Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Argonautica
Ancient Greek with an independent metrical English translation
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Ancient Greek Page · Branch 195 of 245
Book IV · Lines 579–602
Ancient Greek
p. 400The Argonautica: Book IV
p. 401she raised opposing gales, which caught and carried them backward
once more to the rocky island of Electris. Suddenly,
as they sped midway, it cried aloud in a human voice,
the speaking timber of the hollow ship, which through the middle
of the prow Athena fitted, hewn from a Dodonian oak.
Midway, dread seized each hero as they listened
to that voice and Zeus's heavy wrath: they would not escape
the long sea's pathways or the fury of harsh storms
unless Circe should wash away Apsyrtus' pitiless murder;
and ordered both Polydeuces and Castor to pray fervently
to deathless gods, so all might journey safely on
across Ausonian waters, there to discover Circe,
the deathless daughter born of Perse and the radiant Sun.
Thus Argo cried through the darkness; then the sons of Tyndareus
sprang up together and raised their hands to the deathless gods,
praying all the rites; dejection gripped the rest,
Minyan heroes, while Argo sped far onward
driven by sails, she entered Eridanus' innermost stream,
where once Phaethon, struck in the breast by a smoking thunderbolt,
half burned, fell from the chariot of the radiant Sun
into the outflow of a lake of many depths; even now
it sends up heavy vapor from the still-smoldering wound.
No bird can cross that water upon its weightless wings,
but midway, fluttering in flight, the bird falls headlong
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book IV · Lines 579–602
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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