That rises eminently o'er
Epirus' wide-extended shore,
And from Dodona lifts the brow
To where the Ionian waters flow, 85
Giving in numerous herds to graze,
Young Neoptolemus obeys.
Iolcos, fair Thessalian town,
Which Pelion's woody summits crown,
Attack'd by hostile hand, a slave 90
Peleus to his Hæmonians gave. 91
He whom Acastus' crafty dame,
Hippolyta, by guile o'ercame;
While Pelias' son's Dædalian blade [1]
For him the fatal ambush laid. 95
But Chiron far the peril drove,
Fulfilling the decrees of Jove. 100
He the dread fire's all-potent might,
The terrors of the sharpened claws
And teeth that arm the direful jaws 100
- ↑ The obscurity of this passage has greatly embarrassed the commentators. By the sword of Dædalus the scholiast simply understands a fraudulent design, sharpened for the destruction of its victim. The poet must be understood to institute a comparison between the craft of Acastus and that of Dædalus, who slew Minos by pouring on him a stream of boiling water with the co-operation of the daughters of Cocalus, king of Sicily. In like manner Peleus was subdued by stratagem, and his country Magnesia made subject to the Thessalians, through the treacherous instrumentality of Cretheis, daughter of Hippolytus, and wife to Acastus. The following lines allude to the various shapes of fire, lion, &c., into which Thetis is said to have transformed herself, with the vain hope of avoiding the matrimonial affinity of Peleus. Pindar relates the story again in Nem., v., 53, et seq., more at large and with greater clearness.
heroes enjoy perpetual repose. In the celebrated scholion of Callistratus, (εν μυρτω κλαδι, &c.,) Harmodius is addressed as dwelling in the islands of happy spirits with Diomed and the swift-footed Achilles.
