| Theocritus, Idylls (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry] [word count] [lemma count] [Theoc. Id.]. | ||
| <<Theoc. Id. 24.1 | Theoc. Id. 24.134 (Greek) | >>Theoc. Id. 25.1 |
24.64 The cocks at third crow were carolling the break of day, when he that never lied, the seer Teiresias, was called of Alcmena and all the strange thing told him. And she bade him give answer how it should turn out, and said “Even though the gods devise us ill, I pray you hide it not from me in pity; for not even thus may man escape what the spindle o Fate drives upon him. But enough, son of Eueres; verily I teach the wise.” At that he made note the queen this answer: “Be of good cheer, O seed of Perseus, thou mother of noblest offspring; be of good cheer and lay up in thy heart the best hope of that which is to come. For I swear to you by the dear sweet light that is so long gone from my eyes, many the Achaean women that as they card the soft wool about their knees at even, shall sing hereafter of the name of Alcmena, and the dames of Argos shall do her honour of worship. So mighty a man shall in this your son rise to the star-laden heavens, to wit a Hero broad of breast, that shall surpass all flesh, be they man or be they beast. And ‘tis decreed that having accomplished labours twelve, albeit all his mortal part shall fall to a pyre of Trachis, he shall go to dwell with Zeus, and shall be called in his marriage a son of the Immortals, even of them who despatched those venomous beasts of the earth to make an end of him in his cradle. note But now, my lady, let there be fire ready for thee beneath the embers, and prepare ye dry sticks of bramble, brier, or thorn, or else of the wind-fallen twigs of the wild pear-tree; and with that fuel of wild wood consume thou this pair of serpents at midnight, even at the hour they chose themselves for to slay thy son. And betimes in the morning let one of thy handmaids gather up the dust of the fire and take it to the river-cliff, and cast it, every whit and very carefully, out upon the river to be beyond your borders; and on her homeward way look she never behind her: next, for the cleansing of your house, first burn ye therein sulphur pure, and then sprinkle about it with a wool-wound branch innocent water mingled, as the custom is, with salt: and for an end offer ye a boar pig to Zeus pre-eminent, that so ye may ever remain pre-eminent above your enemies.”
24.101 So spake Teiresias, and despite the weight of his many years, pushed back the ivory chair and was gone.
24.103 And Heracles, called now the son of Amphitryon of Argos, waxed under his mother’s eye like sapling set in a vineyard. Letters learned he of a sleepless guardian, a Hero, son of Apollo, aged Linus; and to bend a bow and shoot arrows at the mark, of one that was born to wealth of great domains, Eurytus; and he that made of him a singer and shaped his hand to the box-wood lyre, was Eumolpus, the son of Philammon. Aye, and all the tricks and falls both of the cross-buttockers of Argos, and of boxers skilly with the hand-strap, and eke all the cunning inventions of the catch-as-catch-can men that roll upon the ground, all these learnt he at the feet of a son of Hermes, Harpalycus of Phanotè, who no man could abide confidently in the ring even so much as to look upon him from aloof, so dread and horrible was the frown that sat on his grim visage.
24.119 But to drive horses in a chariot and guide the nave of his wheel safely about the turnpost, that did Amphitryon in all kindness teach his son himself; for he had carried off a multitude of precious things from swift races in the Argive grazing-land of steeds, and Time alone had loosed the harness from his chariots, seeing he kept them ever unbroken. And how to abide the cut and thrust of the sword or to lunge lance in rest and shield swung over back, how to marshal a company, measure an advancing squadron of the foe, or give the word to a troop of horse – all such lore had he of horseman Castor, when he came an outlaw from Argos, where Tydeus had received the land of horsemen from Adrastus and held all Castor’s estate and his great vineyard. And till such time as age had worn away his youth, Castor had no equal in war among all the demigods.
24.134 While Heracles’ dear mother thus ordered his upbringing, the lad’s bed was made him hard by his father’s, and a lion-skin it was and gave him great delight; for meals, his breakfast was roast flesh, and in his basket he carried a great Dorian loaf such as might surely satisfy a delving man, but after the day’s work he would make his upper sparely and without fire; and for his clothing he wore plain and simple attire that fell but a little below the knee . . .
| Theocritus, Idylls (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry] [word count] [lemma count] [Theoc. Id.]. | ||
| <<Theoc. Id. 24.1 | Theoc. Id. 24.134 (Greek) | >>Theoc. Id. 25.1 |
