God-like Antenor’s [wife of grave mien], priestess of Athena, deep-girdled Theano, [opened the holy temple] of battle-rousing Pallas with its golden doors [to the two envoys] of the Greeks, Odysseus, son of Laertes, and Menelaus, the prince sprung from Atreus...
[ Verses 30f. ?...for no guile lurks in the clear utterance that wisdom brings to mortals.]
[The sons of Antenor] then led [the envoys to the marketplace of Troy]; while their father, the sage hero, went to declare all the word of the Achaeans to king Priam and his sons.
Thereupon heralds, hastening through the wide city, began to gather the array of Trojans into the marketplace where warriors muster. Everywhere the loud rumour ran abroad; and men lifted up their hands to the immortal gods, praying for rest from their woes.
Say, Muse, who was the first to plead the righteous cause? Menelaus son of Pleisthenes spake with winning voice,
counselled of the fair-robed Graces:
‘Warriors of Troy, Zeus, who rules on high and beholds all things, is not the author of grievous woes for mortals. No, open before all men is the path that leads to unswerving Justice, attendant of holy Eunomia and prudent Themis: happy the land whose sons take her to dwell with them.
‘But Insolence,—the spirit, void of reverence, who luxuriates in shifty wiles and illicit follies—who swiftly gives a man his neighbour's wealth and power, but anon plunges him into a gulf of ruin,—she it was who destroyed the Giants, overweening sons of Earth...’
I will go towards the temple of Pytho’s lord, since fair-throned Urania has sent me from Pieria a golden argosy freighted with songs of fame [concerning the god],—whether, on the flowery banks of Hebrus,
he is taking his joy [in the chase], or in swan with slender neck, charmed in soul by its sweet voice ;—[until, O Pythian Apollo, thou returnest [to Pytho], to seek those flowers of song, those many paeans, which choruses of Delphians are wont to uplift at thy glorious shrine.
Meanwhile, we sing how Amphitryon’s son, the adventurous hero, left Oechalia a prey to fire: then came he to the sea-washed cape, where he was to offer from his spoil nine bellowing bulls to Cenaean Zeus, lord of far-spread clouds,
and twain to the god who rouses the sea and shakes the earth: also a high-horned ox, untouched by the yoke, to the maiden with the flashing eyes, the virgin Athena.
Then it was that the God with whom none may strive wove for Deïaneira a shrewd device, fraught with sorrow; when she learned the bitter tidings that the dauntless son of Zeus was sending to his goodly house the white-armed Iole, his bride.
Ill-fated, hapless one, what a plan did she conceive! Potent jealousy was her bane, and that dark veil which hid the future when, on the rose-clad banks of Lycormas, she received from Nessus his fateful gift of wondrous power.
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