Nemean

Pindar

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

  1. and Achilles holds the shining island in the Euxine sea.
  2. Thetis rules in Phthia, and Neoptolemus in the expanses of Epirus, where jutting ox-pasturing headlands, beginning in Dodona, slope down to the Ionian sea. But beside the foot of Pelion,
  3. Peleus turned a warlike hand against Iolcus and gave it in subjection to the Haemones [*](Following Snell’s punctuation.)
  4. after encountering the crafty arts of Acastus’ wife Hippolyte. With the sword of Daedalus, the son of Pelias sowed the seeds of death for Peleus
  5. from an ambush. But Cheiron rescued him and carried out the destiny which had been fated by Zeus. And Peleus, having thwarted all-powerful fire, and the sharp claws of bold-plotting lions, and the edge of their terrible teeth,
  6. married one of the Nereids throned on high, and saw the fine circle of seats in which the lords of sky and sea were sitting, as they gave him gifts and revealed the future strength of his race. Beyond Gadeira towards the western darkness there is no passage; turn back
  7. the ship’s sails again to the mainland of Europe, for it is impossible for me to tell the full story of the sons of Aeacus.
  8. For the Theandridae, having pledged my word, I went as a ready herald of the limb-strengthening contests
  9. at Olympia and the Isthmus and Nemea, where, whenever they make trial of their skill, they return home with the glorious fruit of garlands; in that home, Timasarchus, we hear that your family is an attendant of victory songs. But if
  10. in honor of your uncle Callicles you bid me
  11. to build a monument whiter than Parian stone, know that gold, when it is refined, shows all radiance, and a song in honor of noble deeds makes a man equal in fortune to kings.
  12. May that man, who dwells beside the stream of Acheron, hear my voice singing, where in the contest of the loud-roaring wielder of the trident he flourished with crowns of Corinthian wild celery.
  13. Euphanes, your aged grandfather,
  14. once willingly sang his praises, child. Each man has his own generation; and each man expects to speak best of what he has seen himself. If he were praising Melesias, how he would throw his opponent in the struggle! Weaving his words, impossible to wrestle down in speech;
  15. with gentle thoughts towards noble men, but a rough adversary to his opponents.
  1. I am not a sculptor, to make statues that stand motionless on the same pedestal. Sweet song, go on every merchant-ship and rowboat that leaves Aegina, and announce that Lampon’s powerful son Pytheas
  2. won the victory garland for the pancratium at the Nemean games, a boy whose cheeks do not yet show the tender season that is mother to the dark blossom.
  3. He has brought honor to the Aeacids, the heroic spearmen descended from Cronus and Zeus and the golden Nereids, and to his mother city, a land friendly to guests.
  4. Once by the altar of father Zeus Hellenius the illustrious sons of Endais and the strong, mighty Phocus stood and prayed, stretching their hands to the sky, that the city would one day be famous for men and ships.
  5. Phocus was the son of the goddess Psamatheia; he was born by the shore of the sea. Reverence restrains me from speaking of an enormous and unjust venture,