Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/80

72 The light and joy of fleeting life.

Daughters of heaven's eternal king,

Urged by your high command, I sing,

Ye Themites, the glorious strife,

Which Hercules at Pelops' ancient shrine

Ordain'd, when from unwilling Augeas' hand,

That he the promised guerdon might demand,

Neptune's proud sons he slew, who scorn'd his might divine.

Within Cleonæ's thickest wood

Alcides in dark ambush lay,

When blameless Cteatus pursued

With Eurytus his deadly way.

Thus was avenged his brave Tirynthian host,

By Molion's haughty race in pass of Elis lost.

Ere long the fraudulent Epean king

Saw potent fire and the devouring blade

Destruction to his rich dominions bring,

Deep in the lowest gulf of misery laid.

'Tis hard a mightier foe's assault to quell.

Thus the devoted Augeas, seized at last

By vengeful fate, bereft of counsel, fell,

And death atoned for all his treachery past.

His whole array the warlike son of Jove

On Pisa's plain assembling with the spoil,

Raised to his mighty father Altis' grove,

And fenced from tread profane the hallow'd soil.