country, he charges her to repair to the mansion of Proferpine, and impart to Cleodemus, the father of Afophicus (who from hence appears to have been dead at that time) the happy news of his fon's victory; and fo concludes.

MONOS TROP HAICK.

YE

E powers, o'er all the flowery meads,
Where deep Cephifus rolls his lucid tide,

Allotted to prefide,

And haunt the plains renown'd for beauteous fteeds, Queens of Orchomenus the fair,

And facred guardians of the ancient line

Of Minyas divine,

Hear, O ye Graces, and regard my prayer!
All that 's fweet and pleafing here
Mortals from your hands receive:
Splendor ye and fame confer,

Genius, wit, and beauty give.
Nor, without your shining train,
Ever on th' æthereal plain

In harmonious measures move
The celeftial choirs above;
When the figur'd dance they lead,
Or the nectar'd banquet fpread.
But with thrones immortal grac'd,
And by Pythian Phoebus plac'd,

Ordering

Ordering through the bleft abodes
All the fplendid works of gods,:
Sit the fifters in a ring,

Round the golden-fhafted king :-
And with reverential love

Worshiping th' Olympian throne,,
The majestick brow of Jove
With unfading honours crown.

STROPHE II.

Aglaia, graceful virgin, hear!"
And thou, Euphrofyna, whose ear
Delighted liftens to the warbled ftrain!'
Bright daughters of Olympian Jove,
The best, the greatest power above;
With your illuftrious prefence deign
To grace our choral fong!

Whose notes to victory's glad found
In wanton meafures lightly bound.
Thalia, come along!

Come, tuneful maid! for, lo! my ftring
With meditated skill prepares

In foftly foothing Lydian airs
Afopichus to fing;

Afopichus, whose speed by thee sustain'd
The wreath for his Orchomenus obtain'd.

Go then, fportive Echo, go,

To the fable dome below,

Proferpine's

Proferpine's black dome, repair,

There to Cleodemus bear

Tidings of immortal fame :

Tell, how in the rapid game (O'er Pifa's vale his fon victorious fled; Tell, for thou faw'ft him bear away

The winged honours of the day;

And deck'd with wreaths of fame his youthful heat.

THE

THE FIRST PYTHIAN O D E.

This Ode is infcribed to Hiero of Ætna, King of Syracufe, who, in the Twenty-ninth Pythiad, (which answers to the feventy-eighth Olympiad) gained the victory in the Chariot Race.

:

ARG U M -E N T.

THE Poet, addreffing himself in the first place to his harp, launches cut immediately into a defcription of the wonderful effects produced in heaven by the inchanting harmony of that divine inftrument, when played upon by Apollo, and accompanied by the Mufes these effects, fays he, are to celestial minds delight and rapture; but the contrary to the wicked, who cannot hear, without horror, this heavenly mufick. Having mentioned the wicked, he falls into an account of the punishment of Typhoeus, an impious giant; who, having prefumed to defy Jupiter, was by him caft into Tartarus, and then chained under Mount Etna, whose fiery eruptions he afcribes to this giant, whom he therefore ftiles Vulcanian Monster. The defcription of thefe eruptions of Mount Etna, he clofes with a fhort prayer to Jupiter, who had a temple upon that mountain, and ⚫ from thence paffes to, what indeed is more properly

the fubject of this Ode, the Pythian victory of Hiero. This part of the Poem is connected with what' went before by the means of Ætua, a city built by Hiero,

and

and named after the mountain in whofe neighbourhood it flood. Hiero had ordered himself to be styled of Ætna by the herald who proclaimed his victory in the Pythian Games; from which glorious beginning, fays Pindar, the happy city prefages to herfelf all kinds of glory and felicity for the future. Then addreffing himself to Apollo, the patron of the Pythian Games, he befeeches him to make the citizens of Etna great and happy; all human excellencies being the gifts of heaven. To Hiero, in like manner, he wishes felicity and profperity for the future, not to be difturbed by the return or remembrance of any paft afflictions. The toils indeed and troubles which Hiero had undergone, before he and his brother Gelo obtained the fovereignty of Syracufe, having been crowned with fuccefs, will doubtless, fays Pindar, recur often to his memory with great delight: and then taking notice of the condition of Hiero, who, it feems, being at that time troubled with the ftone, was carried about in the army in a litter, or chariot, he compares him to Philoctetes: this hero, having been wounded in the foot by one of Hercules's arrows, ftaid in Lemnos to get cured of his wound; but it being decreed hy the Fates, that Troy should not be taken without thofe arrows, of which Philoctetes had the poffeffion, the Greeks fetched him from Lemnos, lame and wounded as he was, and carried him to the fiege. As Hiero refembled Philoctetes in one point, may he alfo, adds the Poet, refemble him in another, and re