riches when joined to the happy gift of wisdom. And this lot hast
thou, and mayest illustrate it with liberal soul, thou sovereign chief
over many streets filled with goodly garlands, and much people. If any
saith that ever yet was any man of old time throughout Hellas who
excelled thee in honour or in the multitude of possessions, such an one
with vain purpose essayeth a fruitless task.

Upon the flower-crowned prow[8] will I go up to sing of brave deeds
done. Youth is approved by valour in dread wars; and hence say I that
thou hast won boundless renown in thy battles, now with horsemen, now
on foot: also the counsels of thine elder years give me sure ground of
praising thee every way.

All hail! This song like to Phenician merchandize is sent across the
hoary sea: do thou look favourably on the strain of Kaster in Aeolian
mood[9], and greet it in honour of the seven-stringed lute.

Be what thou art, now I have told thee what that is: in the eyes of
children the fawning ape is ever comely: but the good fortune of
Rhadamanthos hath come to him because the fruit that his soul bare was
true, neither delighteth he in deceits within his heart, such as by
whisperer's arts ever wait upon mortal man.

An overpowering evil are the secret speakings of slander, to the
slandered and to the listener thereto alike, and are as foxes in
relentless temper. Yet for the beast whose name is of gain[10] what
great thing is gained thereby? For like the cork above the net, while
the rest of the tackle laboureth deep in the sea, I am unmerged in the
brine.