While thus relenting to the steeds he spoke.
‘Unhappy coursers of immortal strain!
Exempt from age and deathless now in vain;
Did we your race on mortal man bestow
Only, alas! to share in mortal woe?’
Here there is no want either of dignity or rapidity, but all is too artificial. ‘Nor Jove disdained’, for instance, is a very artificial and literary way of rendering Homer’s words and so is, ‘coursers of immortal strain’.
Μυρομένω δ’ ἄρα τώ γε ἰδὼν, ἐλέησε Κρονίων.
And with pity the son of Saturn saw them bewailing,
And he shook his head, and thus addressed his own bosom.
‘Ah, unhappy pair, to Peleus why did we give you,