Togail na Tebe = The Thebiad of Statius : the Irish text

:THE THEBAIDto wit,Arion, the pleasing foreign horse of the high-king Adrastus.Distinguished indeed was the appearance of that horse, to wit,a blue-grey, excellent, thick-shouldered, warlike, prick-eared,quiet, gentle, well-coursed white mare, with a fair bright purplemane, and a tail of equal weight and colour, of the original stockof the horse of Neptune, god of the sea ; for indifferently it couldtraverse sea and land. And it did not deign to let any othermount it save only Adrastus the high-king. And yet he gaveit that day for the fair to Polynices, his son-in-law, saying" Do not strike thy horse often, lad," said he, " but urge others,seeing that is enough of urging for it, and it will course theplain as coursed the horses of the sun, Phaethon's, son of Apollo."And then arose Amphiaraus, the great priest of Greece, for thesame contest, with two beautiful pure-white horses under him,with trappings of the same colour about him, as a sign of hispriesthood, and those horses were of the seed of the horse ofCastor, to wit, Cyllarus. And after that arose Admetus, chief ofThessaly, with bold, swift, well-running mares before him, andthey were beautiful and dappled. And next to those were thetwo sons of Jason son of Aeson, and of Hypsipyle, to wit, Thoasand Euneos ; and alike indeed were the figures of those twainboth as to arms, horses, and garments.After those came thereChromis and Hippodamus. Now Chromis was of the seed ofHercules, son of Amphitryon ;and Hippodamus of the seed ofOenomaus, king of Pisa ; and none of those was urging his horsespast another. And the horses of Diomede, king of the Thracians,were under Chromis, and that is the Diomede that used to givehis guests to his horses that they might kill and eat them, tillHercules arrived as a guest at his house, and Hercules gave(Diomede) himself to them, and they killed him. Hippodamusmoreover had under him the horses of his father, to wit, Oenomaus.It was this Oenomaus who used to impose a horse-raceon every man that came to ask his daughter of him ; and whenhis own horses got the better of them, those people were killedby him forthwith. And the horses were thus. They had a drop147 10—2HO'B ^ fa w** At£iu« (= &Ue i~iu.)fyibJ- 1*jl JUu. Aie&J,