They when the whole assembly strove,
Like them their crooked chariot drove;
Contending with the Grecian train 50
Whose costly steeds the palm should gain. 50
While they in contest never shown,
Are pass'd with silence and unknown.
Obscure their fate, too, who contend
Ere they attain the wish'd-for end, 55
And this their glorious toils bestow.[1]
Oft the superior in the fray
Has seen his guerdon snatched away
By fraud of some inferior foe.
Ye know that Ajax' deadly might 60
By his own sword at dead of night
Cut off untimely, reprehension bore
To Hellas' sons, who sought the Trojan shore. 62
But Homer's songs with honour grace
Him among men of warlike race;[2] 65
Those strains divine his valour raise,
Heralds of after ages' praise:
For this immortal sound proceeds
When bards proclaim triumphant deeds;
While through the fruitful earth and main 70
This beam its deathless splendour shall maintain.
Propitious be the muses' care!
As we the torch of song illume,
And to Telesia's offspring bear,
Melissus brave, the chaplet fair, 75
Worthy upon the victor's brow to bloom.
- ↑ I have adopted Heyne's conjectural emendation of τουτο and κλεος instead of the common reading τωνδε and τελος, from which I think none but a weak sense can be elicited.
- ↑ The remarkable expression of the original, κατα ῥαβδον εφρασεν, probably means nothing more than that Homer delivered his rhapsodies in a consecutive series of lines. See the opening of the [[../../Nemean Odes/2|second Nemean ode]]. Sudorius' paraphrase is opere expolitor.
