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Literally Translated, with Explanatory Notes, by Theodore Alois Buckley
Page 17
"O friends, leaders and chieftains of the Greeks, do I alone recognize the horses, or do ye also? Different steeds indeed appear to me to be foremost, and there seems a different charioteer; but those [mares] which hitherto were successful, are probably hurt upon the plain somewhere: for surely I first saw them turning round the goal, but now I can no longer see them, although my eyes survey the Trojan plain as I gaze around. Surely the reins have fled the charioteer, and he could not rein well round the goal, and did not succeed in turning. There I imagine he fell out, and at the same time broke his chariot, whilst they (the mares) bolted, when fury seized their mind. But do ye also, standing up, look, for I cannot well distinguish; it appears to me to be an Aetolian hero by birth, and [who] rules amongst the Argives, the son of horse-breaking Tydeus, gallant Diomede."
But him swift Ajax, the son of Oileus, bitterly reproached:
"Idomeneus, why dost thou prate endlessly?[755] Those high-prancing mares run over the vast plain afar. Neither art thou so much the youngest amongst the Greeks, nor do thine eyes see most sharply from thy head: but thou art always prating with words. Nor is it at all necessary for thee to be a prater, for others better than thou are present. For the mares of Eumelus are still[756] foremost, which were so before, and he himself is advancing, holding the reins."
But him the leader of the Cretans, indignant, answered in turn:
"Ajax, best at abuse, reviler, but in all other things thou art inferior to the Greeks, because thy temper is morose; come now, let us stake a tripod[757] or a goblet, and let us both appoint Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, arbiter, which horses are foremost; that paying, thou mayest learn."
[Footnote 755: "[Greek: Paros] implies habit, as in i. 553, particularly in connection with a verb of such import, as in xviii. 425."—Kennedy.]
[Footnote 756: This is implied in [Greek: per].]
[Footnote 757: "Ut supra, xxii. 254, erat [Greek: epidosthai], pro [Greek: dosthai martyras epi tini chremati], sic nunc [Greek: tripodos peridometha] est [Greek: dometha orkon peri trimodos], quem poenae loco daturus erit uter nostrum temere contenderit."—Heyne.]
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