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 227 of 245
Book IV · Lines 1347–1370
Ancient Greek
p. 464The Argonautica: Book IV
p. 465Listen, my friends. As I grieved, three goddesses came to me,
girt in goatskins hanging from the summit of each neck
around their backs and waists; their forms resembled young maidens.
They stood extremely close above my head, then uncovered
me, drawing away my cloak with a light hand; they commanded
me to rise, then go myself and rouse the whole assembly,
and pay to our mother a welcome recompense for this labor
for long travail in bearing every hero in her belly,
when Amphitrite at last unyokes the swift, well-wheeled chariot
of mighty lord Poseidon. I cannot fully comprehend
this divine prophecy. Yet they declared their own nature:
heroic guardians, Libya's own divine daughters;
and every trial we ourselves had suffered before now
by land and sea, they claimed to know in every detail.
Across the open space I searched but saw no trace,
but either mist or cloud came between and hid their brightness.
So Jason spoke, and all of the others marveled to hear him.
A mighty portent next came forth among the Minyans.
Out of the sea to the mainland sprang a gigantic horse,
huge in breadth, lifting his neck amid a golden mane;
quickly he shook the streaming sea-brine away from his limbs
and started to run, his feet like the wind. Peleus at once
rejoiced and addressed his companions, all gathered together:
I say that Poseidon's own chariot-team has even now
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book IV · Lines 1347–1370
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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