Where of old, when Apollo’s presence was a glory that shone therethrough,
The priestess enthroned by the golden eagles of Zeus revealed
That Battus should found an empire in Libya’s fruitful field,
Should depart from his hallowed island, and build on the gleaming height
Of the breast of the earth a city of chariots splendour-dight.
Antistrophe 1
In the seventeenth generation so should the word be fulfilled
Which at Thera Medea spake, which the daughter passionate-willed
Of Aietes, the Colchian princess, breathed from immortal lips
To the heroes that with Jason fared on the highway of ships:
“Hearken to me, ye scions of warriors mighty-souled,
Ye that of Gods be descended, to the thing of my tongue foretold:
Lo, from this land of Thera that is scourged by the brine of the sea
Shall in Epaphus’ daughter Libya be planted in days to be
A root that shall grow into cities that mortals shall hold full dear.
To the temple-foundations of Ammon, of Libyan Zeus, lying near.
Epode 1
“And instead of the short-finned dolphin shall they take the fleetfoot steed,
Wield reins instead of the oar-blade, drive chariots of whirlwind speed.
For by that augury-token fulfilled shall be Thera’s fate
To become the mother-city of burgs exceeding great,
That token the which aforetime at Tritonis the mere’s outflow
On Euphemus who leapt from Argo did a God of the sea bestow,
A God who in man’s shape proffered a clod of earth for his gift:
And Zeus Kronion thundered approval thereof from the lift.
Strophe 2
“For he lighted on us, that stranger, as the men were in act to hang
Upon Argo’s side the anchor, the curb of the brazen fang.
Over ridges of homeless desert had they borne for twelve days’ space
Away from the Ocean the galley that wont o’er the sea to race;
For they haled her ashore, obeying the counsel spoken of me.
Then came that Solitary, the Triton-god of the sea,
Wearing the splendid semblance of a worship-worthy man,
And with words of kindly welcome his utterance began,
Such speech as of hosts good-hearted is spoken, when such draw near
Unto far-travelled guests, and bid them to taste of the banquet’s cheer.
Antistrophe 2
“Howbeit for that guest-feasting the heroes might not stay,
For the lure of the sweet home-coming beckoned them ever away.
But Eurypylus he named him, deathless Earth-shaker’s son,
Born of the Land-enfolder: yet marking our haste to begone,
He put forth his hand, and straightway caught up from the earth a clod
As it lay at his feet, and proffered the same as the gift of a god.
Nor scorned it Euphemus, but leaping from Argo’s deck to the strand
He received that fateful guest-gift, and clasped the giver’s hand.
But alas, it abode not with us! Washed over the galley’s side
It fleeted away on the sea-brine in the dusk of eventide
Epode 2
“Adrift on the heaving outsea: yet laid I once and again
My charge to watch it safely on our helpers the serving-men:
But ah, they forgat! So on Thera’s isle the unperishing seed
Of Libya the wide is upwashen before the time decreed.
For if only Euphemus, the scion of Poseidon the chariot-lord—
Whom Europa Tityos’ daughter bare on the margent-sward
Of Kephisus—to Tainarus speeding, there in the homeland had hurled
That clod through the chasm-portals of Hades’ underworld,
Strophe 3
“Then in the fourth generation the sons of his blood had ta’en
With the Danaans’ help possession of Libya’s boundless plain;
For then from great Lacedaemon, from Argos’ wide-mouthed bay
And Mycenae, had warriors thither fared in a mighty array.
But, as things have befallen, Euphemus shall wed with an alien dame,
And shall win him from those espousals a chosen seed of his name
The which, of the high Gods honoured, shall come unto Thera’s strand
And beget a man to be ruler of that cloud-shadowed land:
Unto him in the hall of Phoebus, the temple rich in gold,
Shall the word of the revelation of an oracle be told,
Antistrophe 3
“When in days to come he descendeth into the sanctuary
At Pytho, bidding him carry a host of men oversea
To Kronion’s fertile precinct that lieth beside the Nile.”
Even such was the chant prophetic that Medea uttered, the while
Moveless sitting in silence the heroes bowed the head,
And hearkened the counsel of wisdom that breathed in the words that she said.
Blest scion of Polymnestus, of no man save of thee
The oracle told that glory by the voice of the Delphic Bee
With utterance unprompted; and “All hail!” thrice she cried,
And proclaimed thee the destined ruler of Kyrene’s kingdom wide,
Epode 3
When thou earnest to ask what healing the Gods would grant of their grace
For thy stammering tongue. Of a surety now in the latter days,
As when mid the springtide’s roses a burgeoning tree is seen,
So, eighth in the line of Battus, Arkesilas’ leaf is green.
Even him did Apollo and Pytho cause to be triumph-renowned
In the chariot-race in the presence of all folk dwelling around.
I will hymn his fame to the Song-queens, and will sing of the Golden Fleece,
Of the Minyans’ Quest and the sowing of god-given glory for these.
Strophe 4
What Power overshadowing lured them forth on the sea-track long?
What peril to that Quest bound them with clamps as of adamant strong?
A god-given oracle boded that Pelias should die
By the hands of Aiolus’ children, or their merciless subtlety.
Yea, a prophecy came to him chilling the heart of the crafty-souled;
From the mid-stone of Earth-mother vestured with trees was the word outrolled:
“Above all things else beware thou with uttermost heed,” said the God,
“Of the man that from highland homesteads with single sandal shod
Unto far-renowned lolkos of the sunny plains shall fare,
Be he a man of thy country, or stranger from otherwhere.”
Antistrophe 4
At the last was he come, a hero of wondrous-mighty frame;
With lances twain that quivered in his iron grasp he came.
And twofold vesture arrayed him; the garb of the Magnete folk
To his goodly limbs close-lapping clung; but tossed like a cloak
O’er his shoulders a pard’s fell screening from arrowy showers lay.
From the glory of his bright tresses nought had been shorn away,
But unminished, a rippling splendour, adown his back they shone.
With feet unfaltering straightway and swiftly strode he on,
And he stood, as one that proveth a spirit of peril uncowed,
In the midst of
