Idyll 17

17. Encomium of Ptolemy From Zeus let us begin, and with Zeus, Muses, let us end,

whenever in our songs we praise the best of the immortals;

but among men let Ptolemy be named among the first,

and last and midmost; for he is the most eminent of all.

The heroes, who of old sprang from the demigods,

doing fair deeds, found skilled singers;

and I, knowing how to speak fair words, would hymn

Ptolemy; and hymns are the gift of the immortals themselves.

When a woodcutter comes to leafy Ida,

he looks about, with plenty at hand, where to begin his work.

What shall I tell first? For there are countless things to say,

wherein the gods have honored the best of kings.

From his fathers, how able was Ptolemy, son of Lagus,

to accomplish a great deed, when he laid up in his mind

a counsel such as no other man could conceive.

Him the Father set equal in honor with the blessed

immortals, and a golden house is built for him

in the dwelling of Zeus; and beside him sits Alexander,

his loving friend, the god heavy upon the Persians, with his glittering diadem.

And opposite is set the seat of Heracles, slayer of centaurs,

fashioned out of solid adamant;

there with the other sons of heaven he holds his feasts,

rejoicing exceedingly in his grandsons' grandsons,

because the son of Cronos took old age from their limbs,

and his descendants, born of his line, are called immortal.

For to both of them the mighty son of Heracles is forefather,

and both are reckoned back to Heracles at the last.

And so, when he goes from the feast, already sated

with fragrant nectar, to the house of his dear wife,

to the one he gives his bow and the quiver under his arm,

to the other his knotted iron club;

and they bear the weapons and the bearded son of Zeus himself

into the ambrosial chamber of white-ankled Hebe.

And how, among the wise women, renowned Berenice

was preeminent, a great blessing to her parents.

For her the lady daughter of Dione, who holds Cyprus,

pressed her slender hands into her fragrant bosom.

Therefore, they say, no woman ever pleased a man so much

as Ptolemy loved his own wife.

Truly he was loved far more in return; so that with confidence

he might entrust his whole house to his children,

whenever, loving, he goes to the bed of her who loves.

But an unloving woman's heart is always on another,

and her children come easily, but resemble not their father.

You who excel the goddesses in beauty, lady Aphrodite,

she was your care; and for your sake fair Berenice

did not cross woeful Acheron,

but, snatching her away before she came down to the dark ship

and the ever-hateful ferryman of the dead,

you set her in your temple, and gave her a share of your own honors.

Gracious to all mortals, she breathes soft loves

upon them, and gives light cares to the one who longs.—

Dark-browed Argive woman, you bore Diomedes, slayer of men,

mingling with Tydeus, the Calydonian man;

but deep-bosomed Thetis bore the spearman Achilles

to Peleus, son of Aeacus; and you, spearman Ptolemy,

illustrious Berenice bore to the spearman Ptolemy.

And Cos reared you, a newborn babe,

receiving you from your mother, when you first saw the dawn.

For there the daughter of Antigone, weighed down with the pangs of birth,

called upon Eileithyia who loosens the girdle;

and she stood graciously beside her, and shed

a painlessness over all her limbs; and a child like his father,

a beloved child, was born. And Cos cried out with joy at the sight,

and said, touching the babe with loving hands:

Be blessed, boy, and may you honor me as much

as Phoebus Apollo honored dark-crowned Delos;

and set the Triopian hill in equal honor,

granting the Dorians who are near an equal portion of esteem;

equally too did lord Apollo love Rheneia.

So the island spoke; and from on high, three times,

a great eagle, the bird of omen, cried out from the clouds.

This was a sign from Zeus, I think. To Zeus, son of Cronos, belong

the reverend kings; and he is preeminent whom Zeus loves

from his very birth; and much prosperity attends him,

and he rules over much land and much sea.

Countless continents and countless nations of men

make the grain grow, increased by the rain of Zeus;

but none brings forth so much as low-lying Egypt,

when the Nile, gushing up, breaks the moist clods.

Nor does any hold so many cities of men skilled in works.

Three hundreds of cities are built in his land,

and three thousands besides three myriads,

and twice three, and after them three nines;

and over all of them Ptolemy the valiant reigns.

And he cuts off for himself part of Phoenicia and of Arabia

and of Syria and Libya and the dark Ethiopians.

He gives the word to all the Pamphylians and the spearmen Cilicians,

to the Lycians and the war-loving Carians,

and to the Cyclades islands, since his ships are the best

that sail the sea; and all the sea and land

and the sounding rivers are ruled by Ptolemy.

Many horsemen, many shield-bearing men,

decked in gleaming bronze, gather about him.

In wealth he might outweigh all kings;

so much comes each day to his rich house

from every side. And his peoples ply their work in peace.

For no enemy crossing the Nile teeming with sea-beasts

has on foot raised a war-cry among foreign villages,

nor has any leapt to the shore from a swift ship,

armed and hostile, against the Egyptian cattle;

such a man is established in the broad plains,

golden-haired Ptolemy, skilled to brandish the spear,

whose chief care is to guard all his father's realm,

as a good king should, and what he adds himself.

Nor does gold lie idle and useless in his rich house,

heaped up like the wealth of ever-toiling ants;

but the glorious houses of the gods have much of it,

as he ever offers first-fruits with other honors,

and much he has given to mighty kings,

much to cities, much to his good companions.

Nor has any man come skilled to raise the clear song

at the holy contests of Dionysus,

to whom he did not give a gift worthy of his art.

And the interpreters of the Muses sing of Ptolemy

in return for his good deeds. And what could be finer for a man

of wealth than to win fair fame among men?

This abides even for the sons of Atreus; but all those countless things,

all that they won when they took the great house of Priam,

are hidden somewhere in the air, whence there is no more return.

But he alone of men of old, and of those whose still warm

footprints are pressed and imprinted beneath their feet,

has raised fragrant temples to his dear mother and father;

and in them, beautiful with gold and ivory,

he has set them as helpers to all who dwell on earth.

And many fattened thighs of cattle he burns

as the months come round, upon the reddened altars,

he himself and his mighty wife, than whom no better

woman in the halls embraces a bridegroom in her arms,

loving from her heart both brother and husband.

So too was accomplished the holy marriage of the immortals,

whom queenly Rhea bore as kings of Olympus;

and one bed Iris, still a maiden, having purified her hands

with perfumes, spreads for Zeus and Hera to lie upon.

Farewell, lord Ptolemy; and of you, as of the other

demigods, I will make mention; and I think I shall utter a word

not to be cast aside by men to come; but for virtue, ask it of Zeus.