Array Anacreon - The Greatest Classics of Ancient Greece

Pindar was really three years younger than Æschylus; yet he seems a generation older than Simônides. His character and habits of thought are all archaic; so is his style. Like most other divisions of Greek literature, the lyric had been working from obscure force to lucidity. It had reached it in Simônides and Bacchylides. Pindar throws us back to Alcman, almost. He is hard even to read; can any one have understood him, sung? He tells us how his sweet song will "sail off from Ægina in the big ships and the little fishing-boats" as they separate homewards after the festival (Nem. v.) . Yet one can scarcely believe that the Dorian fishermen could catch at one hearing much of so difficult a song. Perhaps it was only the tune they took, and the news of the victory. He was proud of his music; and Aristoxenus, the best judge we have, cannot praise it too highly. Even now, though every wreck of the music is lost -- the Messina musical fragment (of Pyth. i.) being spurious -- one feels that the words need singing to make them intelligible. The mere meaning and emotion of Pythian iv. or Olympian ii. -- to take two opposite types -- compel the words into a chant, varying between slow and fast, loud and low. The clause-endings ring like music: παλíγκοτον δαμασΘέν ( Olymp. ii.) is much more than "angry and overborne." The king of the Epeans, when "into the deep channel running deathwards, he watched -- ȉξοισαν ἑàν πóλíγ-- his own city sink" ( Olymp. x. 38), remains in one's mind by the echoing "my own" of the last words; so Pelops praying "by the grey sea-surge --οîος ἐν ὃρøνa+̨, alone in the darkness " -- in Olymp. i.; so that marvellous trumpet-crash in Pyth. iv. ( ant. 5) on the last great word τιμáν. Many lovers of Pindar agree that the things that stay in one's mind, stay not as thoughts, but as music.

Few people care for Pindar now. He is hard in the original -- dialect, connection, state of mind, all are difficult to get into; and readers are wearied by the strange mixture of mules and the new moon and trainers and the Æacidæ. In translations -- despite the great skill of some of them -- he is perhaps more grotesquely naked than any poet; and that, as we saw above, for the usual reason, that he is nothing but a poet. There is little rhetoric, no philosophy, little human interest; only that fine bloom -what he calls ἄωτος -- which comes when the most sensitive language meets the most exquisite thought, and which "not even a god though he worked hard" could keep unhurt in another tongue.

Pindar was little influenced either by the movements of his own time or by previous writers. Stêsichorus and Homer have of course affected him. There are just a few notes that seem echoed from Æschylus: the eruption of Ætna is treated by both; but Pindar seems quite by himself in his splendid description ( Pyth. i.). It is possible that his great line λυ+̑σέ δε Ζεὺς ὴøΘιτος Tιτâνας, is suggested by the Prometheus trilogy, of which it is the great lesson -- "Everlasting Zeus set free the Titans."

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

TO HIERO, KING OF SYRACUSE, VICTOR IN THE SINGLE-HORSE RACE IN THE SEVENTY-THIRD OLYMPIAD.

ARGUMENT.

In this ode Pindar, who, together with other bards, was probably at this time a guest at the royal table, sets forth in a beautiful strain of poetry the glory and superiority of the Olympic contest, in which Hiero has been victorious, to all other games; he then digresses to the history of Pelops, son of Tantalus, who formerly possessed Pisa and Olympia, and is now honoured as a hero within the sacred grove Altis. Returning to his principal subject, he concludes the ode with good wishes for the continued prosperity of the victor.

Note .—The inner number, placed at the end of the several paragraphs, shows the corresponding line of the original.

Water with purest virtue flows; 1And as the fire's resplendent light Dispels the murky gloom of night, The meaner treasures of the mine With undistinguish'd lustre shine ⁠ ⁠Where gold irradiate glows.

Thus too when flames the orb of day

The anxious eye in vain would soar

⁠Along the desert air,

Intently gazing to explore⁠

Another star whose lustre fair

⁠Shines with a warmer ray.

And we will sing in loftiest strain

The contest of Olympia's plain;

Whence, Saturn's mighty son to praise,⁠

Poets the hymn of triumph raise,

To Hiero's festal dome who bend their way. ⁠

The monarch whose supreme command

In Sicily's prolific land

The righteous sceptre sways,⁠

Culling the pride of every flower

That blooms in Virtue's hallow'd bower;

A wreath of highest praise.

While music adds a brighter gem

To gild the regal diadem,⁠

When poets' sportive songs around

His hospitable board resound. ⁠

Then from its lofty station freed

Quickly seize the Dorian lyre,

If Pisa or the victor steed,⁠

Ne'er doom'd beneath the scourge to bleed

The mind with sweetest cares inspire.

When by Alpheus urged, his flight

Exalts his lord with conquering might,

In Syracuse who holds his reign,⁠

And loves the generous horse to train. ⁠

Such too his fame and lustre high

From Lydian Pelops' colony; 2Whom earth-encircling Neptune loved, When from the glowing caldron's round,⁠ His arm with ivory shoulder crown'd, Clotho the newborn youth removed. So much to fabled lore we trace— For wrapp'd in varied falsehood's veil Full oft the legendary tale⁠ Can win to faith the mortal mind, While truth's unvarnish'd maxims fail To leave her stamp behind. ⁠

When from poetic tongue

The honey'd accents fall,⁠

Howe'er from monstrous fiction sprung,

They win their unsuspected way,

And grace disguises all,

Till some far-distant day

Render the dark illusion plain.⁠

Yet not to mortal lips be given

By tales unworthy to profane

The majesty of Heaven. ⁠

Offspring of Tantalus! my strain

A different story shall record;⁠

How to the genial board

Thy father call'd each heavenly guest,

To share the blameless feast,

With grateful hands upon the head

Of his dear Sipylus outspread. 3⁠

'Twas then, by fond desire subdued,

Thy form the trident bearer view'd,

And whirl'd thee on his golden steeds above

To the high palace of immortal Jove;

Where Ganymede in days of yore⁠

The same illustrious office bore. ⁠

But when the long inquiring train

Had sought their absent charge in vain

To his fond mother to restore,

The slanderous whisper circled round⁠

That in the fervid wave profound,

Hewn by the sword, his limbs were cast,

And to the lords of heaven supplied a sweet repast!

But far the impious thought from me

To tax the bless'd with gluttony;⁠

For well I know that pains await

The lips that slanderous tales relate.

If the great gods who on Olympus dwell

High favour e'er on man bestow'd

Above the undistinguish'd crowd,⁠

To Tantalus the lot of honour fell.

But ah! too feeble to digest 4The raptures of the heavenly feast, His haughty soul incensed to ire The might of his immortal sire;⁠ Who o'er his head a massy rock Suspended, 5that with direful shock Threatens to crush him from on high, And scare his proud felicity. ⁠

Thus still in unavailing strife⁠

He drags a weary load of life,

The fourth sad instance of destructive pride 6Whose hand th' ambrosial food convey'd (Which had himself immortal made) ⁠To earthly guests beside.⁠ Then hope not, mortal, e'er to shun The penetrating eye of Heaven; For lo! the rash offender's son Far from the happy haunts is driven To join his kindred shortlived train,⁠ And wander o'er the earth again. ⁠