6
Now you, her lover, approach, desiring, of course, to get upon the summit with all speed in order to marry her when you get there, and to possess all that she has—the Wealth, the Fame, the Compliments; for by law everything accrues to the husband.
7
Then when you draw near the mountain, at first you despair of climbing it, and the thing seems to you just as AornusA table-mountain captured by Alexander on his way to India, 11 stades high at its lowest point, according to Arrian (Alex. 4, 28). Cunningham identifies it ss Ranigat. Tomaschek considers the Greek name derived from Sanscrit avarana by popular etymology; but compare the Avestan name Upairi-saena (above the eagle). looked to the Macedonians when they observed that it was precipitous on every side, truly far from easy even for a bird to fly over, calling for a Dionysus or a Heracles if it were ever going to be taken.
7
That is how it seems to you at first; and then, after a little, you see two roads. To be more exact, one of them is but a path, narrow, briery, and rough, promising great thirstiness and sweat; Hesiod has been beforehand with us and has already described it very carefully, so that I shall not need to do so.Works and Days, 286-292. The other, however, is level, flowery, and wellwatered, just as I described it a moment ago, not to detain you by saying the same things over and over when you might even now be a speaker.
