Listen! for, in very deed, are we once more ploughing the field of bright-eyed Aphrodité or of the Graces, as we draw nigh unto the shrine that is the centre of the loudly echoing Earth; where, for the prosperous Emmenidae and for Acragas between the rivers, and chiefly for Xenocrates, there hath been built and prepared in Apollo's golden glen a Pythian victor’s treasure-house of song, which neither wintry rain with its invading onset, the pitiless host launched from deep-thundering clouds, nor the storm-wind with its swirl of shingle, shall buffet and sweep away into the recesses of the sea. But the porch, in its pure brightness, shall proclaim a famous victory with the chariot, celebrated by the lips of mortals, and shared by thy father, Thrasybilus, and by his race, that was won in the dells of Crisa. ’Tis thou, then, that settest him
ever at thy right hand, and upholdest the charge, even the precepts which, as the story telléeth, the son of Philyra erst enjoined on the stalwart son of Péleus, when parted from his parents:—First of all the gods to adore the son of Cronus, the loud-voiced lord of the lightnings and the thunders, and of such reverence never to deprive his parents during their allotted life. Even aforetime was this spirit cherished by that man of might, Antilochus, who died for his father's sake, by awaiting the onslaught of Memnon, the leader of the Ethiopians. For Nestor’s chariot was entangled by his horse that had been stricken by the arrows of Paris, while Memnon was plying his sturdy spear, and the distracted soul of the aged hero of ‘Messéné called aloud for his son; and his cry fell not to the ground, but, waiting there, the god-like son bought with his own life the rescue of his father, and, by doing this wondrous deed, was deemed by those of a younger generation to have proved himself, among men of old, supreme in filial devotion. These things are of the past; but, in the present time, Thrasybilus hath come nearest to the standard of duty to one’s father, while he also vieth with his
father’s brother! in all manner of splendour ; but with wisdom tendeth he his wealth, not plucking the pleasures of youth with injustice or violence, but culling poesy in the quiet haunts of the Pierides; and with a spirit that hath found thy favour, O earth-shaking Poseidon, he clingeth to the chariot-contests first found by thee. Sweet also is his temper, and, as a boon companion, he outvieth the crannied work of the honey-bee.
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