PYTHIANS

PYTHIAN 1

For Hieron of Aetna, winner of the chariot race

Golden lyre, possession and colleague of Apollo and the violet-haired Muses;
to you the dancer’s step listens as it begins the bright celebration,
and the singers obey your directions when with quivering strings
you strike up the preludes which lead to the dance.
You stifle even the warlike thunderbolt of ever-flowing fire;
and the eagle, king of birds, sleeps on the sceptre of Zeus,
folding his swift wings to his sides,
because you have poured a dark cloud over his bent head,
a sweet shutter for his eyelids;
in sleep he flexes his supple back, spellbound by your throbbing music.	10
And violent Ares lays aside his cruelly pointed spear
and warms his heart in sleep,
for your shafts charm even the hearts of gods,
through the skill of Leto’s son*and the Muses with their deep-folded robes.
But creatures unloved by Zeus shudder when they hear the Pierians’*voice,
whether on earth or in the relentless sea;
and the one who lies in dreadful Tartarus, hundred-headed Typhos,*
enemy of the gods, nurtured once by the far-famed cave of Cilicia,
but now sea-fronting cliffs over Cumae press down on his shaggy breast,
and the pillar of snow-covered Aetna, rearing to heaven,
year-long nurse of freezing snow, pins him down.	20
From its depths spew sacred founts of fire that cannot be approached;
by day rivers pour forth lurid streaks of smoke,
and by night a crimson rolling flame sweeps down rocks,
which crash into the sea’s broad expanse.
That monster spouts forth terrifying torrents of Hephaestus’ fire—
a prodigious portent to behold, and a wonder for visitors to hear.
Such a thing is imprisoned between Aetna’s dark-wooded peaks and its plain,
and the bed he lies on gouges and galls the whole length of his back.
Grant, O Zeus, grant that I may please you:
watcher over this mountain, forehead of a fertile land,	30
whose neighbour namesake city*was made glorious by its famous founder
when at Pytho’s racecourse the herald proclaimed it,
telling of Hieron’s splendid victory in the chariot race.
For men who sail in ships the first sign of favour as they embark
is the rising of a following wind, because then there is a fair chance
that they will enjoy a safe return too at the end of their voyage.
And this saying, on the back of such success, brings hope
that the city will be famed in future for crowns won with horses,
and renowned for its festivals of sweet music.
Phoebus,*lord of Lycia and ruler of Delos,
lover of Castalia’s spring at Parnassus,
be willing to store my wish in your heart
and make this a land of brave men.	40
All mortal achievement stems from the gods’ designs:
thus are born skilled poets and men of strong hands and great eloquence.
Eager to praise that famous man,*I hope I do not, as one might say,
throw the bronze-tipped javelin I spin with my hand outside the field of play,
but surpass my competitors by the length of my cast.
May his whole life continue to steer happiness and the gift of wealth
towards him, bringing him forgetfulness of past hardship.
Time will surely remind him of the battles*
where he stood his ground with unflinching spirit,
when with the gods’ help he and his family won honour
such as no Hellene has ever reaped—a lordly crown of riches.	50
And now indeed he went to war like Philoctetes,
compelling even a proud man to fawn on him as a friend.
Men say that godlike heroes came to fetch him, Poeas’ archer son,
from Lemnos, exhausted by his wound; and so
he sacked Priam’s city and brought the Danaans’ labours to an end.
He walked with a sick body, but this was how it was fated.
Just so may the god preserve Hieron in time to come,
giving him the opportunity to grasp what he desires.
And, Muse, let me persuade you to sing too in Deinomenes’*house
of the reward for the four-horsed chariot, for his father’s victory is no alien joy.
Come, let us devise a welcome song for Aetna’s king,	60
for whom Hieron founded that city with god-built freedom,
according to the ordinances of Hyllus’ rule;*
for the descendants of Pamphylus, and indeed of Heracles’ sons,
who live under the heights of Taygetus,
desire as Dorians always to keep to the statutes of Aegimius.
They came down from Pindus and occupied Amyclae in prosperity,
and were renowned neighbours to the Tyndarids of the white horses,
and the fame of their spears increased.

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