Pythian

Pindar

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

  1. Agreus and Nomius, and others will call him Aristaeus.” Having spoken thus, Cheiron urged the god to fulfill the delightful consummation of his marriage.
  2. Accomplishment is swift when the gods are already hurrying, and the roads are short. That very day decided the matter. They lay together in the bedchamber of Libya, rich in gold, where she possesses a most beautiful city
  3. which is renowned for victories in contests. And now in very holy Pytho, where by his victory he had Cyrene proclaimed, the son of Carneiades brought lovely, flourishing good fortune to her; she will welcome him graciously, when he brings back home to the land of beautiful women
  4. desirable fame from Delphi.
  5. Great excellence can always inspire many stories; but to embroider a short account from a lengthy theme is what wise men love to hear. Right proportion in the same way contains the gist of the whole; as seven-gated Thebes once knew well,
  6. Telesicrates was not dishonored by Iolaus; when he had cut off the head of Eurystheus with the edge of his sword, he was buried below the earth by the tomb of the charioteer Amphitryon, his father’s father, where he lay as the guest of the Sown Men, having come to dwell in the streets of the Cadmeans, who ride on white horses.
  7. Wise Alcmena lay with Amphitryon and with Zeus, and bore
  8. in a single birth twin sons, strong and victorious in battle. Only a mute man does not have Heracles’ name on his lips, and does not always remember the waters of Dirce, which reared him and Iphicles. To them I will sing a victory-song for the fulfillment of my prayer;
  9. may the pure light of the clear-voiced Graces not desert me. For I say that I have praised this city three times, in Aegina and on the hill of Nisus,
  10. truly escaping silent helplessness. Therefore, whether a man is friendly or hostile among the citizens, let him not obscure a thing that is done well for the common good and so dishonor the precept of the old man of the sea,
  11. who said to praise with all your spirit, and with justice, even an enemy when he accomplishes fine deeds. The women saw your many victories at the seasonal rites of Pallas, and each silently prayed that you could be her dear husband,
  12. Telesicrates, or her son;
  13. and in the Attic Olympia too, and in the contests of deep-bosomed Mother Earth, and in all your local games. But while I am quenching my thirst for song, someone exacts an unpaid debt from me, to awake again
  14. the ancient glory of his ancestors as well: for the sake of a Libyan woman they went to the city of Irasa, as suitors of the very famous daughter of Antaeus with the beautiful hair. Many excellent kinsmen sought her, and many strangers too, since her beauty was marvellous.
  15. They wanted
  16. to pluck the flowering fruit of golden-crowned Youth. But her father, cultivating for his daughter a more renowned marriage, heard how Danaus once in Argos had found for his forty-eight daughters, before noon overtook them, a very swift marriage. For right away he stood the whole band of suitors at the end of a course,
  17. and told them to decide with a footrace which of the heroes, who came to be bridegrooms, would take which bride.
  18. The Libyan too made such an offer in joining his daughter with a husband. He placed her at the goal, when he had arrayed her as the crowning prize, and in their midst he announced that that man should lead her to his home, whoever was the first to leap forward
  19. and touch her robes. There Alexidamus, when he had sped to the front of the swift race, took the noble girl’s hand in his hand and led her through the crowd of Nomad horsemen. They cast on that man many leaves and garlands,
  20. and before he had received many wings for his victories.