Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/197

Rh and ever it is better to look only on the thing hard by. For the guile of time hangeth above the heads of men, and maketh the way of their life crooked, yet if Freedom abide with them, even such things may mortals cure.

But it is meet that a man cherish good hope: and meet also that I, whom seven-gated Thebes reared, proffer chiefly unto Aigina the choicest of the Graces' gifts, for that from one sire were two daughters born, youngest of the children of Asopos, and found favour in the eyes of the king Zeus.

One by the fair stream of Dirke he set to be the queen of a city of charioteers, and thee the other he bare to the Oinopian isle, and lay with thee, whence to the sire of great thunderings thou didst bear the godlike Aiakos, best of men upon the earth.

This man even among divinities became a decider of strife: and his godlike sons and his sons' sons delighting in battle were foremost in valour when they met in the ringing brazen melley: chaste also were they approved, and wise of heart.

Thereof was the god's council mindful, what time for the hand of Thetis there was strife between Zeus and glorious Poseidon, each having desire that she should be his fair bride, for love had obtained dominion over them.

Yet did not the wisdom of the immortal gods fulfil for them such marriage, when they had heard a certain oracle. For Themis of wise counsels spake in the midst of them of how it was pre-destined that the sea-goddess should bear a royal offspring mightier than his father, whose hand should wield a bolt more terrible than the lightning or the dread trident, if she came ever into the bed of Zeus, or of brethren of Zeus.

'Cease ye herefrom: let her enter a mortal's couch and see her son fall in war, who shall be as Ares in the might of his hands, and as the lightning in the swiftness of his feet. My counsel is that ye give her to be the heaven-sent prize of Peleus