Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Argonautica
Ancient Greek with an independent metrical English translation
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Facing Pages · Branch 156 of 245
Book III · Lines 1058–1081
Ancient Greek
p. 320The Argonautica: Book III
p. 321like hungry, sharp-toothed dogs that battle over food, they slaughter
one another; you too, hurry straight into the battle,
to charge; thanks to this, you shall bear the Fleece to Hellas
from Aea, far away. Yet go in any case, and travel
where your heart desires to go--wherever you please to journey home.
So she spoke; in silence her eyes fell down before her feet,
and drenched her heavenly cheek with tears that fell warm,
weeping because he must wander very far away from her,
across the sea; she faced the stranger, voice full of sorrow,
she spoke once more and took the stranger by the hand--
his right--for now all shame had fallen away from her eyes:
Remember, if ever you should return once more to your homeland,
the name of Medea; and I, even while you are far distant,
will remember you. Tell me freely: where lie your own houses,
stand, and where will you sail from here across the sea?
Perhaps your journey will bring you near wealthy Orchomenus,
or perhaps near the Aeaean island? Tell me of the maiden,
who she was, that far-renowned girl whose name you uttered--
the child of Pasiphae, my father's own sister by birth.
So she spoke; at her tears a deadly power seized Jason,
Love the Destroyer; straightaway Jason shaped his answer:
Surely I think that neither through night nor ever by daylight
shall I forget your name, escaping from the doom of death, if truly
I flee unharmed to Achaean land, and Aeetes does not
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book III · Lines 1058–1081
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Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Apollonius’s Argonautica follows Jason and the Argonauts from their gathering at Pagasae through the voyage to Colchis and the difficult return home. This exact line-for-line edition pairs the Ancient Greek poem with an independent metrical English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions, preserving one English verse for every Greek reading line across all four books.
Historical Text and Translation
The Greek reading text follows the Perseus transcription derived from George W. Mooney’s 1912 edition, pinned to a stable canonical-greekLit commit. Mooney and LSJ provide the principal controls for Books I–III; Peter Hulse’s Dickinson commentary directly supports Book IV. Deleted records and canonical numbering gaps remain documented rather than being silently repaired. The supplied release identifies itself as a complete source-audited working edition and recommends independent classicist review before print publication.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent translation directly from the Greek. Its six-beat English house form preserves the poem’s source order, imagery, learned names, narrative delays, shifts of register, and line-by-line correspondence while allowing syntax to move across adjacent verses where the Greek requires it.
Rights
Apollonius’s ancient Greek source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos. The pinned Perseus Greek transcription is reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- public-domain-base-witnessPinned Perseus Greek transcription — canonical-greekLit
- print-control-and-commentaryGeorge W. Mooney’s 1912 Argonautica — Internet Archive
- book-four-commentaryApollonius Argonautica, Book IV — Dickinson College Commentaries
- lexical-controlLiddell–Scott–Jones Greek-English Lexicon — Scaife ATLAS
- greek-transcription-licenseCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0