Note 259 — THE SUPPLIANTS
E. H. (Edward Hayes) Plumptre translation
The saying is somewhat dark, but the meaning seems to be that if the “dogs” of Egypt are strong, the “wolves” of Argos are stronger; that the wheat on which the Hellenes lived gave greater strength to limbs and sinew than the “byblos fruit” on which the Egyptian soldiers and sailors habitually lived. Some writers, however, have seen in the last line, rendered—
“The byblos fruit not always bears full ear,”
a proverb like the English,
“There's many a slip
'Twixt the cup and the lip.”