O my mouth, fling this tale from thee, for to speak evil of gods is a hateful wisdom, and loud and unmeasured words strike a note that trembleth upon madness.  Of such things talk thou not; leave war of immortals and all strife aside; and bring thy words to the city of Protogeneia, where by decree of Zeus of the bickering lightning-flash Pyrrha and Deukalion coming down from Parnassos first fixed their home, and without bed of marriage made out of stones a race to be one folk:  and hence cometh the name of peoples[2].  Awake for them the clear-toned gale of song, and if old wine be best, yet among songs prefer the newer flowers.

Truly men say that once a mighty water swept over the dark earth, but by the craft of Zeus an ebb suddenly drew off the flood.  From these first men came anciently your ancestors of the brazen shields, sons of the women of the stock of Iapetos and of the mighty Kronidai, Kings that dwelt in the land continually; until the Olympian Lord caught up the daughter[3] of Opoeeis from the land of the Epeians, and lay with her in a silent place among the ridges of Mainalos; and afterward brought her unto Lokros, that age might not bring him[4] low beneath the burden of childlessness.  But the wife bare within her the seed of the Mightiest, and the hero saw the bastard born and rejoiced, and called him by the name of his mother’s father, and he became a man preeminent in beauty and great deeds:  and his father gave unto him a city and a people to rule over.

Then there came unto him strangers, from Argos and from Thebes, and from Arcadia others, and from Pisa.  But the son of Aktor and Aigina, Menoitios, he honoured above all settlers, him whose son[5] went with the Atreidai to the plain of Teuthras and stood alone beside Achilles, when Telephos had turned the valiant Danaoi to flight, and drove them into the sterns of their sea-ships; so proved he to them that had understanding that Patroklos’ soul was strong.  And thenceforward the son of Thetis persuaded him that he should never in murderous battle take his post far from his friend’s conquering spear.

Fit speech may I find for my journey in the Muses’ car; and let me therewith have daring and powers of ample scope.  To back the prowess of a friend I came, when Lampromachos won his Isthmian crown, when on the same day both he and his brother overcame.  And afterward at the gates[6] of Corinth two triumphs again befell Epharmostos, and more in the valleys of Nemea.  At Argos he triumphed over men, as over boys at Athens.  And I might tell how at Marathon he stole from among the beardless and confronted the full-grown for the prize of silver vessels, how without a fall he threw his men with swift and cunning shock, and how loud the shouting pealed when round the ring he ran, in the beauty of his youth and his fair form and fresh from fairest deeds.

Also before the Parrhasian host was he glorified, at the assembly of Lykaian Zeus, and again when at Pellene he bare away a warm antidote of cold winds[7].  And the tomb of Iolaos, and Eleusis by the sea, are just witnesses to his honours.