men some healer of hot plagues, some
offspring of Leto's son, or of her son's sire[3].

And then in a ship would I have sailed, cleaving the Ionian sea, to
the fountain of Arethusa, to the home of my Aitnaian friend, who
ruleth at Syracuse, a king of good will to the citizens, not envious
of the good, to strangers wondrous fatherly. Had I but landed there
and brought unto him a twofold joy, first golden health and next this
my song of triumph to be a splendour in his Pythian crown, which of
late Pherenikos[4] won by his victory at Kirrha--I say that then
should I have come unto him, after that I had passed over the deep
sea, a farther-shining light than any heavenly star.

But I am minded to pray to the Mother[5] for him, to the awful goddess
unto whom, and unto Pan, before my door nightly the maidens move in
dance and song.

Yet, O Hieron, if thou art skilled to apprehend the true meaning of
sayings, thou hast learnt to know this from the men of old; _The
immortals deal to men two ill things for one good._ The foolish cannot
bear these with steadfastness but the good only, putting the fair side
forward.

But thee a lot of happiness attendeth, for if on any man hath mighty
Destiny looked favourably, surely it is on a chief and leader of a
people.

A life untroubled abode not either with Peleus, son of Aiakos, or with
godlike Kadmos: yet of all mortals these, they say, had highest
bliss, who both erewhile listened to the singing of the Muses
golden-filleted, the one in seven-gated Thebes, when he wedded
large-eyed Harmonia, the other on the mountainside, when he took to
him Thetis to be his wife, wise Nereus' glorious daughter. And with
both of them gods sate at meat, and they beheld the sons of Kronos
sitting as kings on thrones of gold, and they received from them gifts
for their espousals; and by grace of Zeus they escaped out of their
former toils and raised up their hearts to gladness.

Yet again in the after time the bitter anguish of those daughters[6]
robbed Kadmos of a part of bliss: howbeit the Father Zeus came to
white-armed Thyone's[7] longed-for couch.

And so did the son of Peleus whom Thetis bare at Phthia, her only son,
die by an arrow in war, and moved the Danaoi to lament aloud, when his
body was burning in fire.

Now if any by wisdom hath the way of truth he may yet lack good
fortune, which cometh of the happy gods.

The blasts of soaring winds blow various ways at various times.
Not for l