Diotimos Library · Greek Antiquity Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Argonautica
Ancient Greek with an independent metrical English translation
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Facing Pages · Branch 58 of 245
Book II · Lines 1–24
Ancient Greek
p. 122The Argonautica: Book II
p. 123Here stood the stalls for cattle and homestead of Amycus,
the proud king of the Bebrycian people, whom once a nymph
bore as a son to Poseidon Genethlius, sharing his bed--
Melia of Bithynia: the most overweening man alive.
He set this shameful law even on visiting strangers:
no stranger could depart before he tested Amycus
at boxing; many neighboring men he cut to pieces.
And now he came to the ship and scorned the need to question
their voyage's purpose, or who they were, in lawless pride;
but standing close among them all, he spoke these words:
“Hear me, wandering seafarers: learn what you need to know.
No foreign man may set off and journey home again
once he draws near to the Bebrycians--not before
his hands have risen against these very hands of mine.
So choose out now your single best man from the host
and set him here to face me, boxing man to man.
But if, without a care, you trample down my laws,
some stern necessity will seize and bring you grief.”
He spoke in towering pride; fierce anger seized the hearers,
and a shouted threat struck Polydeuces hardest of all.
At once he rose, his comrades' foremost champion, and spoke:
“Hold now! Whoever you boast you are, show us no brutal strength.
Display your strength; we yield to every law proclaimed.
I freely pledge myself, here and now, to face you.”
Socrates
Reading The Argonautica · Book II · Lines 1–24
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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