Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/60

52 Now to Tlepolemus my song would trace

As its first source Alcides' potent race.

From Jove their sire's high lineage springs;

While to Astydameia's line

Amyntor, born of race divine,

An equal lustre brings.

But ah! what crimes round erring mortals wait,

Unnumber'd torments in their happiest state—

Who, ere the checker'd scene of life be past,

Can tell if weal or wo shall mark his lot at last?

Since the high founder of the Rhodian state,

Impell'd by fierce ungovernable hate,

Laid with his olive sceptre's deadly blow

On earth Alcmena's bastard brother low.

Licymnius, whom his hand to Pluto sent,

From Midea's chamber as his steps he bent.

'Tis thus the maddening tumults of the mind

Have oft seduced the wisest of mankind.

He sought the god who could unfold

The purpose of the will divine,

When thus the power with locks of gold

Spoke from his perfume-breathing shrine:

"Go, launch your fleet from Lerne's strand,

To gain the sea-encircled land,

Where the great monarch of the skies

Sent from his golden clouds a shower

With flames commission'd to devour

Th' accepted sacrifice.

What time by aid of Vulcan's art

And brazen axe, Minerva sprang