Olympia 12 - Pindar

Daughter of Zeus who sets free, I beseech you, Fortune,
lady of salvation, guard the wide strength of Himera.
By your power are steered fleet ships on the sea,
sudden wars by land, the gatherings heavy
with counsel. Men's hopes, oft in the air,
downward rock again as they shear a heaving sea of lies.

Never yet has a man who walks upon earth
found from God sure sign of the matter to come.
Perception of future goes blind.
Many things fall counter to judgment, sometimes
against delight, yet others that encountered evil
gales win in a moment depth of grandeur for pain.

Son of Philanor, like a cock that fights at home
by his own hearth, even so the splendour
of your feet might have dropped to obscurity, had not
strife that sets men at odds cost you your homeland, Knossos.
Now, Ergoteles, garlanded at Olympia,
twice at Pytho, at the Isthmos, here at your new home,
Himera, you magnify in fame the Bathing Place of the Nymphs.

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Pindar (c. 522 B.C. - 438 B.C.) Greece
Translated by Richmond Lattimore
Source: Odes of Pindar, selected and translated by Richmond Lattimore, University of Chicago Press, 1947