But if there be any bliss among mortal men, without labour it is not made manifest:  it may be that God will accomplish it even to-day, yet the thing ordained is not avoidable:  yea, there shall be a time that shall lay hold on a man unaware, and shall give him one thing beyond his hope, but another it shall bestow not yet.

[Footnote 1:  The three Grey Sisters, whose one common eye Perseus stole,

[Greek:  daenaiai korai treis kyknomorphoi koinon omm’ ektaemenai monodontes, has outh’ haelios prosderketai aktisin, outh’ hae nukteros maenae pote.]

Aesch.  Prom. 813.

This must mean some kind of twilight, not total darkness, or they could hardly have missed their eye.]

[Footnote 2:  Athene.]

[Footnote 3:  One of the Gorgons.]

[Footnote 4:  A certain [Greek:  nomos aulaetikos] was known by this name.]

THE NEMEAN ODES.

I.

For Chromios of Aitna,

Winner in the chariot-race.

* * * * *

This Chromios was a son of Agesidamos and brother-in-law of Hieron, and the same man for whom the ninth Nemean was written.  He had become a citizen of Hieron’s new city of Aitna, and won this victory B.C. 473.

This ode seems to have been sung before his house in Ortygia, a peninsula on which part of Syracuse was built, and in which was the fountain Arethusa.  The legend of Arethusa and Alpheos explains the epithets of Ortygia with which the ode opens.  The greater part of the ode is occupied with the story of Herakles, perhaps because Chromios was of the Hyllean tribe and thus traced his descent to Herakles.

* * * * *

O resting-place august of Alpheos, Ortygia, scion of famous Syracuse, thou that art a couch of Artemis and a sister of Delos[1], from thee goeth forth a song of sweet words, to set forth the great glory of whirlwind-footed steeds in honour of Aitnaian Zeus.

For now the car of Chromios, and Nemea, stir me to yoke to his victorious deeds the melody of a triumphal song.  And thus by that man’s heaven-sped might I lay my foundations in the praise of gods.  In good fortune men speak well of one altogether:  and of great games the Muse is fain to tell.

Sow then some seed of splendid words in honour of this isle, which Zeus, the lord of Olympus, gave unto Persephone, and bowed his hair toward her in sign that this teeming Sicily he would exalt to be the best land in the fruitful earth, with gorgeous crown of citadels.  And the son of Kronos gave unto her a people that wooeth mailed war, a people of the horse and of the spear, and knowing well the touch of Olympia’s golden olive-leaves.  Thus shoot I arrows many, and without falsehood I have hit the mark.