Victory, giver of sweet gifts, great is the honour assigned to thee by the Father of the Heaven-born, throned on high: standing at the side of Zeus in golden Olympus thou judgest the issue of prowess for immortals and for men.
Be gracious to us, O daughter of Styx with the flowing tresses,
who guards the right. ’Tis due to thee even now that Metapontion, city honoured by gods, is full of rejoicings, while festal bands of stalwart youths hymn the Pythian victor, the brilliant son of Phaiscus.
The Delos-born son of Latona the deep-girdled gave him welcome with kindly eyes ; and many were the wreaths of flowers that fell around Alexidamus in Cirrha’s plain, for his triumph in the strenuous wrestling. Never in the course of that day did the sun behold him brought to earth.
And I will avouch that in the glorious domain of holy Pelops also, by the fair stream of Alpheus, if some one had not warped the course of righteous sentence, he would have crowned his hair with the gray olive for which all comers strive,
ere he returned to the horse-feeding plain of his own land. Not that a malignant fraud made the boy a prey to crafty arts in the fair precincts of Olympia: no, a god was the cause, or else the oft-erring judgments of mortals snatched the supreme prize from his grasp.
But now bright victory has been given to him by the Huntress with golden shaft and bow of fame, Artemis, the Soother.
To her an altar, goal of many a prayer, was set up of old by the son of Abas and his well-robed daughters.
All-powerful Hera had driven those maidens from the fair halls of Proetus, their spirits in bondage to a strong overmastering frenzy. For while yet in girlhood, they had entered the holy place of the purple-girdled goddess, and boasted that their sire far surpassed in wealth the golden-haired consort of Zeus, dread lord of wide dominion. But she, in anger, smote their hearts with a thought that turned them to flight; and with fearful shrieks they fled to a forest in the hills, far from the Tirynthian city and its god-built streets.
It was now the tenth year since the dauntless heroes with shields of bronze had left Argos, dear to the gods, and were dwelling at Tiryns with their much-envied king.
For a stubborn strife had sprung up from a slight cause between the brothers Proetus and Acrisius; and they had been ruining their people with feuds that broke the bounds of law, and with dire battles. But the folk besought the sons of Abas that they would share the fertile land between them, and that the younger should make a new seat at Tiryns, before they all fell into grievous straits. Then Zeus the son of Cronus, honouring the race of Danaus and of Lynceus, urger of steeds, was willing to give them rest from their cruel woes. So the mighty Cyclopes came and wrought a goodly wall for the famous city ;
where the renowned heroes were dwelling, after leaving glorious Argos, nurse of steeds.
Thence it was that the dark-haired maidens, the daughters of Proetus, had rushed in flight.
Grief took hold of their father’s heart ; a strange thought smote him, and he was minded to plunge a two-edged sword in his breast ; but his spearmen restrained him with words of comfort, and by force of hand.
For thirteen whole months the maidens roamed wildly through the dense forest, and went in flight through the pastures of Arcadia. But when at length their father came to Lusus with its fair stream, he washed himself with water taken thence,
and invoked the ox-eyed daughter of Latona with purple kerchief, stretching hands aloft to the rays of the Sun-god in swift chariot, to deliver his children from the curse of raging madness : ‘and I will offer to thee,’ he cried, ‘twenty red oxen, strangers to the yoke.’ His prayer was heard by the Huntress, daughter of a peerless sire; she prevailed with Hera, and healed the maidens, crowned with young flowers, of the madness sent by angry heaven. But they straightway made for her a precinct and an altar, and shed the blood of sheep thereon, and set choruses of women around it.
From that place didst thou pass with Achaean warriors to their city, nurse of steeds,—
and with happy fortune dost thou dwell in Metapontion, O glorious mistress of her people—and a lovely grove is thine, which they dedicated to thee by the fair stream of the Casas, [in front of thy temple,] when at last, in the counsels of the blessed gods, they sacked Priam’s stately town with the mail-clad Atreidae. Whoso has a just spirit will find, through all the course of time, countless deeds of valour wrought by the Achaeans.
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