THE FIRST NEMEAN ODE.
TO CHROMIUS, THE ÆTNÆAN, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE CHARIOT RACE.[1]
ARGUMENT.
The poet begins this ode with an address to Ortygia, an island in the bay of Syracuse, which anciently formed one of the four quarters of that city: with this he connects the praises of the victor, and the celebration of his virtues, particularly his hospitality.—He then digresses to the story of Hercules, from his birth to his apotheosis and marriage with Hebe, with which he concludes the ode.
From noble Syracuse, Ortygia, sprung,
Where breathes again Alpheus' long-lost head,
Sister of Delos, Dian's natal bed,
From thee the sweet-toned hymn is sung,
To praise the steeds whose feet like tempests move,
By favour of Ætnæan Jove.6
Me Chromius' car excites on Nemea's plain
With his proud deeds to join th' encomiastic strain.
- ↑ Chromius, whose victory is here celebrated, was the son of Agesidamus, and married a sister of Gelon. Virgil appears to have imitated this passage, where he describes the situation of Ortygia and the reappearance of Alpheus after his subterranean wanderings at the mouth of the fountain Arethusa, hence called by Pindar αμπνευμα σεμνον Αλφεου, which Cowley translates inaccurately, the first breathing place.
"Sicanio prætenta sinu jacet insula contra
Plemmyrium undosum; nomen dixere priores
Ortygiam. Alpheum fama est huc Elidis amnem
Occultas egisse vias subter mare; qui nunc
Ore, Arethusa, tuo Siculis confunditur undis."
Æn., iii., 692.Ortygia is called the sister of Delos, as having originally been known by the same appellation.
