Translations from Homer/Notes to Hymn to the Delian Apollo

by Homer

NOTES

TO THE

HYMN TO THE DELIAN APOLLO.

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Note¹, p. 68.] Him on cragg'd Delos.

κείνη δ' ηνεμόεσσα καὶ ἄτροφος, οἷά θ' ἁλιπλής,αἰθυίης καὶ μᾶλλον ἐπίδρομος ήέπερ ἵπποις,πάντῳ ἐνεστήρικται· ὁ δ᾽ ἀμφὶ ἐ πουλὺς ἑλίσσων,Ικαρίου πολλὴν ἀπομάσσαται ὕδατος ἄχνην.Callimachus Hymn. Tel. Ed. Blomfield.

Lash'd by the wave and many a wintry storm,The lonely isle uprears her rock-built form:Scant pasture hers,—across those bills of blue,Strange to the war-steed, fits the wild sea-mew.Based in the deep she braves the girdling tide,And proudly things the lcarian foam aside.

Note², p. 68.]

Lapped on Cynthus' mount,Fast by the palm that shades Inopus' river-fount.

ἡ δ᾽ αὖ Λητώ ἄλης ἀπεπαύσατο λυγρήςἕζετο δ' Ινωποῖο παρὰ ῥέον, ὅντε βάθιστονγαῖα τότ' ἐξανίησιν ὅτε πλήθοντι ρεέθρωΝεῖλος ἀπὸ κρημνοία κατέρχεται ᾿Αιθιοπῆς.Callimachus Hymn Del.

Then from her long and bitter wanderingRelieved, sat Leto by Inopus' spring,Whose gushing flow most bountiful and deepEarth sends aloft, when Nile, with swelling sweep,Comes down, rejoicing, from his Ethiop-steep.

Lycophron it may be observed gives his voice in favour of this grand junction of the rivers.

Κυνθίαν ὅσοι σκοπὴνΜίμνοντες ἠλάσκουσιν νωποῦ πέλας,Αἰγύπτων Τρίτωνος ἕλκοντος ποτώνCassand, p. 27, ed. Canter.

Whoso in their weary wayTo the Cynthian hill-side stray,Rest them at Inopus' brink,Wont the draughts of Nile to drink.

Note³, p. 68.]

Mark of all nature's minstrelsy.

En! patet in laudes area lata tuas.Ovid. Trist. iv, 3, 84.

Vid. Ilgen's note on popoi ad loc.

Note⁴, p. 71.]

'Tis he whose sweetest song henceforth all song excels.

Be thou near to learn the song future times shall hear of me. The sons of the feeble hereafter will lift the voice on Cona and, looking up to the rocks, say, "Here Ossian dwelt."

Ossian, War of Caros, vol. i, 165.