Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/168



This ode, like the last, is improperly called Nemean. It commemorates a victory won at the feast of the Hekatombaia at Argos. The date is unknown.

city of Danaos and of his fifty bright-throned daughters, Argos the home of Hera, meet abode of gods, sing Graces! for by excellencies innumerable it is made glorious in the deeds of valiant men.

Long is the tale of Perseus, that telleth of the Gorgon Medusa: many are the cities in Egypt founded by the hands of Epaphos : neither went Hypermnestra's choice astray when she kept sheathed her solitary sword.

Also their Diomedes did the grey-eyed goddess make incorruptible and a god: and at Thebes, the earth blasted by the bolts of Zeus received within her the prophet, the son of Oikleus, the storm-cloud of war.

Moreover in women of beautiful hair doth the land excel. Thereto in days of old Zeus testified, when he followed after Alkmene and after Danaë.

And in the father of Adrastos and in Lynkeus did Argos