While I laud a house, thrice victor at Olympia, gentle to her own citizens, and kindly to strangers, I shall take knowledge of prosperous Corinth, portal of Isthmian Poseidon, glorious with her noble youths. Within her walls dwelleth Law, and her sisters, the firm-set foundation of cities, even Justice and Peace that is fostered beside her, those guardians of wealth for man, the golden daughters of Themis, who excelleth in counsel; and they are resolute in repelling Insolence, the bold-tongued mother of Surfeit. Fair is the tale I have to tell, and courage that maketh straight for the mark prompteth my tongue to speak ; it is a hard struggle to quell one’s inborn nature. As for you, ye sons of Alétés! full often have the Seasons rich in flowers endued you with the splendour of victory, while, by your highest merit, ye have excelled in the sacred games; full often too have those seasons put into the hearts of men the inventions of the olden time: but all the fame is due to the first finder.
Whence was it that the graces of Dionysus first came to light, with the ox-driving dithyramb?! Aye, and who was it that, amid the harness of horses, invented the restraining bridle, or, on the temples of the gods, planted the twin king of birds?? And there the Muse with her sweet breath, there too the war-god flourisheth with the deadly spears of youthful heroes. Lord supreme of Olympia! that reignest far and wide, O Father Zeus! never, for all time, be thou jealous of our language, but, ruling this people in all security, grant a straight course to the fair breeze of Xenophon’s good fortune, and accept from him the duly ordered triumph-band in honour of his crowns, the band that he bringeth from the plains of Pisa, being victor in the five events, as well as in the footrace. He hath thus attained what no mortal man ever yet attained before. And two wreaths of wild celery crowned him, when he appeared at the Isthmian festival; and Nemea hath shown no unkindly
mood ; and, at the stream of Alpheüs, is stored up the glory won by the swift feet of his father, Thessalus. At Pytho, he hath the fame of the single and the double foot-race, won within the circuit of the self-same sun; and, in the same month, at rocky Athens did one swift day fling o’er his hair three fairest crowns of victory, and seven times was he victorious at the festival of Athéna Hellotis. In Poseidon’s games betwixt the seas, too long would be the songs which shall attain to all the victories won by Terpsias and Eritimus, with their father Ptoeédérus!; and, as for all your prowess at Delphi, and in the Lion’s haunts, I am ready to contend with many as to the number of your prizes ; for, in truth, I could not have the skill to tell the number of the pebbles of the sea. Yet measure due is meet in all things, and the fitting moment is the best aim of knowledge; but I, in the fleet of the common joy, setting forth on a course of my own, and telling of the craft and the warrior-worth of the men of yore, shall, in the tale of heroic prowess, truly speak of Corinth. I shall tell of Sisyphus, who, like a very god, was most wise in his counsels; and of Médeia, who resolved on her own marriage against her father’s will, and thus saved the ship Argo and her seamen. And, again, of old, in the fight they were deemed to decide the issue of battles on either side, whether they were essaying,
with the dear son of Atreus, to recover Helen, or were steadfastly opposing the attempt. And the Danai trembled before Glaucus, when he came from Lycia, while he boasted before them that in the city of Peiréné lay the rule and the rich inheritance and the hall of his own ancestor ; who verily suffered sorely when he was eager to bind beside the spring Pégasus, the son of the snake-girt Gorgon, until at last the virgin Pallas brought a bridle with a golden band, and the dream became a vision of broad daylight, and she said :— Sleepest thou, son of Aeolus? Come! take this to charm thy steed ; and, sacrificing a white bull, bring it into the presence of thy grandsire, the tamer of horses.”! Such were the words which the queen of the dark aegis seemed to say to him as he slumbered in the darkness ; and at once he leapt to his feet, and seizing the wondrous thing that lay beside him, he gladly went and found Polyidus, the seer of that land, and told the son of Coeranus the whole story,—how that, at the bidding of the seer, he had laid him down to rest for the night on the altar of the goddess, and how the very daughter of Zeus who hurleth the thunderbolt had given him that golden tamer of the horse’s temper. And the seer bade him with all speed do the bidding of the dream; and, when he sacrificed the strong-footed
beast to the Lord of the earth, straightway to dedicate an altar to Athéné, the goddess of horses. Now the power of the gods maketh that which one would vow to be impossible and beyond all hope, a light achievement. Verily, even so the strong Bellerophon, after all his eager striving, caught the winged steed, solely by stretching athwart his jaws that gentle spell; and, mounting on his back, at once he played the weapon-play in his brazen armour ; and, riding on that steed, he assailed from the lonely bosom of the chill air that army of womankind, the archer host of Amazons; and even slew the fire-breathing Chimaera, and the Solymi. I shall pass in silence over his doom ; but Pegasus hath found his shelter in the olden stalls of Zeus in Olympus. But I, while casting my javelins straight with a whirl must not miss the mark in plying my many darts with the might of my hands. For gladly have I come, as a champion of the Muses enthroned in splendour, and also of the race of Oligaethus. As to their victories at the Isthmus and at Nemea, with a few words shall I make all of them manifest ; and,
as a true witness under solemn oath, the sweet-tongued voice of a goodly herald, heard full sixty times at both places, will ratify my words. As for the victories won by them at Olympia, they have, meseems, been already mentioned, and, of those in the future, I could tell clearly in the days to come. For the present I cherish hope, howbeit the issue is in God’s hand ; but, if the good fortune of the house have free course, we shall leave this to Zeus and Enyalius to accomplish. And the prizes won beneath the brow of Parnassus, six in number, and, all in Argos, and in Thebes, and all that shall be witnessed by the royal altar of the Lycaean mount that ruleth over the Arcadians, and by Pellana, and Sicyon, and Megara, and the fair-walled precinct of the sons of Aeacus, and Eleusis, and fertile Marathon, and the cities beauteous in wealth beneath the lofty crest of Etna, and Euboea,—aye, even throughout all Hellas, you may search and find them too many for the eye to view. Get thee up and swim away with nimble feet! and do thou, O Zeus, the giver of perfection, grant reverence and the sweet good-fortune of a happy lot.
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