I pray that I may find favour with the hospitable sons of Tyndareüs and with fair-haired Helen, while I honour the famous Acragas, by duly ordering my song in praise of Thérén’s victory at Olympia, as the choicest guerdon for those steeds with unwearied feet. Even so, I ween, hath the Muse stood beside me, when I found out a fashion that is still bright and new, by fitting to the Dorian measure the voice of festive revellers. For the crowns that are about my hair prompt me to pay this sacred debt, that so, in honour of the son of Aenésidamus, I may duly blend the varied melody of the lyre, and the air played on the flutes, with the setting of the verses, while Pisa biddeth me raise my voice,—Pisa, whence heaven-- sent strains of song are wafted over the world, in honour of any man, for whom the strict Aetolian umpire, in accordance with the olden ordinances of
Heracles, flingeth o’er his brow and on his hair the grey-hued adornment of the olive-spray ; that olive-spray, which, once upon a time, was brought by the son of Amphitryon from the shady springs of Ister, to be the fairest memorial of the Olympic contests, after he had gotten it by persuading the servants of Apollo, the people of the Hyperboreans. With loyal heart was he entreating, for the hospitable precinct of Zeus, the gift of a tree, whose shade should be for all men, and whose leaves should be a crown of prowess. For already had the altars been consecrated in his father’s honour, and in the midst of the month the Moon with her car of gold had at eventide kindled before him the full orb of her light, and he had ordained on the hallowed banks of the Alpheüs the impartial award of the great games, together with the quadrennial festival. But that plot of ground, sacred to Pelops, was not, as yet, flourishing with trees in its valleys below the hill of Cronus. He deemed that his garden, being bare of such trees, lay beneath the power of the keen rays of the sun. Then it was that his spirit prompted him to journey to the land of the Ister, where he had [. . .] the winding dells of Arcadia, what time, at the
behest of Eurystheus, the fate that bound the sire and son urged him on the quest of the doe with the golden horns, which (the Pleiad) Taygeté had inscribed with the name of Artemis, when she devoted it to the goddess in her own stead. On his quest of that doe had he seen the far-off land beyond the cold blast of Boreas; and there had he stood and marvelled at the trees, and had been seized with sweet desire for them, even to plant them along the bounds of the race-ground with its courses twelve. And now he cometh to this our festival with the twin sons divine of deep-zoned Leda. For Heracles, when he passed unto Olympus, assigned to them the ordering of the wondrous contest waged by men, the contest in prowess and in the driving of swift chariots. In any wise, my spirit strangely prompteth me to say that it is by the gift of those noble horsemen, the sons of Tyndareüs, that glory hath come unto the Emmenidae and to Thérén, because that house, beyond all mortal men, draweth near to them with many more tables set for feasting, in pious spirit keeping the rites that to the Blest are due. But, even as water is most excellent, while gold is the most adorable of possessions, so now doth
Thérén by his deeds of prowess come unto the utmost verge, by his own true merit reaching even as far as the pillars of Heracles. All beyond that bourne cannot be approached either by the wise or by the unwise. I shall not pursue it ; else may I be deemed a fool.
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