Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Argonautica
Ancient Greek with an independent metrical English translation
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Facing Pages · Branch 215 of 245
Book IV · Lines 1059–1082
Ancient Greek
p. 440The Argonautica: Book IV
p. 441after labor; she soothed all of the earth alike,
but sleep never laid Medea to rest for a moment;
within her breast her anguished heart kept whirling about.
As a diligent woman twists fine thread upon her spindle,
by night, while orphaned children wail round their mother,
for lack of her husband; a tear goes dripping down her cheeks
as she recalled the wretched fate that brought deep sorrow.
Thus Medea's cheeks grew wet; inside her breast
her heart was twisted around, transfixed by sharp-edged pains.
Meanwhile within the palace in the city, just as before,
King Alcinous and his noble wife, much-honored queen,
Arete formed deep counsels for the maiden's fate
in their own bed through the darkness; as a wife embraces
her lawful husband warmly; afterward she spoke these words:
Yes, dear husband, come save the care-laden maiden from
the Colchians, showing favor to the Minyans. Argos stands
near our own island; Haemonian men are near.
Aeetes dwells afar; our people lack all knowledge,
we only hear his name; this sorely stricken maiden,
when she arrived, pierced all my heart with bitter anguish.
Great king, never give her homeward to the Colchians.
Delusion struck when first she gave him magic charms
and drugs for the bulls; then, curing evil with evil near at hand,
as mortals often act in error, she escaped from
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book IV · Lines 1059–1082
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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