Nemean

Pindar

Pindar. Arnson Svarlien, Diane, translator. Created for the Perseus Project, 1990.

  1. and caught the sea-nymph Thetis after many struggles. And powerful Telamon, the comrade of Iolaus, sacked the city of Laomedon;
  2. and once he followed him to meet the bronze-bowed strength of the Amazons. And fear, the subduer of men, never dulled the edge of his mind.
  3. A man with inborn glory has great weight; but he who has only learned is a man in darkness, breathing changeful purposes, never taking an unwavering step, but trying his hand at countless forms of excellence with his ineffectual thought.
  4. But golden-haired Achilles, staying in the home of Philyra as a child, played at great deeds, often
  5. brandishing in his hands a javelin with a short blade; swift as the wind, he dealt death to wild lions in battle, and he slew wild boars and carried their panting bodies to the Centaur, son of Cronus, first when he was six years old, and afterwards for all the time he spent there.
  6. Artemis and bold Athena gazed at him with wonder,
  7. as he slew deer without the help of dogs and crafty nets; for he excelled with his feet. I have this story as it was told by earlier generations. Deep-thinking Cheiron reared Jason under his stone roof, and later Asclepius,
  8. whom he taught the gentle-handed laws of remedies. And he arranged a marriage for Peleus with the lovely-bosomed [*](Reading with Snell ἀγλαόκολπον for ἀγλαόκαρπον. ) daughter of Nereus, and brought up for her their incomparable child, nurturing his spirit with all fitting things,
  9. so that when the blasts of the sea-winds sent him
  10. to Troy, he might withstand the spear-clashing war-shout of the Lycians and Phrygians and Dardanians; and when he came into close conflict with the spear-bearing Ethiopians, he might fix it in his mind that their leader, powerful Memnon the kinsman of Helenus, should not return to his home.