Pythian Odes (4.265-5.70)

even with its fruit destroyed it votes for its own worth, if it comes at last to the winter fire; or if it is placed with upright columns belonging to a ruler, performing a slavish service among foreign walls, having deserted its native place.

But you are a most opportune healer, and Apollo Paean honors your light. One must apply a gentle hand to tend a sore wound: it is easy even for weak men to shake a city to its foundations, but to set it in its place again is indeed a difficult struggle, unless a god suddenly comes to guide its rulers.

These blessings are woven out for you: be bold, and apply all earnestness for the sake of fortunate Cyrene.

Of the sayings of Homer, take to heart and heed this one: “a noble messenger,” he said, “brings the greatest honor to every business.” Even the Muse is exalted by a correct message. Cyrene

and the most renowned hall of Battus recognized the just mind of Damophilus; a young man among boys, and in counsels like an elder who has lived a hundred years, he robs the evil tongue of its brash voice, and he has learned to hate the arrogant;

he does not struggle against good men, or postpone any decisive action, for the right moment has a brief measure in the eyes of men. He recognizes it well, and he serves it as an attendant, not a slave. But they say that this is the most grievous thing of all, to recognize what is good and to be debarred from it by compulsion. And truly he, like Atlas,

now strains against the weight of the sky, far from his ancestral land and his possessions. But immortal Zeus freed the Titans; and in time, when the wind ceases, there are changes

of sails. But he prays that at some time, when he has drained to the dregs his cup of ruinous affliction, he will see his home, and, joining the symposium near the spring of Apollo,

yield his spirit often to the joys of youth, and attain peace, holding the well-made lyre among his skillful fellow citizens, bringing no pain to anyone, and himself unharmed by his townsmen. Then he would tell you, Arcesilas, what a fountain of immortal song he found, when he was recently entertained by his host at Thebes.

Wealth is widely powerful, whenever a mortal man receives it, blended with pure excellence, from the hands of fortune, and takes it as a companion that makes many friends.

Arcesilas, favored by the gods, from the first steps of your famous life you seek for it with glory, by the grace of Castor with his golden chariot,

who, after the wintry storm, sheds calm on your blessed hearth.

Skillful men are better able to bear even god-given power. Great prosperity surrounds you, as you walk with justice.

First, since you are a king of great cities, your inborn eye looks on this as a most revered prize of honor, united with your mind;

and you are blessed even now, because you have already earned the boast of victory with your horses from the renowned Pythian festival, and you will welcome this victory-procession of men,

a delight for Apollo. And so, do not forget, when you are celebrated in song around Cyrene’s sweet garden of Aphrodite,

to set the god in the highest place as the cause of all things, and to love Carrhotus above all your companions. He did not bring with him Excuse, the daughter of late-thinking Afterthought, when he came to the house of the descendants of Battus who rule by right;

but he was welcomed beside the waters of Castalia, and he flung over your hair the prize of honor for the victorious chariot;

his reins were undamaged in the precinct of the twelve swift-footed courses. For he broke no part of his strong equipment; it hangs dedicated there,

all the handiwork of dextrous craftsmen, which he brought past the hill of Crisa to the hollow valley of the god. The cypress shrine keeps it

beside the statue which the Cretan bowmen set up in the Parnassian chamber, carved from a single piece of wood.

Therefore it is fitting to welcome a benefactor with a willing mind.

Son of Alexibias, the lovely-haired Graces make you radiant. You are blessed, you who have, even after great hardship, a memorial of the best words. For among forty

drivers who fell, having brought your chariot through unscathed with a fearless mind, you have come now from the splendid games to the plain of Libya and your ancestral city.

But no man is without a share of toils, or ever will be.

Yet the ancient prosperity of Battus continues, despite its dispensation of both good and bad, a tower of the city and a most brilliant shining eye to strangers. Even loud-roaring lions fled in fear from Battus, when he unleashed on them his voice from across the sea.

And Apollo, the first leader, doomed the beasts to dread fear, so that his oracles to the guardian of Cyrene would not go unfulfilled.

It is Apollo who dispenses remedies to men and women for grievous diseases,

and who bestowed on us the cithara, and gives the Muses’ inspiration to whomever he will, bringing peaceful concord into the mind, and who possesses the oracular shrine; wherefore he settled the mighty descendants of Heracles and Aegimius in Lacedaemon

and in Argos and in sacred Pylos. But it is my part to sing of the lovely glory that comes from Sparta,