to earth their sacred implements, Lycurgus the man-slayer beating them With an ox-driver’s goad. Then Bacchus fled And plunged into the sea, where Thetis hid The trembler in her bosom, for he shook With panic at the hero’s angry threats. Thenceforward were the blessed deities Wroth with Lycurgus. Him did Saturn’s son Strike blind, and after that he lived not long, For he was held in hate by all the gods. So will I never with the gods contend. But if thou be indeed of mortal race, And nourished by the fruits of earth, draw near; And quickly shalt thou pass the gates of death.”
Hippolochus’s son, the far-renowned, Made answer thus: “O large-souled Diomed, Why ask my lineage? Like the race of leaves Is that of humankind. Upon the ground The winds strew one year’s leaves; the sprouting grove Puts forth another brood, that shoot and grow In the spring season. So it is with man: One generation grows while one decays. Yet since thou takest heed of things like these, And askest whence I sprang—although to most My birth is not unknown—there is a town Lapped in the pasture-grounds where graze the steeds Of Argos, Ephyra by name, and there Dwelt Sisyphus Aeolides, most shrewd Of men; his son was Glaucus, and the son Of Glaucus was the good Bellerophon, To whom the gods gave beauty and the grace Of winning manners. Proetus sought his death And banished him, for Proetus was the chief Among the Argives; Jupiter had made That people subject to his rule. The wife Of Proetus, nobly-born Anteia, sought With passionate desire his secret love, But failed to entice, with all her blandishments, The virtuous and discreet Bellerophon. Therefore went she to Proetus with a lie—
“ ‘Die, Proetus, thou, or put Bellerophon To death, for he has offered force to me.’
“The monarch hearkened, and was moved to wrath; And then he would not slay him, for his soul Revolted at the deed; he sent him thence To Lycia, with a fatal tablet, sealed, With things of deadly import writ