With good fortune from the gods, and because he did not fail his manhood,

he has shifted from himself onto the limbs of four boys

the bitterest of returns,*the jeering tongues, and the skulking journey home.

He has breathed into his father’s father the strength to wrestle with old age.

Truly, the man who knows success forgets Hades.

But I must rouse my memory, and tell of the supreme achievement of hands

which brought victory to the Blepsiad clan,*the sixth crown to adorn them,

given at the games where men win garlands;

even the dead have a share in duly enacted rites, and the dust does not hide from them their kinsmen’s prized success.

Hearing from Hermes’ daughter, the goddess of good news,

Iphion will tell his uncle Callimachus*of the glittering distinction

Zeus has granted their family at Olympia.

May Zeus be glad to heap glory upon glory for them,

and shield them from painful disease.

I pray he will not allot them a doubtful share of good things,

but will grant them a trouble-free life,

and cause them and their city to grow to greatness.

OLYMPIAN 9

For Epharmostus of Opus, winner in the wrestling

Archilochus’ song,*the loud high triple hymn of victory, chanted at Olympia,
was good enough to conduct Epharmostus past Cronus’ hill,*
when he revelled in triumph with his close companions.
But scatter*now from the Muses’ far-shooting bow
a shower of arrows towards Zeus of the crimson lightning
and towards the holy hill of Elis,
which once the Lydian hero Pelops won as Hippodameia’s splendid dowry.*
Shoot too a sweet feathered shaft towards Pytho.*	10
Your words will not fall to the ground when you make the lyre vibrate
in honour of the wrestling skill of a man from famous Opus,
as you praise the city and her son. For fate has allotted Opus to Themis
and to her renowned daughter Eunomia,*preserver of cities,
and it thrives on the strength of its people’s deeds
by your waters, Castalia,*and by the streams of Alpheus.
And so the finest of crowns won in that place
glorify the Locrians’ mother-city, famed for its beautiful trees.	20
As for me, when I shed lustre on that dear city with my blazing songs,
faster than a thoroughbred horse or a winged ship
I shall spread this news far and wide,
if only by some fortune-driven skill I can cultivate
choice flowers in the garden of the Graces;*
it is they who allot pleasures, but only by divine agency
do men become noble and wise.
How else could Heracles*have shaken his club against Poseidon’s trident	30
when the god stood before Pylos and pressed him hard? Or when Phoebus with his silver bow fought him and pressed him equally hard?
Nor did Hades hold back from brandishing his staff at him,
the staff with which he escorts the mortal bodies of the dead to his hollow streets below.
But, my mouth, fling this story from me,
for to speak ill of the gods is a depraved art,
and loud untimely boasting sounds in harmony with madness.
Do not babble of such things;
keep war and fighting completely separate from the immortal gods.	40
Rather lend your tongue to Protogeneia’s city,*
where by a decree of Zeus of the flashing thunderbolt
Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and built their first home,
and without intercourse created a single race from stones,
and therefore they are called a people.*
Awake for them a clear-sounding path of poetry.
Praise wine that is old, but for songs pick flowers that are new.
Now, men say that once a mass of water deluged the dark earth,	50
but by Zeus’ artifice a backwash suddenly drained the flood away;
and from these people first came your bronze-shielded forebears,
sons of the daughters of Iapetus’*race and of Cronus’ powerful sons,
kings for ever in their own land—until the lord of Olympus
carried off Opus’ daughter from the land of the Epeians,*
and coupled with her in a secret place in Maenalus’*dales.
Later he gave her to Locrus, so that time should not ruin him
by awarding him a childless fate.	60
Locrus’ wife was carrying a mighty seed in her,
and the hero’s heart was gladdened to see his counterfeit son;
he gave him the name of his mother’s father,*
and he grew to be a man beyond telling in beauty and great deeds,*
and Locrus gave him his city and people to rule over.

Gods