Graces of the golden distaff, may ye grant the charm that wins mortal ears; for the inspired prophet of the violet-eyed Muses is ready to sing Phlius and the verdure-clad domain of Nemean Zeus; where white-armed Hera nourished the deep-voiced lion, slayer of sheep, first of the foes on whom Heracles was to win renown.
There the heroes with red shields,
the flower of the Argives, held the earliest games, in memory of Archemorus, who was slain in his sleep by the huge dragon with fiery eyes, an omen of slaughter to come. Ah, Fate of mighty power! The son of Oicles could not persuade them to return to the streets of the good city. Hope robs men of prudent thoughts,— she who then sent Adrastus son of Talaüs
to Thebes, as patron of the exile Polyneices.
Illustrious are the mortals who, from those famous contests at Nemea, crown golden hair with the triennial wreath. To Automedes the god has now given it for his victory.
For he shone among his rivals in the pentathlon as the brilliant moon of the mid-month night makes the rays of the stars seem pale beside her own. Even thus, amidst the vast concourse of the Greeks, showed he his wondrous form, as he threw the round quoit, and roused the shouts of the people when he sped the branch of the dark-leaved elder-tree from his hand to the high heaven,
or put forth his flashing swiftness of movement in the wrestling-match at the end. Such was the mighty spirit and strength with which he brought stalwart forms to earth, ere he returned to the Asopus with dark-eddying tide; that river whose fame has gone out into all lands, even to the uttermost regions of the Nile.
Yea, the maidens who dwell by the fair-flowing stream of Thermodon, the skilled spear-women, daughters of horse-urging Ares, have tasted the valour of thy descendants, O thrice-glorious lord of streams: Troy also has known it, city of lofty gates.
The vast fame of thy children goes forth on a wide path in every land,—those bright-girdled daughters whom the gods
established, with happy fortunes, as ancestral heroines of cities which should defy the spoiler.
Who does not know the well-built town of dark-haired Thebe ? Or Aegina of glorious name, who in wedlock with mighty Zeus bore the hero (Aeacus)? … fair-robed Cleone, and Peirene with diadem on her brows, and all those other gracious daughters of the ancient river-god, lord of sounding waters, who became the illustrious brides of gods.
[ Verses 66—81, as partially restored. Now is the ancient city of Asopus filled with revelry for victory, and with the blended strains of flutes and lyres....It is meet to hymn first the majesty of great Zeus and Hera;
then also to praise Hebe, daughter of mighty Zeus, maiden divinely fair, with violet locks,—and the Mother of the pitiless Loves.......
Automedes, we have brought thee the song of the island Muse, which shall remain for thee, in thy life and after thy death, for endless years, to tell all generations of thy victory at Nemea. ]
A goodly deed that has won the strains of a true poet is laid up on high with the gods. When mortal lips give honest praise, there is a glory that survives death in song, the joy of the [glorious] Muses.
[In verses 88—104 the general sense is fairly clear: the details are partly conjectural.] There are many paths for the excellences of men: but it is the counsel of the gods that decides what is veiled in the gloom of night. [The weaker man and the stronger are alike led on their way by the doom of Zeus the thunderer. Who is to put forth high deeds, and who is to fail, is a secret, till they come to the trial;] and to few mortals have the Fates granted the gift of conjecturing the future.
To you (of Phlius), for the sake of Demeter and of Dionysus, the son of Cronus has granted to dwell in a god-honoured city, unravaged and prosperous. When a man wins a meed of honour from golden-sceptred Zeus, let all give praise:—attend ye with festal songs on the son of Timoxenus, for his victory in the pentathlon.
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