Book 6

6. As a messenger, Fame with many a wandering step glides through the Danaan cities, that the sons of Inachus were sanctioning solemn rites at a new tomb, and games besides, by which Martial valour might prepare to sweat beforehand for the wars and to kindle itself. A Greek glory of old custom: first through the Pisaean fields pious Alcides contended for this honour to Pelops and wiped his dusty hair with the wild olive: next is celebrated, freed from the viperous coil, Phocis, the boyish war of Apollo's quiver; then, kept round the sad altars of Palaemon, the black superstition, as often as spirited Leucothea resumes her groans and to the friendly shores comes in festal storm: with lamentation either Isthmus cries aloud, Echionian Thebes answer back in tears. And now the chief of kings, by whose nurslings Argos is joined to heaven, and whose mighty names the Aonian land and Tyrian mothers sigh over, run together and move their naked strength to contests: as biremes, about to dare first the unknown across the deep, whether they assail the Tyrrhenian winter or the Aegean pools, first on a calm lake test the arms and the rudder and the light oars, and learn the very perils; but when the company is practised, then, confident, they burst into the sea further on, and seek not with their eyes the lands snatched away.

Bright Tithonia had borne her toil-bringing chariot into the sky and the wakeful reins of the pale goddess, and both Night and Sleep were fleeing with the empty horn; now with wailing the roads, now with groaning the palace lows in grief, the pathless groves break the sounds received from afar and multiply them; the father himself sits, stripped of the honoured binding of his fillets, and his squalid face sprinkled, and his beard unkempt with funereal dust, harsher in turn, and going beyond the lamentings of men, by her example the bereaved mother urges the handmaids and exhorts them, willing, and burns to break forth over the mangled remains of her son, and as often as she is torn away she is brought back, and the father himself restrains her. Soon, when the Inachian kings with grieving and worthy faces entered the thresholds, as though it were then a new disaster and the wounded infant with his first wound or the deadly serpent were bursting into the hall, so, one crash from another, though wearied, their breasts redouble, and at the renewed cry the doors resound, kindled afresh; the Pelasgians felt the reproach and excuse the charge with welling tears.

He himself, as often as, the tumult cut short, the stunned house fell silent, Adrastus consoles the father of his own accord with speeches, now recounting the fates and the hard affairs of men and the inexorable measure, now another offspring and pledges that with a favourable power would endure; not yet was there a limit to his words, and the laments returned. He too hears the friendly addresses no more softly than the raging of the fierce Ionian heeds the vows of men shouting on the sea, or the thin clouds the wandering lightnings.

Meanwhile of sad branches and tender cypress a couch condemned to the flame and a boy's bier is woven: at the bottom the straw is green with rustic dress; the next, more elaborate, is a space of grassy garlands and a heap pictured with flowers that must die; the third tier rises with a pile of Arabian wares, embracing the riches of the East and the hoary frankincense in clods and cinnamon enduring from ancient Belus. The top crackles with gold, and with Tyrian purple is lifted up the soft canopy; smooth gems on every side irradiate it, in the midst Linus inwoven with acanthus and the deadly hounds: a work to be marvelled at always, the mother hated it and turned her eyes away from the omen. Arms too and the spoils of his ancient ancestors she sets around, a glory mingled with woes, the pomp of an afflicted court, as though a great burden were borne to the funeral and immense limbs to the pyre; but yet vain and barren fame delights the grieving, and a little one's shade grows greater by the funeral, thence comes vast honour to the tears and a pitiable pleasure, and gifts heavier than his years are borne to the ashes— for to him too his father, hasty of his vow, had dedicated quivers and shorter weapons and harmless arrows; already then, too, he was feeding for his name horses approved from the known stock of the stable—and sounding belts and arms that would await greater arms. Greedy hopes! What garments, credulous, did she not in his name urge with zeal, and the purple marks of royal dress and the lesser sceptre? All these in the black fires the parent fiercely condemns, and bears his very own gear, if by losses he might glut his maddened grief.

Elsewhere the army, knowing by the warnings of the augur, labours to heap a pyre to the airy heaven with trunks and the ruin of the groves, a mountain's work, that it might burn the black crimes of the slain serpent and the atonements of the ill-omened war; for these the toil is to fell Nemea and the shady vale and to hurl it to the ground and to lay open the groves to Phoebus. Straightway is laid low, by the iron, of its old leaves, an uncut forest, than which no richer in ample shade had lifted its head above the stars, raised among the Argive glades and the Lycaean: it stands sacred by the power of its old age, nor is it said to have surpassed the aged grandsires of men alone, but, surviving, to have changed the Nymphs also and the herds of the Fauns; the pitiable destruction was upon the grove: the wild beasts fled, and from their warm nests the birds leap away—fear urges them—; the lofty beech falls, and the Chaonian grove and the cypress unharmed by winter, the pitch-pines sink down, food for the final flames, and the mountain-ash and ilex beams and the yew, to be feared for its sap, and the ash about to drink the unspeakable gore of war, and the oak not to be stormed by decay. Hence the bold fir and the pine with its fragrant wound is split, they lean their unshorn tops to the earth, the alder, friend of the seas, and the elm not inhospitable to vines. The earth gives a groan: not so is overthrown Ismara borne, when Boreas lifts his head from his broken cave, nor more swiftly, the south wind ranging, did the nightly flame accomplish a grove; weeping, they leave the beloved leisure of their haunts, hoary Pales and Silvanus, arbiter of the shade, and the demigod herd; the wood groans with them as they migrate, nor do the Nymphs, embracing them, let go the oaks. As when, the citadels possessed, the leader gives them to be plundered by the greedy victors, the signal scarce heard, and you would not find the city; they lead and lay low and drive off and bear away, uncontrolled; lesser was that crash with which they waged the wars.

And now with an equal heap an equal toil had raised these two altars, one to the sad shades, the other to the gods above, when the signal of mourning, on a curved horn, the heavy flute sounds, wont to lead forth the tender shades by the sad law of the Phrygians. They used to say Pelops had shown the funeral rite and the song useful to the lesser shades, by which Niobe, consumed by the twin quivers, squalid, had brought down to Sipylus twice-six urns.

The foremost of the Greeks bear the offerings and the biers that must burn, and each man, by inscriptions, attests the pious honours of his own race; after a long time rises upon the necks of young men—the leader had chosen from the whole number— the couch itself, with wild outcry; the Lernaean chiefs ringed Lycurgus, a softer throng surrounds the mother, nor does Hypsipyle come up with a thin company; the mindful sons of Inachus carry her, the sons support her bruised arms and yield the mourning to the mother they have found.

There, when first Eurydice had gone forth from the ill-starred household, she breaks out her voice from her bared breast and, with lamentation and long howlings prefaced, begins: 'I did not hope, surrounded by this gathering of Argive mothers, to follow you, my son, nor, distracted, did I imagine in my vows such elements of your years, thinking nothing savage; for in these bounds of life, whence should I, unknowing, fear wars and Thebes for you? To which of the gods was it sweet to commit battles with our blood? Who vowed this crime with arms? But not yet, Cadmus, is your house, no infant of the Tyrian flock is bewailed, the first-fruits of tears and of a bitter slaughter before the trumpets and the iron I myself bore, while in idle care I trust the faithful bosom of the nurse and commit the breasts to her, why should I not? She told of a parent saved by her cunning and of guiltless hands; lo! how funereal we may think it to have forsworn the rite, and, of all the Lemnian kindred Furies, she alone untouched, this is she—and you believe she dared!— this one, mighty in piety, cast away in the lonely fields not a king or a master, but, impious, alien offspring, this only, and left him on the path of the infamous wood, whom not the fierce serpent—for what need was there of this, ah me, of so great a mass of death?—only a more violent breath of heaven and leaves driven by the south wind and vain fear could deprive of life, nor do I, bereaved, crave to assail you with grief; fixed and unmoved to the mother remained the wickedness of this nurse; and yet you were more coaxing to her, my son, knowing and hearing her alone when she called, and ignorant of me: no joys from you to your mother, she heard your complaints and your tearful, impious laughter, and plucked the murmurs of your first voice. She was your mother always, while life remained, now I am. But for me, wretched, there is no power even to punish her who so deserves! Why do you bring gifts, leaders, why empty rites to the pyres? Her—the shades demand nothing more— her, I pray, give to the ashes at once and to the parent cut off, I beg, leaders, by these first beginnings of the war for which I bore him; so may the mothers of Ogygia groan equal funerals to me.' She strews her hair and repeats in entreaty: 'Give her up, nor truly call me cruel and greedy for blood: I will fall alike, only let my eyes, glutted with a just wound, be driven into one fire.' Crying out such things, from another quarter Hypsipyle, groaning—for neither does she keep her hair nor her breast— she recognized from afar, and, indignant at the shared grief: 'This at least, O chiefs, and you, O you whose pledge of our bed was thrust away, forbid, take from the last rites the hateful woman. Why does she, funereal, mingle herself with the parent and is herself gazed upon even in our ruins?' So she speaks, and grew dumb of mouth with her laments broken off: not otherwise than a calf cheated of its first milk, whose strength is trembling and whose only blood is from the udder, whether a wild beast or the shepherd has carried it to the harsh altars; now the despoiled mother moves the valley with her complaint, now the rivers, now the herds, and questions the empty fields; then it irks her to go home, and last she goes out from the sad plain, unfed, and turns away from the herbs set before her.

But the father casts upon the pyres the glory of his sceptre and the adornments of the Thunderer, and his hair poured over back and breast he lessens with the iron, and with the cut locks veils the thin face of the lying boy, and mingling such words with pious weeping: 'On another condition, faithless one, Jupiter, this hair, bound by my vow, had I before dedicated to you, if you had granted my son alike to offer his green cheeks at your temples; but the priest reckoned not aright, and my prayers are condemned: let that shade bear these, which is more worthy.' Now, the torch set under, the fire on the first leaves cries out; the labour is to keep off the maddened parents.

The Danaans, as bidden, stand and with arms held out from afar bar the gaze from the accursed sight. The flames are enriched; never richer there was the ash before: the gems crackle, and the silver immensely melts, and from the painted garments the gold sweats out; nor less do the timbers grow fat with Assyrian juices, and the burning honey hisses with pale saffron, and bowls foaming with wine are poured out, and of dark blood and the most welcome cups of plundered milk. Then seven squadrons in number—a hundred horsemen everywhere rise—the Greek-born kings themselves lead with their insignia reversed, and purify after the custom in a leftward circle the pyre, and bow down the standing flames with dust. Three times they drove their curving wheels round, and the weapons dashed against weapons sound, four times they struck a dreadful crash with their arms, four times the arms of the handmaids gave a soft lamentation, The one altar receives the half-living flocks and the herds foaming with fire; here the seer, to abolish grief and the omen of the new funeral, though he feels the omens true, bids it: with a rightward circle and quivering spears this way they return, and each casts an offering snatched from his own arms, whether it pleases him to plunge bridles or belts in the flames or a javelin or the shadow of his helmet's top. It was the end, and now weary Mulciber went into the crumbling ashes; they press upon the flames and lull the pyre to sleep with much water, until, the sun set, the labours were drained dry; scarce did their care yield to the late darkness. Nine times now had the Morning-star dismissed the dewy stars from heaven and as many times had outrun the fires of the Moon, nocturnal with changed horse, nor does he deceive the knowing stars, and is caught, one and the same, in alternate rising; a wonder, that the hands had hastened the work! A mass of stone stands, a vast temple for the ash, and the order of events fashioned in it teaches the misfortunes: here Hypsipyle shows the rivers to the weary Danaans, here the tearful infant crawls, here he lies, the scaly one roughens the farthest rim of the tomb round about; you would expect the bloody hisses from the mouth of the dying one, so the serpent rolls on the marble spear.

And now Fame calls the throng, unarmed, eager to behold the contests; from all the fields and walls they are present, summoned; even those to whom the horror of war is unknown, whom worn-out age at home, whom earliest age had left behind, gather: not on the Ephyrean shore ever did so great bands roar, nor in the circus of Oenomaus.

Beset by the curving hills and a green crown, a valley sits in the embrace of the groves; round about hairy ridges stand, and a rampart set against them with twin bosses forbids the plain to go out, which, level in a long stretch, the grassy brows and the soft slopes, sinuous with living turf, increase into ridges with no sudden inclines. There, packed close, now the fields red with the sun, the warrior company sat down; there, their bodies mingled, to measure the number and the faces and the bearing of their own is sweet to the men, and the confidence of so great a war pleases them. A hundred black bulls there, the strength of the herd, they drag with slow bulk; the same in number and colour are the dams, and the heifers not yet with crescent horn on the brow.

Then the ancient line of their great-hearted ancestors is found, brought to life in the likeness of their faces in wondrous figures. First the Tirynthian, squeezing the panting lion with the hard pressure of his breast, breaks it upon its own bones, not fearless they—although both in the bronze and as their own glory the sons of Inachus see it—; his father in a joined row, leaning on the left upon the rampart of the reedy bank, is seen, Inachus indulging his out-poured urn. Io behind, now bent down and a grief to her parent, watches Argus, starred with eyes that never set. But her, made better, Jupiter had raised in the Pharian fields, and Aurora, a guest, even then was worshipping her. Then father Tantalus, not he who hangs over the cheating waters or snatches at the barren air of the retreating wood, but pious and borne as a guest of the great Thunderer. Elsewhere as victor Pelops stretches the Neptunian reins on his car, and Myrtilus, the charioteer, grasps the swimming wheels and is left now, now behind, by the swift axle. And heavy Acrisius and the dreadful aspect of Coroebus and Danae, blamed for her bosom, and, by the discovered stream, sad Amymone, and Alcmena is proud of her little Hercules, her hair ringed by the three-shaped moon. The Belidae brothers join discordant right hands in a hostile covenant; but with a gentler face stands Aegyptus, manifest to recognize on the feigning face of Danaus the marks of evil peace and of the night to come. A thousand shapes thereafter; at last the satiated pleasure and valour call the surpassing men to their prizes.

The first sweat is for the horses; speak, Phoebus, the famed names of those who guide them, speak the steeds themselves; for never a nobler line of swift-footed ones was matched, as though in headlong course crowded birds clashed, or on one shore Aeolus set contests for the mad winds.

Before all is led Arion, manifest by the fire of his ruddy mane. Neptune is the horse's sire, if the sure fame of old times be true; first to have hurt his tender mouth with the bit and to have tamed him in the shore's dust he is said, sparing the lash; for his ardour for going was insatiate and his inconstancy equal to the wintry sea. Often through the Ionian and Libyan seas to go on swimming horses, joined together, and to every shore he had been wont to carry his sea-blue sire; the clouds, left behind, were amazed, and the East winds and South, contending, follow. Nor a lesser war on the lands, as he waged the Eurysthean toils, had he led the son of Amphitryon through a deep furrow in the grass, to him too fierce and unteachable while tender, soon, by the gift of the gods, deemed worthy of king Adrastus's commands, he had grown much gentler in his middle years. Then the ruler indulges his son-in-law Polynices to drive him, warning him much: where the horse's fervour, by what art he is wont to be soothed; not a savage hand, not loose impulse with the reins; 'urge others,' he says, 'with goads and threats; he will go, you yourself will wish it less.' So, the fiery reins when the Sun gave and set his son on the swift axle, weeping, he taught the rejoicing boy the treacherous stars and the zones unwilling to be worn, and the temperate middle of the poles: pious indeed he was, and with cautious fear, but the harsh Parcae forbade the youth to learn.

Lofty Amphiaraus drives the Oebalian horses, the next hope of the palm; your stock, Cyllarus, slipped away by stealth, while, turned away to the mouths of the Scythian Pontus, Castor exchanges the Amyclaean reins for the oar. He himself snowy in his garb, the snowy yoke-horses give their necks, both his helmet and his fillet of one colour with the white crests. Moreover, happy Admetus from the Thessalian shores scarce restrains the barren mares; they say they are of Centaur seed (I believe it, so greatly do they scorn their sex, and all their love is brought into strength); night and day they counterfeit, white with black spots between: so great is each colour, nor would you believe them degenerate from that herd which marvelled at the hissing of the Castalian reed, glad, and at the sound of Apollo disdained to feed. Lo, the young sons of Iason too, the new glory of their mother Hypsipyle, came under the yoke, by which each was carried, Thoas, the kindred name from his grandsire, and named by an omen Euneos, from Argo. To the twins all things the same: faces, cars, horses, garments, and an equal concord in their vows, they desire to conquer or only to be left behind by a brother. Chromis goes and Hippodamus, the one sprung from great Hercules, the other from Oenomaus: you would doubt which pressed the wild reins more. The one has the herd of Getic Diomedes, but the other has the yoke of his Pisaean father, both cars stained with cruel spoils and dire blood. As turning-posts there were on this side oaks of bare wood, once stripped of all their leaves, on that a stony boss, an arbiter to the husbandmen; the goal lies between the two, as great a space as you might cross four times with a javelin, three with a reed.

Meanwhile Apollo, soothing with song the noble assembly of the Muses and his hand thrust into the lyre, from the highest air of Parnassus was watching the lands; the beginnings of the gods—for often Jove and Phlegra and the work of his own serpent and the honours of his brothers, pious, he had sung— then he opens, what breath drives the thunderbolt, what leads the stars, whence is the soul to the rivers, what the food for the winds, from what fountain the immense sea lives, what path of the sun hastens the night, what prolongs it, whether the earth, vast, floats or is in the middle and again girt by a hidden world. It was the end, he postpones the sisters, eager to hear, and while he binds the lyre with laurel and the illustrious woven of the crown and ungirds his breast of the painted border, not far off, recalled by the outcry, the Herculean Nemea he beholds, and there the vast image of the contest of four-horsed cars. He knows them all, and by chance in a near field Admetus and Amphiaraus had taken their stand. Then to himself: 'What god committed these two, the most faithful names of Phoebus, to perils—these kings? Both pious and dear both; I myself could not say the former. When I served on the Peliac fields— so the commands of Jove and the black Sisters willed— he gave incense to his servant, nor dared to feel me less than himself; but this one is the comrade of my tripods and the pious nursling of the heavenly art. Yet that one is the worthier by his deserts, but of this one the last threads are now on the distaff; an order of old age is granted to Admetus and a late death; for you no joys remain, for Thebes is near and the dark abyss. You know it, wretched one, and our birds long ago foretold it.' He spoke, and his face, almost inviolable, stained with weeping, at once comes to Nemea, by a leap through the radiant air, swifter than his ancestral fire and his own arrows; he himself once was on the lands; in the sky his traces endure, and bright through the west winds the path still gleams.

And now, the lots cast, Prothous had shaken them in his brazen helmet, and now there is a place for each and an order of the barrier. The men, ample glories of the lands, glories equal the yoke-beasts, both a race of the gods, stand shut in on one margin, and hope and bold fear are one, and pale confidence. Nothing is fixed in their hearts: they strive to go out and dread it, a spirited chill rushes together into their topmost limbs. The same ardour as in the masters is in the horses; their eyes rise with fire, their mouths sound with the bit, and with foam and blood the iron is worn; the posts, struck, cannot withstand them, and the bars, and the breath of their pent-up anger smokes through. So wretched a thing it is to stand, that a thousand steps perish before the start, and the heavy hoof strikes the absent plain; the faithful stand round, and unfasten the harness and the twisted manes and steady their spirits and point out many things. Opposite, the Tyrrhenian murmur sounded, and all leaped from their place. What canvas on the sea so great, what weapons in war fly so, what clouds in the sky? Less is the rush of the wintry rivers, less of fire, more slowly the stars fall, more slowly the rains gather, more slowly from the topmost mountain run down the streams.

The Pelasgians saw them sent forth and knew them. And now snatched from sight, now mingled in the blind dust, they lurk in one cloud, and in the tumult shadowing their faces they scarcely know one another by cry and name. They unrolled the mass, and by the space in which each prevailed are drawn apart: a repeated track destroys the former furrows, now eager they touch the yokes with leaning breast, now with striving knee and pressed reins they bend double. The necks tumid with muscle and maned, the breeze combs back the standing manes, the dry ground drinks the whitening showers, a sound arises of human feet and of thin wheels. No rest for the hand, the air hisses with thick lashes; from the cold North leaps no thicker hail, nor from Olenos do so many showers stream from the horns.

Foreboding Arion had felt that another leader stood at the drawn-in reins, and, guiltless, had shuddered at the dread son of Oedipus; now from there, from the very threshold, discordant and angry at his wonted load, fiercer he burns. The sons of Inachus think him kindled by praise; he flees his charioteer, threatens his charioteer with frenzy, fierce, and looks round for his master over the whole field. Yet before all he follows, and far second Amphiaraus drives, whom Thessalian Admetus equals in going; close by the twins, now Euneos before and now Thoas before, they yield and they conquer, nor ever does ambitious glory dash together the pious brothers. The last division were harsh Chromis and harsh Hippodamus, not rude in art, but held back by the bulk of their horn-footed beasts; first Hippodamus bears the faces of those who follow, bears the groans, and his shoulders are much fired by the breeze. The Phoebean augur hoped, round the short-cuts of the bent turning-post, with reins drawn inward, to have forestalled the way; nor less the Thessalian hero glows with a nearer hope, while, the master not curbing him, Arion scatters into circles and, swerving to the right, strays. Now the son of Oecles was first, and now not third went Admetus, when at last, brought back in a loose circle, the sea-born steed presses both and for a little outstrips them, rejoicing; the crash rises to the stars, and the heaven trembles, and all the seats lay open, the crowd shaken out; but neither does the pale Labdacid govern the reins nor dare the lash: as a master, his method exhausted, rushes upon the floods, upon the rocks, and no longer looks back at the stars and casts away his conquered art to chance.

Again headlong into the straight ways and the byways of the field they slant and stretch their courses, again axle on axle is dashed, and wheel upon spokes; no peace and no faith: wars are waged with the iron more lightly, dreadful wars you would think; such is the frenzy for praise, they tremble and threaten death, and many a hoof is grazed on the cross-running fields, nor now do goads suffice, nor lashes; with voice and names let Admetus give Pholoe and Iris and smoking Thoe their due, the Danaean augur chiding swift Ascheton and Cygnus, deserving his name, Strymon hears and Herculean Chromis, fiery Aethion hears Euneos; Hippodamus provokes slow Cydon, and Thoas asks dappled Podarces to go. Alone the son of Echion, with his wandering car, keeps a sad silence and fears to confess himself with a trembling voice. Scarce begun is the toil for the horses, and already with the fourth dust they enter the field, and now too their limbs, worn with warm sweats, and the burning thirst of the horn-footed ones snatches and casts out the thick vapour, nor now is their impulse whole, and long pantings hang from their flanks. Here uncertain Fortune, long daring to decide who should be first, comes, ruins it: while fervid Thoas presses on to overcome Haemonian Admetus, nor did his brother bring any aid. He would indeed wish to, but Martial Hippodamus first stood in the way and sent his reins between. Soon Chromis holds Hippodamus at the inner turning-post's circle, with Herculean strength and all the might of his father, his axle seized; in vain the yoke-beasts struggle to go away and stretch their bridles and their stiffening necks. As when the tide holds the Sicilian ships and a vast south wind drives them, the swelling sails stand in mid-sea. Then the man himself, the car broken, he hurls down, and Chromis would have gone before; but when the Thracian horses saw Hippodamus lying, that hunger returns, and now, now him trembling they would have parted in their frenzies, had not, the bridles and the snorting beasts themselves, forgetting the palm, the Tirynthian hero wrenched back, and, conquered and applauded, gone away.

But for you long since Phoebus desires the promised honours, Amphiaraus, at last thinking the time fit for his favour, he comes into the dread spaces of the dusty circus, when now at the end of the course, and the highest victory wavers; the snake-haired image of a monster, a face most savage to behold, he moves, whether he fashioned it from Erebus or in the cunning of the moment, certainly arrayed in numberless terror he lifts the horror to the stars; not the doorkeeper of black Lethe could see it fearless, not the Eumenides themselves without deep dread; it would have disturbed, as they went, the horses of the Sun and the yoke of Mars; for when tawny Arion saw it, his manes leaped, and, reared up on his haunches, he stands and lifts high with himself his yoke-fellow and the comrades of the toil on either side; at once the Aonian exile is hurled down, and, rolled long over the back by the bonds, strips himself; far off, free of the reins, is snatched the car; but as he lies in the crumbling earth, the Taenarian car and the Thessalian axle and the Lemnian hero, by a sidelong flight, as much as it was given to avoid, passed him by. At last, sunk in darkness, he lifts his head at the rush of his comrades and raises his sick limbs from the soil, and returns to his father-in-law Adrastus, scarce hoped for.

What place for death, Theban, had not harsh Tisiphone refused it, was there, when you could have dismissed so great a war? Thebe and your brother openly, Argos would bewail you, Nemea you, for you Lerna and suppliant Larissa would lay down their hair; you would be worshipped at a greater tomb than Archemorus's.

Then indeed the son of Oecles, although now the prizes are sure for him who follows, since Arion went first, empty of his master, still burns, desiring to conquer even the empty car. The god gives strength and refreshes him; he flies, swifter than the east wind, as though just now sent forth into the fields, the barriers loosed, and with lashes provokes the manes and the backs with the reins, chiding light Caerus and snowy Cygnus. Now at least, while no one is before him, the fiery axle snatches the wheels round, and far the scattered sands are flung, the earth gives a groan and even then threatens savagely. Perhaps too the victorious Cygnus would have gone before Arion, but his sea-born sire forbids him to be conquered: hence by just turn the glory remained for the horse, the victory yielded to the seer. For him the young men bore, as the prize of the palm, the twin Herculean bowl: that the Tirynthian once was wont to bear in one hand, and, foaming, with face upturned, to drain, whether victor over a monster or in war. It holds Centaurs grim in its art and gold terrible in its figures: here, with the slaughter of the Lapiths mingled, are whirled stones, torches, and again other bowls, and everywhere the vast angers of the dying; he himself holds the raging Hylaeus and labours at the oaks with a twisted beard. But to you, Admetus, is borne a cloak flowing round about with a Maeonian border, for your deserts, and dyed again with much purple: here the despiser of the Phrixean water, the youth, swims and, sea-blue, gleams through the painted wave; he seems to move his hand to the side and to be about to change his arms, nor would you hope for dry hair in the woven thread; but opposite, in vain, anxious on the topmost tower, the Sestian maid sits in her watchtower, the conscious fire nearly dies. These riches Adrastus bids go as a gift to the victors; but his son-in-law he consoles with an Achaean handmaid.

Then he summons the men to ample prizes in the race, the very swift: a nimble zeal and the slenderest valour, a work of peace when sacred rites call, nor a useless help to wars, if the right hand fail. Before all, Idas, lately his temples shaded with Olympian boughs, leaps forth; the Pisaean youth and the Elean bands receive him with applause, Sicyonian Alcon follows, and twice victor proclaimed in the Isthmian arena, Phaedimus, and, who had outstripped the swift-footed horses' flight, formerly Dymas, but then following, his age delaying him, and many whom the ignorance of the varied common throng keeps silent, on this side and that came up, but Arcadian Parthenopaeus they hail, and rouse the wandering murmurs of the crowded circus; his mother is known for running; who would not know the surpassing glory of Maenalian Atalanta and the tracks undetected by all her suitors? His most famous mother weighs upon the son, and he himself, now known afar by fame, is told, on foot, in the open spaces of Lycaeus, to lift unarmed hinds among them, and to catch in the course the darted weapon. At last, awaited, with a winged leap over the ranks he flashes forth and unfastens his cloak with twisted gold. His limbs flashed out, and all the joy of his frame was laid open, his notable shoulders, nor was his breast worse than his bare cheeks, and his face was hidden in his body. Yet he himself spurns the praise of his beauty and keeps off the admirers; then, not unskilled, he leaned over the Palladian draughts and darkens his skin with rich olive. In this manner Idas, in this manner Dymas and the others gleam. So when in a calm sea the stars shine through and the image of the starry sky quivers in the straits, all things shine clear, but clearer above all Hesperus plies his rays, and as great as through the high air, so great is he shown in the sea-blue waves, next, and not much less than he in form, is Idas in the courses, and in age the next before him; but to him now the rich wrestling-schools have brought a thin bloom, and the down creeps over his cheeks, nor avows itself beneath the cloud of his unshorn hair. Then duly the quickened steps they explore and sharpen, and through various arts they rouse their languid limbs with a skilled tumult: now they sink with bent knee, now their slippery breasts they slap with a strong stroke, now they lift their fiery legs and lay aside a brief course with an unexpected end.

When the bar dropped and let down the level threshold, the light men seized the space, and on the field gleamed the naked company: as swift as they, but now more slowly in the same fields the horses are seen to have gone; you would think from the throng of Cydonians and Parthians, in flight, as many arrows had leaped forth, not otherwise than the swift stags through the Hyrcanian byways, when from afar they have heard, or think they hear, the roar of an unfed lion, blind flight snatches the astonished ones and fear flocks them together, and their mingled horns give a long crash. Here the Maenalian boy escapes the eyes, swifter than the rapid breeze, whom then with his step rough Idas presses and breathes upon his shoulder, and with his breath and the shadow of his breast presses his back; behind, in doubtful division, strive Phaedimus and Dymas, on whom swift Alcon looms. Tawny from his unshorn crown hung the hair of the Arcadian; this from his first years he fed as a gift to Trivia, and, when he should have returned victor from the Ogygian Mars, bold, he had promised it in vain to his ancestral altars. Then, free of its binding and loosened wide upon his back, at the meeting of the west wind it flees backward and at once hampers Idas himself and, flying, is spread out before the hostile man. Thence the young man perceived a trick and the times suited to deceit; now near the end, while the victor Parthenopaeus enters the threshold, having seized his hair he overtakes him, drawn back, and first strikes the doors of the long gate. The Arcadians clash their arms, with arms to defend their king, unless the snatched glory and the honours of merit be restored, they contend and prepare to come down from the whole circus. There are those too to whom Idas's trick is pleasing; Parthenopaeus himself with heaped-up earth buries his face and his weeping eyes, the grace of tears was added to his beauty, now grieving he cuts his breast, now his unworthy face with bloody nail and his deserving hair; on every side the dissonant outcry rages, and the doubtful counsel of old Adrastus delays; at last he himself replies: 'Restrain the quarrel, O boys! Valour must be tried again; but go by not one path; this side is conceded to Idas, do you hold the other; let all deceit be away from the courses.'

They had heard, and at the word they remain; soon, suppliant, with silent address the Tegean youth scents out the divine powers: 'Goddess mighty over the groves, for to you here, to you my hair is owed as an honour, and from your vow this wrong comes, if my mother has deserved anything well, if I myself have earned anything by the chase, do not, I pray, allow Thebes to go on with this omen nor Arcadia to have deserved so great a shame.' He was heard: the proof was manifest; scarce the field feels him going, and a thin air comes between his soles, and his rare tracks hang, with the dust unbroken. He bursts the doors with a cry, with a cry he runs back before the leader and with seized palm soothes his panting; the courses are ended, and the marks of his deeds are at hand. The Arcadian carries a horse as a gift, wicked Idas a shield, the rest of the throng go content with Lycian quivers.

Then he calls, if any be eager to contend with the hurled discus and wish to show his proud strength. Pterelas goes, as bidden, and the slippery weight of the brazen mass, scarce bent with his whole body, beside he casts down; silent the sons of Inachus look on and weigh the labour. Soon the throng rush, two of the Achaean race, three sons of Ephyre, one sprung of Pisa, an Acarnanian seventh; and glory was driving more, had not lofty Hippomedon, the seats urging him on, borne himself into the midst, and bearing widely beneath his right breast another orb: 'This one rather, young men, you who go to break the walls with stones, who to cast down the Tyrian citadels, this one snatch up: but that weight, to what right hand is it not fit for hurling?' And, torn away, with no effort he cast it to the side; they stand off far and, astonished, confess that they yield; scarce one, Phlegyas, and keen Menestheus— these too shame and great parents held— promised their hand; the rest of the youth yielded of their own accord and, the discus adored, returned inglorious. As in the Bistonian fields the shield of Mavors strikes Pangaea with an evil light and, gleaming, terrifies the sun, and, struck by the god's spear, lows heavily. Pisaean Phlegyas begins the work and at once drew all eyes upon himself: such valour, at the sight of his body, was promised, and first he roughens the earth and the discus and his hand, then, the dust shaken off, he turns it about, which side fits his fingers, which more surely fits the middle of his forearm, not lacking in art: here always for his love was the sport, not only when he attended the sacred rites of his country's praise, but he was wont with alternate banks to measure each Alpheus, and, where they part most widely, never to send the discus across the rivers without sinking it. Therefore, confident in his work, not straightway the bristling acres of the field, but to the sky he measures his right hand, and pressed to the ground with either knee, his blood gathered, the discus he himself whirls over himself and buries it in the clouds. Swift, it seeks the heights and, like one falling, grows against the eye, and at last, exhausted from on high, slower it returns to the earth and is plunged into the fields. So falls, as often as it is torn from the astonished stars, the shadowed sister of the Sun; from afar the nations clash their helping bronzes and fear in vain, but the Thessalian victress laughs at the panting team, the chant heard. The Danaans applaud, but not to you, looking soft, Hippomedon, and a greater hand is hoped in the contest.

And to him at once, to whom it is sweet to break immoderate hopes, Fortune comes; what is it lawful for man to strive against the divine powers? Now he was preparing a vast space, now his neck was turned, and now his whole side was returning: the weight slipped and fell before his feet, and the blow failed him, and in vain he let his empty hand sink down. All groaned, and to few was that a pleasure. Then Menestheus, more cautious, comes to the attempts with timid art, and, much asking you, son of Maia, chides the slip of the over-strong mass with dust. That one goes out with a great hand and much happier, nor did it rest, carried over a small part of the circus; a sound arises, and the earth is marked with a fixed arrow. Third, Hippomedon moves his slow steps to the strong contests; for him, deep in his heart, both the misfortune of Phlegyas warns and the fortune of Menestheus. He raises the contest accustomed to his right hand, and, high sustaining and consulting his rigid side and strong arms, he whirls it with a vast eddy, and he himself follows after; it flies with a dreadful leap through the void, and now far off the discus remembers his hand and keeps its course, nor, doubtful or near to Menestheus's, conquered, did it pass the goal: far above the rival marks it settled and the green shoulders and the shady heights of the theatre, as it were, it shook with the mass of a broad ruin: as the stone which Polyphemus from vapour-bearing Aetna, though his hand lacked light, yet drove into the track of the ship heard, and close upon hostile Ulysses. So too the sons of Aloeus, when now stiff Ossa trod Olympus from above, hoped to join the glacial Pelion itself to the trembling sky.

Then the son of Talaus bids an empty tigress go to the victor, which gleamed, ringed round with a tawny border, and had grown tame at its end-claws with gold. Menestheus has Gnosian bows and wandering weapons. But to you, he says, 'Phlegyas, cheated by a sinister chance, this sword, once the glory and help of our Pelasgian, we give to bear—for Hippomedon will not begrudge it.' Now there is need of spirits: 'Take up the hostile gloves hand to hand; this valour is nearest to wars and the iron.'

There stood, vast to be seen and vast to be feared, Argive Capaneus, and while the raw coverings of oxhide blackened with lead—himself no softer in his arms— he puts on, 'Give one of so many thousands of young men hither,' he says, 'and would that rather from the Aonian stock there came a rival, whom it is lawful to send to death, nor my valour cruel with civil blood.' Their spirits were amazed, and terror made silences. At last, unhoped-for, from the naked common throng of the Spartans leaps Alcidamas; the Doric bands of the kings marvel; but his comrades knew him, taught by Pollux as his master, and that he had grown up amid the sacred wrestling-schools. The god himself laid his hands and fashioned his arms— love of the material urged him—; then often he placed him hand to hand, and, marvelling at him standing in like anger, lifted him up, exulting, and pressed him, naked, to his breast. Him Capaneus scorns and laughs at him as he calls as though pitying, and asks for another, and at last, compelled, he stood firm, and at the goads his now languid neck swells. High, their bodies suspended on the soles, they raised their thunderous hands; their faces in a safe retreat far off in the watchtower of their arms, and the approaches to the wounds eluded. Here, as much as Tityos rises from the Stygian fields, if the grim birds should allow it, so great on every side he spreads the spaces of his limbs and fierce stands out with such great bones. Here, a little before a boy, but in truth riper than his age is his strength, and his tender impulse promises mighty years, whom no one would prefer to see conquered or stained with cruel blood, and would fear the spectacle with an anxious vow.

When they had measured themselves with their eyes and each hoped for the first place, not straightway is anger nor blows: alternate fear a little, and counsels mixed with frenzy; only they lean their opposing arms in feinting and explore the gloves and blunt them with handling. The more skilled here defers his spirit and, fearing the future, having delayed, dispenses his strength: but the other, lavish of harming and heedless of himself, rushes wholly and both hands he spends without rule and, baffled, gnashes, rising up, and presses himself; but provident with cunning and watchful with his country's art, the Laconian throws back these blows, guards against those; sometimes, with a nod of his swift head unhurt by his compliance, now with his hands the threatening weapons scattering, he presses on in step and with his face recedes: often too the foe matched against him with unjust strength— such vigour in his wit, so great the experience of his right hand— of his own accord, bold in spirit, he enters and overshadows and high leaps upon; as a wave headlong in a heap leaps against the threatening rocks and returns broken, so he, the raging one, circles, storming; lo, he lifts and long threatens at the side and at the eyes; him, guarding against the rigid blows, he calls away and with his hands inserts an unforeseen stroke, skilled, and marks the middle forehead with a wound: now blood, and the temples are signed with a warm stream. Capaneus does not yet know it and marvels at the sudden murmur through the ranks; but when by chance he drew his weary hand over his face and saw the stains on the top of his fleece, not a lion, not a tigress so enraged at the javelin received: fervid he drives the yielding one over the whole field and hurls the youth headlong backward and lays him on his back, gnashing dreadfully with his teeth, and redoubles his whirled and multiplies his hands; the winds snatch his efforts, part falls on the gloves; with sharp movement the Spartan guards against a thousand deaths that slip round his hollow temples and by the help of his feet, but yet not unmindful of his art he flees facing him and, fleeing, yet withstands the blows.

And now toil and sick pantings weary both. More slowly that one presses, nor now is this one swift to stand off, and both, failing in their knees, alike rested. So when the long seas have wearied the wandering sailors and the signal is given from the stern, they laid down a little their arms: scarce is there rest, now another voice rouses the oars, lo, again immoderately as he comes, the boy eludes him and goes out, rushing of his own accord, sunk on his shoulders: that one is poured forth on his head, and, rising up, the wicked boy with another blow struck him, and himself grew pale at the favourable outcome. The sons of Inachus raise such a shout as not the shores, not the groves; him, as he tried to rise from the ground, when Adrastus saw lifting his hands and preparing what could not be borne: 'Go, I pray, comrades, he rages, go, oppose your hands, hasten, he rages, and bear off the palm and the prizes! Not before he mingles the bones with the cracked brain will he stop, I see; bear away the Laconian who is to die.' No delay, Tydeus bursts forth, nor does Hippomedon refuse the orders: then scarce both, with their efforts, restrain and check both hands and urge much: 'You conquer, go; it is fair to grant life to the lesser. He too is ours and a comrade of the war.' Nothing breaks the hero, and the branch and the corselet offered to his hand he repels, crying out: 'Let it be allowed! Shall I not bury in the thick dust and blood these cheeks, by which that half-man earned favour, and send the shapeless body to the tomb and give it to his Oebalian master to mourn?' He speaks; but his comrades turn him away, swollen and denying that he was conquered, opposite they praise the notable nursling of Taygetus, and from afar the Laconians laughed at the threats.

Long since varied praises and conscious valour gnaw at great-hearted Tydeus with urging goads. He indeed was both good at the discus and to contend in the course, nor less to war with the glove, but in his heart the labours of the oiled wrestling were before the rest. So he was wont to pass the leisure of Mars and to relax his arms-bearing angers against vast men, round the Achelolan shores and the wrestling-schools made happy by the god's showing. Therefore when the spirited glory of wrestling roused the young men, the Aetolian strips from his shoulders the terrific mantle and his ancestral boar, against him the boaster of Cleonaean stock, Agylleus, lifts his lofty limbs, in Herculean bulk no less; so, high rising with his great shoulders, the wicked one goes out above the man. But not his is that rigour and ancestral strength in the body: his limbs run riot, and, poured out with loose blood, his members float; whence this bold confidence so great in the son of Oeneus to overcome an equal, although he himself seems slight, yet his bones are heavy and his arms difficult with knots, never has nature dared to enclose this spirit and such great strength in a lesser body.

After the skin rejoiced in oil, each seeks the middle of the level ground with a run, and is clothed with the drawn-up sand, then they dry their wet limbs with alternate dust, and sank their necks in their shoulders, and hold their arms wide and bowed; even then with cunning Tydeus, skilled, brings lofty Agylleus down to the level and bends him forward, low on his back and near the sand with his knees, but he, like the cypress, queen of the Alpine summit, inclines his neck to the urging south wind, scarce holding by its root, and draws near the earth, long since about to return again to the airs of heaven: not otherwise his vast limbs lofty Agylleus of his own accord presses, and, groaning, doubles himself over his small foe, and now with alternate hand his forehead and shoulders and side and neck and breast and shunning legs he assails. And sometimes long they hang, propped upon each other's arms, now fiercely the bonds of the fingers they break. Not so do the twin leaders of a horned herd stir dreadful wars; in the midst stands the white wife in the meadow, awaiting the victor, the raging ones burst their straining breasts, love sets goads beneath and heals their wounds: so with thunderbolt tusk the boars, so the bristly, the shaggy bears enter their foul battles with embraces. The same force in the son of Oeneus; nor with sun or dust do his weary limbs falter, his skin is stiff and pressed close, chastened by the hard knots of toils; opposite, that one, not whole with alternate gasps and spent with sick gaping, strips from the river of his sweat the sands cast upon him and by stealth, the earth snatched, sustains his breast. Tydeus presses on, driving, and, having threatened the neck with a fall, goes for the legs; he could not master his undertakings, his hands baffled by the shortness; that one comes lofty from above and buries him, crushed, beneath the mass of a vast ruin, not otherwise than the searcher of the Iberian hill, when he has gone under and far left the day and life behind, if the suspended ground has trembled and the broken earth has given a sudden crash, lurks within, overwhelmed by the loosened mountain, and, deeply broken and crushed, the corpse did not give back its indignant soul to its own stars. Keener for this is Tydeus, and is above in spirit and breast. No delay, when, slipped from the bonds and the unjust burden, he circles the wandering man and unforeseen clings to his back, soon, swift, he twines the side and the flanks with a firm grip, pressing knee on knee thence, as the other prepares to escape the knots in vain and to insert his right hand into his side, the wicked one, a weight dreadful to see and marvellous, lifts him up. So fame says the Libyan earth-born, pressed by Herculean arms, sweated, when, the trick discovered, snatched on high, and now no hope of falling, nor is it allowed to touch his mother with the tip of his foot, a sound arises, and the bands raise glad applause; then, balancing him high, of his own accord he let him go, unforeseen, and gave him sidelong, and following him as he fell he bound his neck at once with his right hand, his groin at once with his feet. The beset man fails and resists by shame alone, at last, his breast to the ground and stretched out on his prone belly, he is laid low, and after a long time, sad, rises, leaving foul tracks marked on the earth, but Tydeus, bearing the palm and the arms gleaming on right and left as a gift: 'What if the Dircaean field had not a part by no means small of this blood—you know— where lately these wounds were the covenants of Thebes?' Displaying these things at once and the prizes sought of his praises he gives to his comrades; the neglected corselet of Agylleus follows.

There are those too who would come to clash with the naked iron, and now they were present, equipped with arms, Epidaurian Agreus and the Dircaean exile, the fates not yet driving him, the leader, son of Iasus, forbids: 'A vast store of death remains, O young men! Keep your spirits and the greedy frenzy of hostile blood, and you, O you for whose sake the ancestral acres, you for whom we have desolated beloved cities, do not, I pray, before the battle-line, allow so great a right to chance and to fraternal—may the divine powers drive this away!—vows.' So he speaks, and enriches both with a gilded helmet. Then his son-in-law, lest he lack praise, he bids his lofty temples be wreathed and, with a vast voice, to be hailed victor of Thebes: the dire Parcae sang it all back.

Himself too the chiefs exhort to deem the festal contests worthy of his own labour and to add to the tomb this final honour, and, lest victory be lacking to one alone of the leaders' number, they ask that he pour Lyctian weapons from the horn, or cross the clouds with a thin spear. He obeys, rejoicing, and from the green rampart to the level ground, thronged by the chief of the young men, descends; but behind him his armour-bearer, as bidden, carries the light quivers and the horn: he resolves to send across the vast circus with a cast from afar and to give wounds to the named mountain-ash.

Who would deny that omens flow from the hidden causes of things? The fates lie open to man; he scorns to heed them, and there perishes the trust foresent of the future: so we have made omens of chance, and Fortune has drunk strength to harm. Having measured the field in a brief space from the fatal tree it touched, dreadful to behold, through the very airs by which it had just fled, the reed comes back and bore its course reversed from the end, and falls beside the mouth of the known quiver. Much the leaders sow in error: these, that clouds and high south winds had met it, others that the weapon was repelled by the stroke of an opposing oak. Deep lies hidden the vast issue and the wickedness foreshown: to him alone the reed promised a returning war and sad retreats for its master.