No More Learning

Nor did the Kronian,
Brandishing his lightning, impel to march
From home insane, but to abstain from the way.
But to apparent destruction
The host made haste to go, with brazen arms
And horse equipments, and on the banks
Of Ismenus, defending sweet return,
Their white-flowered bodies fattened fire.
For seven pyres devoured young-limbed
Men. But to Amphiaraus
Zeus rent the deep-bosomed earth
With his mighty thunderbolt,
And buried him with his horses,
Ere, being struck in the back
By the spear of Periclymenus, his warlike
Spirit was disgraced.
For in daemonic fears
Flee even the sons of gods.


CASTOR AND POLLUX

NEMEA X, 153-171

Pollux, son of Zeus, shared his immortality with his brother Castor,
son of Tyndarus, and while one was in heaven, the other remained in
the infernal regions, and they alternately lived and died every day,
or, as some say, every six months. While Castor lies mortally wounded
by Idas, Pollux prays to Zeus, either to restore his brother to life,
or permit him to die with him, to which the god answers,--

Nevertheless, I give thee
Thy choice of these: if, indeed, fleeing
Death and odious age,
You wish to dwell on Olympus,
With Athene and black-speared Mars,
Thou hast this lot;
But if thou thinkest to fight
For thy brother, and share
All things with him,
Half the time thou mayest breathe, being beneath the earth,
And half in the golden halls of heaven.
The god thus having spoken, he did not
Entertain a double wish in his mind.
And he released first the eye, and then the voice,
Of brazen-mitred Castor.


TOIL

ISTHMIA I, 65-71

One reward of labors is sweet to one man, one to another,--
To the shepherd, and the plower, and the bird-catcher,
And whom the sea nourishes.
But every one is tasked to ward off
Grievous famine from the stomach.


THE VENALITY OF THE MUSE

ISTHMIA II, 9-18

Then the Muse was not
Fond of gain, nor a laboring woman;
Nor were the sweet-sounding,
Soothing strains
Of Terpsichore sold,
With silvered front.
But now she directs to observe the saying
Of the Argive, coming very near the truth,
Who cried, "Money, money, man,"
Being bereft of property and friends.


HERCULES' PRAYER CONCERNING AJAX, SON OF TELAMON

ISTHMIA VI, 62-73

"If ever, O Father Zeus, thou hast heard
My supplication with willing mind,
Now I beseech thee, with prophetic
Prayer, grant a bold son from Eriboea
To this man, my fated guest;
Rugged in body
As the hide of this wild beast
Which now surrounds me, which, first of all
My contests, I slew once in Nemea; and let his mind agree. "
To him thus having spoken, Heaven sent
A great eagle, king of birds,
And sweet joy thrilled him inwardly.
THE FREEDOM OF GREECE

First at Artemisium
The children of the Athenians laid the shining
Foundation of freedom,
And at Salamis and Mycale,
And in Plataea, making it firm
As adamant.


FROM STRABO[7]

APOLLO

Having risen he went
Over land and sea,
And stood over the vast summits of mountains,
And threaded the recesses, penetrating to the foundations of
the groves.


FROM PLUTARCH

Heaven being willing, even on an osier thou mayest sail.
[Thus rhymed by the old translator of Plutarch:

"Were it the will of heaven, an osier bough
Were vessel safe enough the seas to plough. "]


FROM SEXTUS EMPIRICUS

Honors and crowns of the tempest-footed
Horses delight one;
Others live in golden chambers;
And some even are pleased traversing securely
The swelling of the sea in a swift ship.


FROM STOBAEUS

This I will say to thee:
The lot of fair and pleasant things
It behooves to show in public to all the people;
But if any adverse calamity sent from heaven befall
Men, this it becomes to bury in darkness.

* * * * *

Pindar said of the physiologists, that they "plucked the unripe fruit
of wisdom. "

* * * * *

Pindar said that "hopes were the dreams of those awake. "


FROM CLEMENS OF ALEXANDRIA

To Heaven it is possible from black
Night to make arise unspotted light,
And with cloud-blackening darkness to obscure
The pure splendor of day.

First, indeed, the Fates brought the wise-counseling
Uranian Themis, with golden horses,
By the fountains of Ocean to the awful ascent
Of Olympus, along the shining way,
To be the first spouse of Zeus the Deliverer.
And she bore the golden-filleted, fair-wristed
Hours, preservers of good things.

Equally tremble before God
And a man dear to God.


FROM AELIUS ARISTIDES

Pindar used such exaggerations [in praise of poetry] as to say that
even the gods themselves, when at his marriage Zeus asked if they
wanted anything, "asked him to make certain gods for them who should
celebrate these great works and all his creation with speech and
song. "

FOOTNOTE:

[7] [This and the following are fragments of Pindar found in ancient
authors. ]




POEMS


NATURE

O Nature! I do not aspire
To be the highest in thy quire,--
To be a meteor in the sky,
Or comet that may range on high;
Only a zephyr that may blow
Among the reeds by the river low;
Give me thy most privy place
Where to run my airy race.