Pindar

“ In Pindar, passing from Ibycus and Anacreon, we ascend at once into a purer and more healthful atmosphere, fraught, indeed, with passion and pregnant with storm, but no longer simply sensual. Taken as a whole, the Odes of Pindar, composed for the most part in the honour of young men and boys, both beautiful and strong, are the work of a great moralist as well as a great artist. ”

“ Practically, then, our evidence for the facts of Pindar's life consists of four biographies, compiled fully fourteen hundred years after the poet's death, and forming the latest links in a chain of tradition which cannot be traced beyond the school of Aristotle. It is impossible to accept such evidence without hesitation; but we have, in fact, no other. At least we may receive it as evidence, if not to the actual facts of Pindar's life, yet to the general impression produced by that life on the minds of succeeding generations. ”

“ Any one who attempts to render Pindar, with tolerable closeness, into readable English, will soon find that he has undertaken an extremely difficult, not to say a formidable task. It would be hard to conceive any two forms of literature more widely different than the chivalrous, sententious, highly florid style of the Greek lyric poet, and the average prose-writings of our own times and country. If we try to translate a dozen lines of Pindar very literally, and word for word, we shall too often obtain a result that reads very like downright nonsense. ”

“ We might naturally have supposed that the contemporaries who cherished so proudly and so fondly the fame of Pindar, would have been careful to preserve and transmit to posterity a full and trustworthy record of his life. And, in fact, we possess at least four professed biographies of the poet, agreeing fairly even in their minuter details, and appearing at first sight to supply materials for a tolerably exhaustive and consistent memoir. ”

“ In short, a modern Pindaric writer compared with Pindar is like a sister among the Camisars compared with Virgil’s Sibyl; there is the distortion, grimace, and outward figure, but nothing of that divine impulse which raises the mind above itself, and makes the sounds more than human. ”

“ Pindar begins this ode with the praises of the victor, with which he combines the expression of his good wishes.—Digresses to the fabulous story of Telamon and his son Ajax; for whom Hercules had offered up his prayers and consulted the auguries.—Concludes with celebrating the triumphs of his relations and townsmen of the same tribe.
⁠As at the hospitable board
⁠With flourishing profusion stored,
⁠We mix the second cup of lays
⁠To Lampo's valiant offspring's praise;
⁠In Nemea's field the first best crown ⁠5
⁠Received, oh Jove! we make thine own. ”

“ Pindar was of a noble family, of the house of the Aigeidai, and it is probable that his kinsmen, or some of them, may have taken the side of oligarchy in the often recurring dissensions at Thebes, but of this we know nothing certain. He himself seems to have taken no part in politics. When he speaks on the subject in his odes it is not with the voice of a partizan. An ochlocracy is hateful to him, but if he shows himself an 'aristocrat' it is in the literal and etymological meaning of the word. ”

“ In the Tenth Pythian, Pindar has been saying that a man who is at once a conqueror and the father of a conqueror has attained the summit of human happiness. What matters it, he cries, that there are further heights which he can never scale; that he cannot climb the brazen heaven, or reach the Paradise beyond the pole, the happy country of the Hyperboreans? And then he tells the legend of the hero Perseus, who had foimd the wondrous way to that mysterious region. ”

“ Pindar, however, was not a common mercenary poet, always ready to sing the praises of him whose bread he ate. He received indeed money and presents for his poems, according to the general usage previously introduced by Simonides; yet his poems are the genuine expression of his thoughts and feelings. In his praises of virtue and good fortune, the colours which he employs are not too vivid; nor does he avoid the darker shades of his subject; he often suggests topics of consolation for past and present evil, and sometimes warns and exhorts to avoid future calamity. ”

“ Since I have indulged in one metaphor in the vain attempt to enter into some rapport with Pindar, let me proceed to illustrate the Pindaric influence—the impression produced by a sympathetic study of his odes upon the imagination saturated with all that is peculiar in his gorgeous style—by the deliberate expansion of some similes, which are by no means mere ornaments of rhetoric [Pg 347] , but illustrations carefully selected from the multitude of images forced upon the mind during a detailed perusal of his poetry. One of the common names for Pindar is the Theban Eagle. ”

“ These tales, which are very numerous, and told with admirable spirit, form the most pleasing part of Pindar's works. It must be admitted that they have sometimes the appearance of being as it were dragged in; but the explanation is very simple: the poet's object was to praise not only the victor but his clan, or even his city; and to do this in a manner most pleasing to them he was compelled to dwell on the local or family legends, nearly all of which turn on some supernatural proofs of favour, or on a more or less remote descent from the gods. ”

“ The full moon of the festival made the street as bright [15] as day and the torches of the procession twinkled like jewels in the white light. Pindar walked in the procession chanting a strophe in Dryas’s honour. A chorus of youths followed singing the antistrophe, and behind these a boy played the cymbals upon which the glitter of sound met the lovely glitter of the moonlight.
Leaning out of the window, Theria suddenly exulted. “It is my song Pindar is praising. All those words are for me and it is Pindar, Pindar!” ”

“ The admonitions which Pindar addresses to Hiero are to cultivate a calm serenity of mind, after the cares and toils by which he had founded and extended his empire, and to purify and ennoble by poetry a spirit which had been ruffled by unworthy passions. Even when the skill of the victor is put in the foreground, Pindar in general does not content himself with celebrating this bodily prowess alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which the victor has shown, or which he recommends and extols. ”

“ I think a man may praise Pindar without knowing the top of a Greek letter from the bottom. But I think that if a man is going to abuse Pindar, if he is going to denounce, refute, and utterly expose Pindar, if he is going to show Pindar up as the utter ignoramus and outrageous impostor that he is, then I think it will be just as well perhaps—I think, at any rate, it would do no harm—if he did know a little Greek, and even had read a little Pindar. ”

“ The same defect which we feel more or less present in all poets of antiquity—least of all perhaps in Virgil and Sophokles, but even in them somewhat—a certain want of widely sympathetic tenderness, this is unquestionably present in Pindar. What of this quality may have found expression in his lost poems, especially the Dirges, we can scarcely guess, but in his triumphal odes it hardly appears at all, unless in the touches of tender gracefulness into which he softens when speaking of the young. ”

“ I understand that the page Odes of Pindar is just a list of any works called "Odes of Pindar". With regard to whether Odes of Pindar (Paley) and Odes of Pindar (Turner) are anthologies: in my mind there are two possibilities: The Victory Odes are considered a single work. In that case, there needs to be a Translations page called Victory Odes or Epinika or Odes (Pindar) or something. I assume such a page would be somewhere between what is currently at Portal:Odes of Pindar and what is currently at Author:Pindar#Works. Alternatively, we consider each of the odes to be a separate work. ”

“ Had it been otherwise how passionately pure would Pindar's joy have uttered itself when the 'stone of Tantalos' that hung over the head of Hellas was smitten into dust in that greatest crisis of the fortunes of humanity. He exults nobly as it is, he does all honour to Athens, 'bulwark of Hellas,' but the shame of his own city, his 'mother' Thebes, must have caused him a pang as bitter as a great soul has ever borne. ”

“ Generally, indeed, in extolling both the skill and fortune of the victor, Pindar appears to adhere to the truth as faithfully as he declares himself to do; nor is he ever betrayed into a high flown style of panegyric. A republican dread of incurring the censure of his fellow citizens, as well as an awe of the divine Nemesis, induced him to moderate his praises, and to keep in view the instability of human fortune and the narrow limits of human strength. ”

“ Perhaps the most striking parallel of all is afforded by the fragment of a dirge of Pindar: “For them shineth below the strength of the sun, while in our world it is night, and the space of crimson-flowered meadow before their city is full of the shade of frankincense trees, and of fruits of gold. And some in horses, and in bodily feats, and some in dice, and some in harp-playing have delight ”

“ Pindar hurries over this and the remaining points of the legend at a bound. "Time draws close," he cries—"I must hasten on. I know of a shorter path, and cannot linger on the beaten track!" The serpent was slain, he tells us, "by guile," and forthwith he conducts Jason on his homeward voyage, lingering for a moment to tell how the Argonauts touched at Lemnos, and how there their comrade Euphemus became parent of the princely race that now rules Cyrenè. ”

“ They are addressed, however, not to the victor himself, but to his son Thrasybulus. Pindar dwells warmly on the generous hospitality and kindliness of both father and son, and on the strong affection—honourable to both—which existed between them. In the race which forms the theme of the Sixth Pythian, Thrasybulus seems to have acted as charioteer to his father—and this incident suggests to Pindar the legend of another son who had rendered good service to his father Antilochus, son of the aged Nestor. ”

“ As a poet correctly describes him, using one of the names commonly applied to him,
Pindar, that eagle, mounts the skies,
While virtue leads the noble way.
—PRIOR.
The poems of Pindar were numerous, and comprised triumphal odes, hymns to the gods, pæans, dirges, and songs of various kinds. His triumphal odes alone have come down to us entire; but of some of his other compositions there are a few sublime and beautiful fragments. ”

“ The dark and joyless life of death,
And half—to reign in heaven."— (S.)
"No doubt," says Pindar, "clouded the hero's mind." In an instant his choice was made, and forthwith
"From Castor fell
From eye and tongue the prison-bonds of hell."— (S.)
So ends this charming legend of fraternal affection, and with it the Ode reaches a worthy close.
Among Pindar's more important Odes must be reckoned also the Ninth Olympian, addressed to Epharmostus, a Locrian of Opus in Northern Greece. Pour distinct Greek communities bore the name of Locrians, three in Greece proper and one in Italy. ”

“ The real occasion for the introduction of the myth is the family history of the patron.
Yet again, in the Eleventh Pythian, Pindar has occasion to tell the famous tale of Agamemnon's murder by his wife, probably, as Boeckh argues at length, in connection with a misfortune which had befallen the victor's family. But how does he introduce it? Does he condole plainly with his patron, and pass by obvious steps to compare the present disaster with its legendary parallel? Far from it. Pindar disdains to tread such "beaten paths." ”

“ A tedious list to us, perhaps,—but who can tell what associations it suggested to Pindar's audience?
Then the fair moon rose on the scene, and revelry succeeded to the contests:—
"And straight around rang from each banquet sweet
Such songs as yet the victors greet."
"We too, in our later days, will raise that strain, and sing of Zeus and of victory. Long have we delayed, but our lay will be all the more welcome, when at last from its Theban fount it reaches the Locrian land. Hope deferred only heightens the joy of the aged father when at last the long-expected heir is born. ”

“ And certain obvious merits and characteristics of his poetry were pointed out by every professor of literature in the schools of Greece or Rome, and furnished a supply of materials for a panegyric, which any writer who chose could work up and expand at pleasure. But we find nothing to make us believe that Pindar was widely read among men of average culture among the ancients. When a poet is really popular in any age, the general literature of the age is certain to supply proofs of his popularity. ”

“ A mass of such legend seems to have crystallised round Pindar's name almost m his lifetime, certamly before Chamæleon attempted to write his memoir. And considering that Chamæleon's purpose was probably rather literary than strictly historical, and that his 'Book on Pindar' was only one volume of a series, it is unlikely that in this case he took any special pains to sift his evidence, and distinguish in it the actual from the mythical. ”

“ Pindar, however, has undoubtedly much of that sententious wisdom which began to show itself among the Greeks at the time of the Seven Wise Men, and which formed an important element of elegiac and choral lyric poetry before the time of Pindar. The apophthegms of Pindar sometimes assume the form of general maxims, sometimes of direct admonitions to the victor. At other times, when he wishes to impress some principle of morals or prudence upon the victor, he gives it in the form of an opinion entertained by himself: "I like not to keep much riches hoarded in an inner room ”