With sharp and glittering steel.
Such whispered words of guile
Odysseus into all men's ears doth pour,
And men believe his speech;150
For now he speaks what is too credible,
And he who hears rejoiceth more and more
[Than he who told the tale,]
Mocking at these thy woes.
For if one take his aim at lofty souls
He scarce can miss his mark;
But one who should at me his slander dart,
Would fail to gain belief;
For envy ever dogs the great man's steps;
Yet men of low estate,
Apart from mightier ones,
Are but poor towers of strength.
Still with the great the mean man prospers best,160
And by the small the great maintains his cause;
But those, the fools and blind,
'Tis vain to teach by words.
By such as these thou art beclamoured now,
And we can nought avail,
Apart from thee, Ο king, to ward the blow.
But, since they dread thine eye, like wild birds' flock
Fluttered with fear at sight of eagle strong,
Perchance, should'st thou confront them suddenly,
They, hushed and dumb, would crouch.170
Stroph.
Was it that Artemis, the child of Zeus,[1]
- ↑ In two legends of the Homeric cycle Artemis appeared as punishing scorn and slight. She sent the Calydonian boar because Œneus had not sacrificed to her, (Il. ix. 533.) She demanded the sacrifice of Iphigeneia because Agamemnon had slain a consecrated stag. The name Tauropola contained a twofold allusion—to Tauris, as the home of the wild, orgiastic worship paid to her, and to the bulls (tauroi) which were sacrificed in it.
