Şiir 7
Isthmian 7 For Strepsiades of Thebes Pancratium ? 454 B. C. E.
In which of the local glories of the past, divinely blessed Thebe, did you most delight your spirit? Was it when you raised to eminence the one seated beside Demeter of the clashing bronze cymbals, flowing-haired
Dionysus? Or when you received, as a snow-shower of gold in the middle of the night, the greatest of the gods,
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when he stood in the doorway of Amphitryon, and then went in to the wife to beget Heracles? Or did you delight most in the shrewd counsels of Teiresias? Or in the wise horseman Iolaus?
Or in the Sown Men, untiring with the spear? Or when you sent Adrastus back from the mighty war-shout, bereft
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of countless companions, to Argos, home of horses? Or because you stood upright on its feet the Dorian colony of the men of Lacedaemon, and your descendants,
the Aegeids, captured Amyclae according to the Pythian oracles? But since ancient grace sleeps, and mortals are forgetful
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of whatever does not reach the highest bloom of skillful song, joined to glorious streams of words,
then begin the victory procession with a sweet-singing hymn for Strepsiades; for he is the victor in the pancratium at the Isthmus, both awesome in his strength and handsome to look at; and he treats excellence as no worse a possession than beauty.
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He is made radiant by the violet-haired Muses, and he has given a share in his flowering garland to his uncle and namesake,
for whom Ares of the bronze shield mixed the cup of destiny; but honor is laid up as recompense for good men. For let him know clearly, whoever, in this cloud of war, wards off the hailstorm of blood in defense of his dear fatherland
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by bringing destruction to the enemy host, that he is causing the greatest glory to grow for the race of his fellow-citizens,
