CONTEST OF HOMER AND HESIOD
victory, went from place to place reciting his poems; and first of all the Thebaïs in seven thousand verses which begins: "Goddess, sing of parched Argos whence kings...," and then the Epigoni in seven thousand verses beginning: "And now, Muses, let us begin to sing of men of later days"; for some say that these poems also are by Homer. Now Xanthus and Gorgus, son of Midas the king, heard his epics and invited him to compose a epitaph for the tomb of their father on which was a bronze figure of a maiden bewailing the death of Midas. He wrote the following lines:—
"I am a maiden of bronze and sit upon the tomb of Midas. While water flows, and tall trees put forth leaves, and rivers swell, and the sea breaks on the shore; while the sun rises and shines and the bright moon also, ever remaining on this mournful tomb I tell the passer-by that Midas here lies buried."
For these verses they gave him a silver bowl which he dedicated to Apollo at Delphi with this inscription: "Lord Phoebus, I, Homer, have given you a noble gift for the wisdom I have of you: do you ever grant me renown."
After this he composed the Odyssey in twelve thousand verses, having previously written the Iliad in fifteen thousand five hundred verses.[1] From Delphi, as we are told, he went to Athens and was entertained by Medon, king of the Athenians. And being one day in the council hall when it was cold
- ↑ The accepted text of the Iliad contains 15,693 verses; that of the Odyssey, 12,110.
