they fell and by the bow of Apollo, who with kind intent hath welcomed Xenarches home from Kirrha, crowned with Parnassian wreaths and Dorian song.
Not far from the Graces' ken falleth the lot of this righteous island-commonwealth, that hath attained unto the glorious deeds of the sons of Aiakos[1]: from the beginning is her fame perfect, for she is sung of as the nurse of heroes foremost in many games and in violent fights: and in her mortal men also is she pre-eminent.
But my time faileth me to offer her all I might tell at length by lute and softer voice of man, so that satiety vex not.
So let that which lieth in my path, my debt to thee, O boy, the youngest of thy country's glories, run on apace, winged by my art.
For in wrestlings thou art following the footsteps of thy uncles, and shamest neither Theognetos at Olympia, nor the victory that at Isthmos was won by Kleitomachos' stalwart limbs.
And in that thou makest great the clan of the Midylidai thou attainest unto the very praise which on a time the son of Oikleus spake in a riddle, when he saw at seven-gated Thebes the sons of the Seven standing to their spears, what time from Argos came the second race on their new enterprise[2]. Thus spake he while they fought: 'By nature, son, the noble temper of thy sires shineth forth in thee. I see clearly the speckled dragon that Alkmaion weareth on his bright shield, foremost at the Kadmean gates.
- ↑ Aiakos and his descendants, especially Aias, were the chief national heroes of Aigina.
- ↑ It seems doubtful what this legend exactly was. Either Amphiaraos, during the attack of the first Seven against Thebes, saw by prophetic vision the future battle of the second Seven, the Epigonoi, among whom were his own son Alkmaion, and Adrastos, the sole survivor of the first Seven; or else these are the words of his oracle after his death, spoken when the battle of the Epigonoi had begun but was not yet ended.
