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She proclaimed their chariot victorious on the high ground of Athens and also in Sicyon at the games of Adrastus, and thus gave them leaves of song, like these, from the singers of their time. Nor did they keep their curved chariot from competing in the general contests; striving against all of Greece, they rejoiced in spending their wealth on their horses.
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Those who attempt nothing face silence and obscurity,
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and fortune remains hidden even to those who contend, until they reach the final goal. For she dispenses from this side and from that, and the skill of weaker men
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can overtake and trip up a stronger man. Indeed, you know of the bloodstained might of Aias, which late at night he pierced by falling on his own sword, thus bringing blame on all the sons of the Greeks who went to Troy.
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But he is honored throughout the world by Homer, who set the record right concerning all his excellence and told it with the staff of his divine words, for posterity to play.
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For if one says something well, that saying goes forth speaking with an immortal voice. And the radiance of fine deeds, forever unquenchable, has crossed the fruitful earth and the sea.
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May we win the favor of the Muses and kindle that torch of song, a worthy garland from the pancratium
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for Melissus, too, the scion of the race of Telesias. For in the toil of conflict he resembles the spirit of loud-roaring lions in boldness, while in wisdom he is like the fox, who forestalls the swoop of the eagle by falling on her back. And it is right to do anything to blot out one’s enemy.
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For Melissus was not allotted the nature of Orion;
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he is negligible to look at, though heavy to grapple with in his strength. And yet once there went from Thebes, Cadmus’ city, a hero short in stature but unflinching in spirit. This hero went to the house of Antaeus in grain-bearing Libya, to keep him from roofing Poseidon’s temple with the skulls of strangers,
