Blest war-lord of Syracuse, city of whirling chariots, thou, if any mortal, wilt rightly estimate the sweet gift brought in thy honour by the Muses of violet crown.
Suffer thy mind, ever upright in judgment, to have repose from cares; bend thy thoughts hither, and see where a song woven with the aid of the deep-girdled Graces is sent from a lovely isle to your famous city by a guest-friend, a servant not inglorious of Urania whose locks are bound with gold. Fain is he to pour forth his voice in praise of Hieron. The eagle, cleaving the deep ether on high with his swift tawny wings,
messenger of wide-ruling Zeus the lord of thunder, trusts boldly to his mighty strength; the shrill-voiced birds crouch in fear of him; the heights of the wide earth stay him not, nor the rough, steep waves of the unwearied sea; he plies his wing of delicate plumage in the illimitable void, sped by the breath of the west wind, conspicuous in the sight of men.
And so for me a boundless course is open on every side to hymn your prowess, ye lordly sons of Deinomenes, by grace of Victory, dark-haired queen, and of Ares with bronze-clad breast. May Heaven weary not of blessing you !
Morning with her golden ray saw Pherenicus, that chestnut steed swift as the wind, victorious by the wide-eddying Alpheus, as also at divine Pytho. And I call Earth to witness: never yet in a race has he been soiled by dust from horses in front of him, as he sped to his goal. Like the rush of Boreas, he darts onward, heedful of his pilot, winning for hospitable Hieron a victory greeted by fresh plaudits.
Happy is he to whom the god
has granted a portion of honours, and a life of opulence, with enviable fortune : for no mortal man is blest in all things.
And verily they tell how he who broke down the gates of cities, the unconquered son of Zeus, lord of the bright thunderbolt, descended of old to the house of Persephone with slender ankles, that he might bring up from Hades to the sunlight the hound with jagged teeth, offspring of unapproachable Echidna.
There, by the waters of Cocytus, he perceived the souls of hapless mortals, countless as leaves quivering in the wind, where flocks graze on the gleaming headlands of Ida. And well seen among them was the shade of the bold-hearted warrior, the spear-shaker, sprung from Porthaon.
But when the wondrous hero, Alcmena’s son, beheld him shining in armour, he drew the shrill bow-string to the horn of his bow; then he raised the lid of his quiver, and took out a bronze-tipped arrow. But the spirit of Meleager came and stood before his face, and spake unto him, for he knew him well: ‘Son of great Zeus, stay where thou art, and calm thy soul, and speed not vainly from thy hand a fierce shaft against the souls of the dead. There is no cause to fear.’
So spake he; but the princely son of Amphitryon marvelled, and said: ‘Who among immortals or among men, and in what land, was the parent of an offspring so glorious? And who was his slayer? Soon will fair-girdled Hera send that man
to take my life; but golden-haired Pallas, I ween, is watchful against that.’
And to him spake Meleager with tears: ‘It is hard for mortal men to turn aside the purpose of the gods: else would my father, horse-smiting Oeneus, have appeased the wrath of Artemis crowned with flower-buds, the majestic, the white-armed, when he entreated her with sacrifices of many goats and red-backed oxen.
‘But the maiden goddess had conceived anger that could not be overcome; and she sped a wild boar, of vast might, a ruthless foe, into the fair lawns of Calydon; where, in the flood-tide of his strength, he ravaged the vine-rows with his tusks, and slew the sheep, and every mortal ;
that crossed his path.
‘Against him we, the flower of the Greeks, strenuously waged grim fight for six days together. And when the god gave the mastery to us Aetolians, we buried those whom the squealing boar had slain in his violent onset, even Ancaeus, and Agelaus, that bravest of my trusty brethren, whom Althaea bare in the far-famed house of my father Oeneus.
‘But deadly fate destroyed more than these; for the fierce
goddess of the chase, Leto’s daughter, had not yet stayed her wrath; and we fought strenuously for the beast’s tawny hide with the Curetes steadfast in battle.
‘There slew I, among many others, Iphiclus and doughty Aphares, gallant brethren of my mother : for the vehement spirit of War discerns no kinsman in fight, but missiles go blindly from our hands against the lives of foemen, fraught with death for whom the god will.
‘Reflecting not on this, the fierce daughter of Thestius, my ill-starred mother, a woman without fear, planned my destruction. She lifted up a voice of wailing, and set about burning
the brand of speedy doom, taken from the carven chest,—the brand which fate had ordained of yore to be the measure of my life.
‘It so befell that I was in the act of slaying Clymenus, the valiant son of Daïpylus, a warrior of noble mien, whom I had overtaken in front of the walls,—for our foes were in flight to their ancient city of Pleuron ;— when the sweet life grew faint within me, and I knew that my strength was ebbing away. Ah me! and as I drew my latest breath, I wept, hapless one, at passing from my glorious youth.’
’Tis said that then, and then alone, tears came to the eyes of Amphitryon’s intrepid son, in pity for the ill-fated hero’s doom ; and he answered him with such words as these: ‘It were best for mortals that they had never been born, and never looked upon the sunlight. But, seeing that these laments avail not, a man should speak of that which he can hope to accomplish. In the halls of the warrior Oeneus is there a maiden among his daughters like in form to thee? Fain were I to make her my queenly bride.’
And to him spake the spirit of Meleager steadfast in war: ‘I left Deianeira at home, in the fresh bloom of youth,
a stranger still to golden Aphrodite the enchantress.’
White-armed Calliope, stay thy well-wrought chariot there ; and now sing Zeus, son of Cronus, Olympian ruler of the gods,— and Alpheus, of untiring stream, with mighty Pelops, and Pisa, where the famed Pherenicus prevailed by his speed in the race, ere he returned to the embattled walls of Syracuse, bringing Hieron the leaf of good fortune.
We must give praise, for truth’s sake, and thrust envy away from us with might and main, if any man should prosper.
Thus spake the Boeotian, Hesiod, servant of the sweet Muses: ‘Whomsoever the immortals honour, the good report
to send Hieron the song that tells forth his fame, without swerving from the path of justice; for by such praise it is that happy fortunes, once firmly planted, flourish: and may Zeus, the supreme father, guard them steadfast in peace.
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