Songs, lords of the lyre! what God shall we hymn?⁠—what hero’s praises?⁠— + 

What man’s fame publish afar? + 

Pisa doth Zeus own; Heracles stablished Olympia’s races + 

With the regal spoils of his war; + 

Theron, who honours the guest, whose four steeds raced victorious, + 

Akragas’ stay, let us chant, full flower of an ancestry glorious, + 

His city’s saviour-star. + 

Toils bravely his fathers endured, and a hallowed home by the river + 

They reared: they were Sicily’s eye. + 

And to crown their inborn worth, Fair Fortune attended them, giver + 

Of wealth and of dignity. + 

Son of Kronos and Rhea, enthroned in Olympus, thou lord of the choicest + 

Of contests by Alpheus’ ford, guard, since in our song thou rejoicest, + 

For their sons ever graciously + 

Their fatherland-soil! When for right or for wrong hath been woven the tissue + 

Of our deeds, not Time the father of all can reverse the issue. + 

Yet oblivion may come of the past + 

With the dawn of a happier day; for overmastered and slain + 

By the sunlight of happiness oft is memory’s rankling pain, + 

When broad and high at the last + 

Prosperity grows by the fiat of God. Yea, of Kadmus’ daughters + 

This thing I have said proved true:⁠— + 

Sore anguish they suffered, yet mightier blessings from out the waters + 

Of affliction the stricken ones drew. + 

Mid thunder-crash Semele perished, yet lives in the heavenly star-land; + 

And Pallas and Zeus and her son, who is crowned with the ivy-garland, + 

Enfold her with love ever new. + 

With the Sea-maids, the daughters of Nereus, to Ino a life unending + 

In the deep is ordained for aye. + 

But to mortals no date is appointed whereon death’s bolt descending + 

Shall smite; nor can any man say + 

When one day, child of the sun, shall in calm peace close with unbroken + 

Blessing. With sorrow and joy run life’s streams, giving no token + 

How their mutable courses will stray. + 

So Destiny, she who the line of the fathers of Theron hath guided + 

To happiness, yet for their god-given bliss hath also provided + 

In its season a bitter reverse, + 

Since the hour when met in his journeying Laïus was, and killed + 

By his doom-driven son, and the word that from Pytho went forth was fulfilled, + 

The old-time prophecy-curse. + 

Swift Erinys beheld it, and slew by hands with a brother’s blood gory + 

His warrior sons. When died + 

Polyneikes, Thersander was left to win in a new war glory, + 

The Adrastids’ saviour and pride. + 

From him these trace their descent; and the son of a prince most meetly + 

With all praises of song triumphant and lyres outpealing sweetly + 

This day shall be magnified. + 

Olympia’s guerdon he won, and at Pytho and Isthmus the Graces, + 

Who his kindred have evermore blessed, + 

Brought to his brother the crowns of the twelve-course four-horse races. + 

Ay, triumph to pain bringeth rest. + 

Riches with nobleness graced of many things bring fruition, + 

And they kindle the deep-glowing fire of the huntress of honour, Ambition, + 

Within their possessor’s breast, + 

A lodestar that beacons afar, by whose light men steer most surely, + 

If he who doth hold by it knoweth what shall be⁠—that they which impurely + 

Here lived, shall when they have died + 

Suffer the penalty: sins that in Zeus’s realm of light + 

Were committed shall One judge there in the underworld Kingdom of Night, + 

And their awful doom shall decide. + 

But through sunlitten nights and days a life of bliss untoiling + 

Is ordained for the righteous-souled. + 

No more for a meagre pittance they labour the land sore moiling, + 

Nor on stormy seas are they rolled; + 

But with them that be honoured of Gods, who had pleasure in leal oathkeeping, + 

They have joy of a tearless life, while the wicked are endlessly reaping + 

Sin-harvests too dread to behold. + 

But they that through those three lives have endured, their spirits refraining + 

From sin upon each side death, + 

These traverse the pathway of Zeus, to the Tower of Kronos attaining, + 

Where the breezes of Ocean breathe + 

Round the Isles of the Blest, where flowers all-golden like flames are glowing, + 

Which are drooping from trees of splendour, or float on the flood soft-flowing; + 

And their heads and their hands they enwreathe, + 

As it standeth by just Rhadamanthus decreed, the eternal assessor + 

Of Kronos the husband of Rhea, of her who is throned possessor + 

Of dominion the universe o’er. + 

And Peleus and Kadmus are numbered amidst the glorified there; + 

And the heart of Zeus by Thetis’ petition was swayed, that she bare + 

Achilles to that blest shore, + 

Him who slew the invincible Hector, and Troy’s strong pillar did shiver, + 

And of whom was Kyknus slain + 

And the Dawn-queen’s Aethiop son. Many swift shafts lie in my quiver; + 

To the wise is their meaning plain; + 

For the common herd need they interpreters. Who is by nature discerning + 

Is the poet inspired; but the vehement babblers of other men’s learning + 

Croak vanity⁠—crows be the twain!⁠— + 

At the hallowed eagle of Zeus! O my soul, on the bow be thou aiming⁠— + 

And at whom in all love wilt thou speed + 

The renown-giving arrow? To Akragas send thou it, boldly proclaiming⁠— + 

Bidding Truth of thine oath take heed⁠— + 

That through years five-score no city on earth hath been known to rear on + 

Her breast any son more kindly in spirit to friends than Theron, + 

None of more liberal deed. + 

Yet praise is by spite ever dogged, wherein never is justice abiding, + 

But from grasping envy it springs; with its slanders it fain would be hiding + 

In darkness the good deeds done + 

By the noble of heart. But, as no man can number the great sea’s sands, + 

So the joys on his fellow-men showered by Theron with lavish hands, + 

Who telleth the tale of them? None! + 