IV. 3.

THAT leader of the Syracusan host

With gallies swiftly-rushing them pursued;
And they his onset rued:

When on the Cuman coast

He dash'd their youth in gulphy waves below,
And rescued Greece from heavy servitude.
My strain might grasp the Salaminian day
When Athens fray'd the Persian foe;
And glory should her act repay:

Let. Sparta tell

How at Citharon's foot the Medians fell,

And cast their crooked bows away:

But first my harp should sound the lay
On the banks of Himera's stream,

Whose waters limpid flow:

Dinomenes' brave sons absorb my theme,

Whose valour quell'd the Punic foe.

THE seasonable speech

V. 1.

Grasping in narrow space the sum of things,

Draws less the biting obloquy

Of man's invidious tongue;

But swoln satiety

Fastidious loathing brings,

The hearer's thoughts quick soar beyond its reach:

And fame sheds secret gall

In citizens with envy stung

At others' noble deeds:

Yet better envy, than the tear let fall
By pity, o'er the ills corruption breeds:

Then pass not virtue by;

In steady justice bold

The nation's rudder hold;

Govern'd and guided still;

And shape thy tongue and will

On the forge of verity.

V. 2.

THE lightest word that falls from thee, oh king!

Becomes a mighty and momentous thing:

O'er many placed as arbiter on high,

Many thy goings watchful see;

Thy ways on every side

A host of faithful witnesses descry:

Then let thy liberal temper be thy guide:

If ever to thine ear

Fame's softest whisper yet was dear,

Stint not thy bounty's flowing tide;

Stand at the helm of state: full to the gale
Spread thy wind-gathering sail.

Friend! let not plausive avarice spread

Its lures, to tempt thee from the path of fame:

For know, the glory of a name

Follows the mighty dead.

V. 3.

PRAISE lights the beaten road

Which the departed trod,

And gilds the speaker's tongue, the poet's lays:

Not Cræsus' virtue mild decays;

But hateful Fame shall ever cling

To Phalaris, him merciless of mind,

Who in the brazen bull's rebellowing void

Burn'd with the flame his kind:

Never for him the social roof shall ring

With sound of harps in descant sweet;

Ne'er has his name employ'd

The tongues of boys, that prattling tales repeat:

The virtuous deed

Is honour's highest meed:

That deed's recorded fame

Next touches with delight the human ear:

The man that thus shall act and hear,

May the crown of glory claim.

Onomacritus.

ONOMACRITUS.

UNDER THE NAME OF ORPHEUS.

Bef. Ch. 516.

THE ARGONAUTICS.

HYMNS.

LITHICS: OR POEMS ON THE VIRTUES OF STONES.

English Translators (of the Hymns and Fragments):
DODD, TAYLOR, POLWHELE.

ONOMACRITUS was a priest and soothsayer of Athens. He professed to be in possession of certain oracular verses of the poet Museus; which he dispensed to the people for a pecuniary emolument. He was in high favour with Hipparchus: but, being charged by Lasus, a poet and philosopher of Hermione, with issuing forged oracles, he