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is sent from the holy island Ceos, off the coast of Attica; homeland of Bacchylides and his uncle, the poet Simonides. to your glorious city by your guest-friend, the brilliant servant of Ourania with her golden headband. He wants
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to pour forth his voice from his heart
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to praise Hieron. High above, slicing the deep air with his swift golden wings, the eagle, messenger of loud-thundering, wide-ruling
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Zeus, trusts boldly in his powerful strength, and thin-voiced birds crouch in fear. The peaks of the great earth do not restrain him,
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nor the rough, choppy waves of the untiring sea. In the everlasting void he shifts his delicate wings, riding the gusts of the west wind,
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a conspicuous sight for men.
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So now for me there are countless paths of song leading in every direction, thanks to dark-haired Nike and Ares with his bronze breastplate, to sing of your excellence,
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noble sons of Deinomenes. May the god not tire of doing good. Beside the wide-whirling Alpheus, golden-armed Dawn saw the victory of the chestnut horse Pherenicus, a runner swift as a wind-storm,
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and she saw him win in very holy Pytho. Laying my hand on the earth, I make this declaration: never in any contest has he been fouled by the dust of faster horses
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as he strained toward the finish-line. In force he is like Boreas; obeying his rider, he speeds a new victory and new applause to hospitable Hieron.
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Prosperous is he to whom a god has given a share of fine things, and a rich life to live out with enviable luck. For no man on earth
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was born to be fortunate in everything.
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So it was, they say, that the gate-destroying unconquerable son Heracles. of Zeus of the flashing thunderbolt went down to the halls of slender-ankled Persephone
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to bring up into the light from Hades the razor-toothed dog, Cerberus. son of the fearsome Echidna. There he saw the souls of miserable mortals by the streams of Cocytus,
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like leaves swirled by the wind along the sheep-pasturing headlands of shining Ida. Among them, the shade of Porthaon's bold,
