'Twas there thou deignedst to bestow
The greatest joy of man below,
And gav'st him at thy feast, oh king,
Snatch'd with an eager hand, to bring
The high pentathlic guerdon home. 95
With willing mind accept my prayer,
And view the numbers which declare
In honey'd pomp, but words of truth,
The deeds of this victorious youth.
Your fate, Xenarcidæ, to bless 100
I ask the gods' perpetual love. 103
For should a hero's might success
With no laborious effort prove,
His prosperous life the witless tribe
To his own prudent aims ascribe. 105
The vigour of a mortal hand
Such happiness can ne'er command.
For by the gods' superior power
To hope and joy the vanquish'd rise,
While he whose boundless wishes tower, 110
Beneath their arm defended lies.
Thy valiant deeds unknown to fail,
Delighted Megara proclaims,
And Marathon's sequester'd vale;
Thee too in Juno's kindred games [1] 115
Thrice crown'd th' applauding circle sees,
Victorious Aristomenes! 116
Triumphant in the wrestler's hardy toil
Thy frame upon four prostrate bodies lay—
No wish'd return from the dire Pythian fray 120
The gods decreed to their loved native soil. [2]
- ↑ Alluding, probably, to the Heræan contests, established in Ægina, by imitation of those at Argos, the favoured city of the queen of gods. The Æginetæ were a colony from the Argives; hence the epithet kindred. Didymus, as the scholiast informs as, says that the Hecatombæan contests are here alluded to.
- ↑ I think there can be little doubt that the right reading
