The Odyssey of Homer, with the Hymns, Epigrams, and Battle of the Frogs and Mice/Hymns/Hymn 31

by Homer

XXXI. TO CASTOR AND POLLUX.

Sing, Muses, concerning the sons of Jove, the sons of Tyndarus, the glorious children of fair-ancled Leda, both horse-breaking^[1] Castor and blameless Pollux, whom she, beneath the height of the mighty mountain of Taygetus, mingling in love with the dark-clouded son of Saturn, brought forth, her sons, the saviours of men^[2] upon the earth, and of swift-- journeying ships, when the wintry tempests wax violent on the unsoftened sea. But they, making vows from their ships, invoke the sons of mighty Jove with [offerings of] white lambs, having ascended the heights of the poop, which the mighty wind and the billow of the sea have brought below the waves. But they forthwith appear,^[3] flitting through the sky on their swarthy wings. And straightway they appease the eddyings of troubling winds, and smoothly spread the waves and the billows of the white sea for the sailors, fair signs of toil for their sake; but they perceiving it, rejoice, and cease from their grievous toil.^[4] Hail! sons of Tyndarus, mounters of swift steeds: but I will be mindful of you and of another song.

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1. Cf. Il. iii. 237, and Orph. Arg. 950, Κάστορα θ' ἱππόδαμον καὶ πὺξ ἀγαθὸν Πολυδεύκεα. Hor. Od. i. 12, 25,—"puerosque Ledæ Hunc equis, ilium superare pugnis nobilem."
2. Cf. Theocrit. Id. xxii. 6, ἀνθρώπων σωτῆρας ἐπὶ ξυροῦ ἤδη ἐόντων.
3. Theocrit. l. c. 19, sqq. Hor. l. c.:
   "quorum simul alba nautis
   Stella refulsit,
   Defluit saxis agitatus humor,
   Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes,
   Et minax—quod sic voluere, ponto
   Unda recumbit."
   
   
4. But Matthiæ and Hermann read πλόου, and the latter scholar thinks this hymn should end at vs. 15.