yearning,
Eye of mine host, good seer and warrior tried!”
And this same praise in song processional
To Syracuse’ son is rendered with all fitness.
I, who hate strife and disputation’s gall,
With a great oath to him I bear my witness:
The sweet-voiced Muses sanction it withal.
Phintis, thy mighty mule-team harness straightway,
That we may speed along a clear highway
The car, that I may reach the ancestral gateway
Whence came his race. None know so well as they
To find the track, who at Olympia won
Crowns: wherefore unto them it well beseemeth
That wide the doors of song should now be thrown.
For Pitane-ward, to where Eurotas gleameth
Must I in season due this day begone.
Now Pitane bare, by Lord Poseidon fathered,
Evadne of the violet hair, men say,
But hid her shame ’neath vesture-folds upgathered,
Till she might send her maidens thence away,
Bidding them bear her babe to Eilatus’ son
Who at Phaisane ruled in hill-girt places
Arcadian, and his lot by Alpheus won.
There was Evadne nurtured: in the embraces
Of Phoebus her love’s story was begun.
She could not for her full time hide the blossom
Of a God’s love from Aipytus: keen dread
And wrath no words might utter racked his bosom.
For light in darkness Pytho-ward he sped.
She laid the while her girdle crimson-twined
’Neath boughs dark-shadowing, and her silver ewer.
And there she bore a boy of godlike mind;
For golden-haired Apollo drew unto her
The Fates, and Eileithyia travail-kind.
So from her womb in painless birth outleaping
Iamus came. Grief-stricken on the ground
She left him. Came two bright-eyed serpents creeping
By the Gods’ counsel; softly coiling round
They fed him with the sweet dews of the bee.
But when the king from rocky Pytho riding
Came, he asked all his household eagerly:
“Where is the babe Evadne bare in hiding?
For fathered of Apollo’s self is he;
“A prophet shall he be all men excelling
To this folk: nevermore shall fail his race,”
But they, “Of him have we heard no man telling,
Nor seen him”—yet the babe was born five days!
But in a pathless reed-brake, oversprayed
With gold and purple splendours was he lying,
Which pansy-petals on his soft flesh rayed.
“So shall he,” spake his mother prophesying,
“Bear this name that through all time shall not fade.”6
Now when to fruitage of youth golden-pinioned
He won, to Alpheus’ mid-stream he strode
’Neath the night-stars, and on the wide-dominioned,
His grandsire, called, and Delos’ Archer-god,
Praying, “Let honour nation-fostering rest
Upon mine head!” And answer made his father
With voice infallible to his request:
“Arise, and to that place where all men gather
Follow, my son, obeying my behest.”
So reached they Kronion’s7 steep rock sunward-soaring.
There prophecy’s twin treasure gave his sire—
To hear his voice unswerving truth outpouring
First: then, when Heracles, that soul of fire,
Should come, when he, the Alkaïds’ seed renowned,
Should found his God-sire’s Feast thronged by all nations,
Of all world-games with chiefest honour crowned,
Then high on Zeus’s altar of oblations
A second oracle he bade him found.
Thereafter through all Hellas famed in story
Were Iamus’ sons, and prospered. High emprise
They honour; so they tread the path of glory.
The achievement proves the man: but envious eyes
Of slanderers follow still him on whose head
The Grace rains beauty, who before all other
His chariot round the twelvefold course hath sped.
Agesias, if the forbears of thy mother,
Who ’neath Kyllene had their old homestead,
With prayer and sacrifice ceased not adoring
Heaven’s herald Hermes, him in whom begun
Be Games and ended, who is honour pouring
On Arcady’s hero-land—He, Sostratus’ son,
With his deep-thundering Sire, thy bliss fulfils.
My tongue is poesy’s whetstone shrilly-sounding!
That fancy all my willing spirit thrills
With breathings beauty-rippling. Flower-abounding
Metope in Stymphalus ringed of hills,
My ancestress, bare Thebe chariot-glorious.
I’ll sip her dear springs, and for warriors twine
A song-wreath rainbow-hued. Thy choir victorious,
O Aeneas,8 teach to chant the Maid divine
Hera, and know that none in after days
With scoffed “Boeotian swine!” our ear abuses!
A messenger thou art whose faith all praise,
O cryptic herald-staff of bright-haired Muses,
Sweet mixing-bowl of royal-ringing lays!
Bid Syracuse and Ortygia’s praise be chanted,
By Hiero with righteous sceptre swayed
Who honours Her whose feet on furrows planted
Make red the com, the great Feast of the Maid
Of the White Steeds, and Zeus throned on the height
Of Etna honours. Lyre and song sweet-pealing
Know Hiero well. His fortune may the flight
Of time not wreck! With welcome love-revealing,
King, greet this song that chants Agesias’ might,
Which from Stymphalus’ mother-town comes winging,
From home to home—Sicilia, Arcady!
’Tis good the ship on anchors twain be swinging
In night of storm. May Heaven propitiously
Grant either folk high glory without stain.
In thy protection, Sea-lord King, enfolden
Straight onward may he sail: guard him from bane,
Spouse of the Sea-queen of the distaff golden,
And bless the gladsome flower of this my strain.
VII
For Diagoras of Rhodes, on his victory in boxing, 464 BC. The Rhodians placed this ode, engraved in letters of gold, in their temple of Athena at Lindus.
As a father with wealth-laden hand uplifteth a cup
With the flashing dew of the joy-giving wine brimmed up,
And pledgeth therein the youth who hath won for a bride
His daughter, and therewith giveth to him, to bear
From the old home unto the new, that golden pride
Of his treasures, and maketh the fair feast yet more fair,
And his kinsman envied of all friends banqueting there
For the marriage that joins hearts, one evermore to abide;
So send I the Song-queens’ gift, the nectar outpoured
From my spirit, its vintage of sweetness, a chant to record
The triumph of guerdon-winners, their victory
At Olympia and Pytho gained in the athlete-strife.
Whom praiseful report companioneth, happy is he!
Now on one, now another the Grace that enricheth life
Propitiously looks, and with manifold music of fife
And of lyre sweet-echoing breathes on him melody.
To the sound of the lyre and the pipe on-sailing
Homeward I come with Diagoras hailing
