Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Argonautica
Ancient Greek with an independent metrical English translation
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Facing Pages · Branch 209 of 245
Book IV · Lines 915–938
Ancient Greek
p. 428The Argonautica: Book IV
p. 429he swam through the purple swell, intent on gaining land,
Wretched man; the Sirens soon had robbed his homecoming
there on the spot, but the goddess who rules over Eryx pitied him,
Cypris, and snatched him up while still in the eddies, then saved him,
and graciously granted Butes a home on Cape Lilybaeum.
The heroes, seized by anguish, left the Sirens behind, while other
dangers more cruel pressed close, destroying ships where the seas meet.
For on one side the smooth sheer rock of Scylla appeared;
on the other, Charybdis gushed upward and ceaselessly roared;
elsewhere the Wandering Rocks beneath an enormous breaker
boomed, at the place where before this the burning flame had spurted
out from the highest crags, above the fire-heated rock,
Smoke dimmed the upper air; sunlight disappeared,
from sight; though Hephaestus' labor now stood still,
the sea still breathed hot vapor upward.
There the Nereid maidens came to meet them from every direction,
Behind them, divine Thetis grasped the rudder blade
to guide Argo among the reefs of the Wandering Rocks.
As fair-weather dolphins swiftly leap up from the sea
and wheel as a herd around a ship that is driving onward,
appearing now before the ship, now far behind,
now alongside; their sight brings joy to watching sailors,
likewise the Nereids rose and wheeled in close ranks
around the ship Argo, while Thetis directed the pathway.
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book IV · Lines 915–938
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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