These heights were filled by the Oreads,
A Dryad lived in that tee,
From the urns of beloved Naiads
Poured the silver foam of the rivers.

That laurel tree once turned around in need of help,
The daughter of Tantalus remains silent in this rock,
The lament of Syrinx rings out from that reed,
Philomel's pain out of this grove.
That brook received the tears of Demeter,
The ones she shed for Persephone,
And from this hill Cythera called out
To her beautiful friend, but in vain!

They descended to the offspring of Deucalion 
At that time, the gods still came down.
In order to conquer Pyrrha's beautiful daughters
Leto's son took up a shepherd's staff.
Between humans, gods and heroes
Amor formed a beautiful alliance,
Mortals with gods and heroes
Paid homage in Amathus.

Dark seriousness and sad denial
Were banned from your pleasant worship,
All hearts had to beat happily,
For you were connected with those who were happy.
At that time nothing was sacred except for what was beautiful,
The god was ashamed of no joy
Where the chaste, blushing Muse,
Where the Graces, were in control.

Your temples laughed like palaces,
The heroic games venerated you
At the crown-rich festivals on the isthmus,
And the chariots thundered on their way to the winning post.
Beautifully adorned soulful dances
Circled around the resplendent altar,
Wreaths of victory adorned your temples,
Crowns your fragrant hair.

Evoe along with the cheerful thyrsus swingers
And the majestic team of panthers
Announced the great bringer of joy.
Fauns and satyrs sway in front of him
And jumping up to him are raving Maenads,
Their dances praise his wine,
And the brown cheeks of the master of ceremonies invite
People merrily to fill their glasses.

At that time no hideous skeleton stepped forward
Before someone's death bed. A kiss
Took the last life from the lips.
A genius lowered his torch.
Even Orcus' harsh judgement scales
Were held by the descendant of a mortal,
And the Thracian's soulful lament
Had the power to stir the Furies.

The happy shade encountered his joys
Again in the groves of Elysium,
True love found its faithful partner,
And the charioteer found his course.
Linus plays his familiar songs.
Admetus sinks into the arms of Alcestis.
Orestes recognises his friend again,
Philoctetes his arrow.

That was when more lofty prizes strengthened the wrestler
On the arduous course of virtue,
Magnificent achievers performed great deeds
Clambering up towards those in bliss.
Before the one who summons back the dead
The silent army of the gods bowed down.
Shining onto the pilot going across the surging waters are
The twins (Castor and Pollux), looking down from Olympus.

Beautiful world, where are you? Come back,
Beauteous blossom time of nature!
Oh, it is only in the fairy tale land of song
That any trace of your magnificence lives on.
The fields are now in mourning after the extinction, 
No divinity appears before my eyes,
Oh, that image, so warm with life,
Only a shadow of it now remains.

All of those blossoms have fallen
Because of the awful blowing of the north wind,
In order to make a single one out of all rich
This world of the gods had to vanish.
I search sadly amongst the vault of the stars,
But I can no longer find you there, Selene,
I call through the woods, through the waves.
Oh, they answer with an empty echo!

Unaware of the joys which it inspires,
Never enraptured by its majesty,
Never conscious of the spirit that it steers,
Never made any happier by my happiness,
Even lacking in feeling for the honour of its artists
Like the dead striking of the gradfather clock,
Knavishly serving the law of gravity -
That is nature now that the gods have departed.

In order to be delivered again in the morning
Today it digs its own grave,
And like a spindle being wound eternally
The moon waxes and wanes.
In vain have they returned to the land of the poets,
The gods have returned home, of no use to a world
Which, having burst out of its leading strings
Holds itself in its own motion.

Yes, they have returned home, and all that is beautiful,
All that is lofty, they have taken away with them,
All colours, all the notes of life,
And all we are left with is the word deprived of soul.
Pulled away from the flood of time they hover,
Having been rescued, on the heights of Pindus.
Whatever should live immortally in song
Has to perish in life.