The Odes of Pindar (Penguin ed.)

by Cecil Bowra

  No slur on the inborn worth of men.

  [15] You know the ancient renown

  Of Kleonymos in chariots.

  On their mother’s side they are kin

  To the Labdakidai

  And walked through wealth

  In their labour for four-horse teams.

  But Time with its rolling days

  Changes now this, now that.

  Truly the sons of Gods are not to be wounded.

  IV

  I

  By grace of the gods

  I have an endless path

  On every side; for you, Melissos, in the Isthmian Games

  Have revealed to me abundant means

  To pursue in song the prowess of your race.

  In it the sons of Kleonymos

  [5] Have always flowered; a God helps them

  As they come to the mortal end of life.

  Many are the different winds

  That rush down and drive all men.

  From the beginning they were honoured

  And told of at Thebes;

  They were hosts to the dwellers around

  And lacked loud-mouthed insolence.

  [10] All the testimonies of boundless glory

  Of the dead and the living

  That blow among men

  They have clasped to perfection.

  By uttermost works of manhood

  From home they grip the Pillars of Herakles

  They yearn not for further prowess beyond that.

  They became breeders of horses

  And delighted brazen Ares.

  [15] But on a single day

  A happy hearth was robbed

  Of four men by the rude snow-storm of war.

  But now again, after the winter’s murk,

  The patterned earth has burst into blossom

  [20] With scarlet roses,

  II

  By the Gods’ designs. The Mover of Earth,

  Who dwells in Onchestos and the bridge of the sea

  Before the walls of Korinth,

  Gave this wonderful hymn to their race

  And awakes from its bed their ancient renown

  [25] For glorious doings. It fell asleep,

  But it stirs again

  And is bright on the body

  As the star of Dawn shines out among other stars.

  It heralded their chariot-victory

  In the fields of Athens;

  And in the Games of Adrastos at Sikyon

  It gave leaves of song, like mine, from men of those days,

  [30] Nor did they keep their curving car away

  From the festivals where all men go,

  But strove against all the Hellenes

  And rejoiced in the cost of horses.

  – Those who make no trial

  Win silences that know them not.

  Even for men who struggle Fortune

  Stays undiscerned

  Until they come to the lofty end;

  [35] She gives of this and of that.

  The craft of worse men

  Catches the better man and sends him sprawling. You know

  Of the valour of Aias. He ripped it in blood

  On his own sword late at night,

  And brings reproach to all sons of the Hellenes

  [40] Who went to Troy.

  III

  But Homer has done him

  Honour among men; for he set straight

  All his prowess, and to his wand of celestial words

  Told of it, to the delight of men to come.

  For this goes forth undying in speech

  [45] If a man says a thing well.

  Over the fruitful earth and across the sea

  The sunbeam of fine doings has gone

  Unquenchable for ever.

  May we find the Muses in friendly mood, to kindle

  That beacon-flame of songs for Melissos also,

  A garland worthy of the Trial of Strength,

  For the scion of Telesiadas. In struggle, at heart he is like

  [50] The daring of savage, loud-bellowing lions,

  And in cunning a vixen,

  Who hurls herself on her back

  And withstands the eagle’s swoop.

  (A man must do everything

  To wipe out his adversary.)

  He had not the build of Orion,

  But though he was poor to look at,

  [55] He was heavy to meet in encounter.

  Once indeed to the house of Antaios from Kadmeian Thebes

  Came a man short of stature, but in spirit

  Unbreakable, to corn-bearing Libya

  To wrestle with him,

  That he might stop him from roofing

  [60] Poseidon’s shrine with the skulls of strangers,

  IV

  The son of Alkmana. He came to Olympos,

  After he had sought out

  The deep-edged hollow of every land

  And the grey sea, and tamed the Strait for sailing.

  Now he dwells at the side of the Aegis-holder

  [65] In bliss most beautiful.

  The Undying Ones have honoured him

  As one whom they love, and Youth is his bride;

  He dwells, a prince, in golden halls,

  And Hera is his wife’s mother.

  To him above the Alektran gates

  We citizens prepare a feast

  And a newly built crown of altars.

  We offer burnt sacrifice

  For the death of eight bronze-clad sons,

  [70] Whom Kreon’s daughter, Megara, bore to him.

  In their honour when the daylight sinks

  A flame rises and flares all night long,

  Lashing the air with the smoke of sacrifice.

  On the second day takes place

  The decision of the yearly Games,

  And strength gets to work. In them,

  [75] His head white with myrtle flowers,

  This man has made known his two victories,

  And a third before them among boys.

  He has listened to the rich counsel and wisdom

  Of the helmsman who guides the tiller.

  With Orseas I shall sing of him in triumph

  [80] And scatter my grace and delight.

  Isthmian IV was written, probably in 476 B.C., to celebrate the victory of Melissos in the chariot-race at the Isthmos. Soon afterwards he won the chariot-race at Thebes, and Pindar wrote Isthmian III and prefixed it to the other poem. This would be just before Pindar’s departure for Sicily.

  III. 9–10 Pindar refers to both victories won by Melissos.

  12 The Nemean Games were held in the place where Herakles was thought to have killed the Nemean lion.

  15 Kleonymos was an ancestor who won the chariot-race.

  19 The sons of Gods may be wounded physically, but nothing affects their spirit.

  IV. 12 The Pillars of Herakles, the present Straits of Gibraltar, marked the end of the known world and so, figuratively, of possible experience and effort.

  16–18 Four members of the family have been killed in battle on a single day, presumably at Plataia, where the Thebans fought on the Persian side.

  21 ‘The bridge of the sea’ is on the Isthmus of Korinth, where the Isthmian Games were held. Onchestos was on the south edge of Lake Kopais in Boiotia; the modern name is Dimini.

  28 Adrastos was thought to have founded the Games at Sikyon.

  37 ff. Aias, by killing himself, brings dishonour to the Greeks at Troy, but Homer, by his generous treatment of him in the Iliad, has done something to restore his name. The story was that he killed himself because he felt dishonoured at not being given the armour of the dead Achilles.

  53 ff. Melissos is short and stocky, and Herakles, much against the usual accounts, is said to be the same.

  56 ff. Antaios was a Giant, who derived his strength from contact with the earth. Herakles lifted him up and so defeated him. He was the son of Poseidon and decorated his father’s
temple with the heads of strangers.

  62 After death Herakles was translated to Olympos.

  67 ff. The song must have been sung at a festival by the Alektran Gates of Thebes, which were connected with the slaughter of his children by Herakles in a fit of madness.

  79 Orseas is the trainer of Melissos.

  Olympian XI

  For Hagesidamos of Western Lokroi, winner in the boys’ boxing

  There is a time when men’s strongest need

  Is for the winds, and a time for the sky’s water,

  The clouds’ showery children.

  If anyone toils and succeeds,

  Sweet voices of song

  [5] Are paid on account for words to come

  And a faithful pledge to surpassing actions.

  Beyond grudging, this praise

  Is laid up for Olympian victors. Such themes

  My tongue loves to tend,

  [10] But it is God who makes a man

  To flower as his wise mind wishes.

  Know now, son of Archestratos,

  Hagesidamos, because of your boxing

  I shall sing a sweet song

  To be a jewel in your crown of golden olive,

  [15] And honour the Western Lokrians’ race.

  Join there in the revel! I shall give my word,

  Muses, that he will not come

  To a host that puts strangers to flight

  Or knows not beautiful things;

  They stand on wisdom’s height and are soldiers.

  – Its inborn ways neither the tawny fox

  [20] Shall change, nor loud-bellowing lions.

  Olympian XI was composed in 476 B.C.and probably sung at Olympia soon after the victory.

  5 This is Pindar’s promise that he will compose a full epinician later for Hagesidamos. This he does, a little later, in Olympian X.

  17 Read μιν, not μέν.

  Olympian I

  For Hieron of Syracuse, winner in the horse-race

  I

  Water is the best thing of all, and gold

  Shines like flaming fire at night,

  More than all a great man’s wealth.

  But if, my heart, you would speak

  Of prizes won in the Games,

  [5] Look no more for another bright star

  By day in the empty sky

  More warming than the sun,

  Nor shall we name any gathering

  Greater than the Olympian.

  The glorious song of it is clothed by the wits of the wise:

  [10] They sing aloud of Kronos’ son,

  When they come to the rich and happy hearth of Hieron,

  Who sways the sceptre of law

  In Sicily’s rich sheep-pasture.

  He gathers the buds of all perfections,

  [15] And his splendour shines in the festal music,

  Like our own merry songs

  When we gather often around that table of friends.

  But take down from its peg the Dorian lute,

  If surely the beauty of Pisa, the beauty of Pherenikos,

  Loaded our hearts with the sweetest thoughts,

  [20] When by Alpheios he raced past,

  Giving his strength in the course, not waiting for the spur,

  And brought to triumph his master,

  The King of Syracuse, the soldier-horseman.

  His fame is bright in the great assembly of men

  Which Lydian Pelops founded:

  [25] – He, with whom the mighty Earth-Shaker Poseidon fell in love,

  When Klotho lifted him out of the cleansing cauldron,

  With his shoulder of ivory, white and fine.

  There are many wonders, and it may be

  Embroidered tales overpass the true account

  And trick men’s talk

  With their enrichment of lies.

  II

  [30] Beauty, who creates

  All sweet delights for men,

  Brings honour at will and makes the false seem true

  Time and again; but the wisest witness of all

  Are the days to come.

  [35] Let a man speak good of the Gods,

  And his blame shall be less.

  Son of Tantalos, in my tale of you

  I shall counter the poets before me.

  When your father called his companions

  To his most innocent banquet, and to Sipylos his home,

  Making the Gods his guests, who had made him theirs,

  [40] Then the bright Trident’s God

  Lost his heart for love of you, and seized you,

  And carried you on his golden mares

  To the high house of wide-worshipped Zeus:

  Where later in time Ganymedes came also

  [45] For the same service to Zeus.

  When you were no more seen and men searched long

  But brought you not home to your mother,

  Then some envious neighbour told the tale in secret,

  That the water bubbled over the fire

  And they sliced you into it

  Limb by limb with a knife.

  [50] Then at the second course of the feast

  They portioned the meat of your body and ate.

  I cannot say, not I,

  That any Blessed God has a gluttonous belly –

  I stand aside.

  Those who speak evil have troubles thick upon them:

  And if the watchers on Olympos

  Ever showed honour to a mortal man,

  [55] Tantalos was he. And yet

  His stomach could not hold such mighty fortune:

  He came to huge mischief,

  – A mighty rock, which the Father hung over him,

  And longing always to cast it from his head,

  He is exiled from delight.

  III

  Without strength he lives, in eternal trouble,

  [60] And has with three torments a fourth, because he stole

  And gave to his companions who drank with him

  The Gods’ nectar and ambrosia

  With which they made him immortal.

  The man who thinks that he will do anything

  And God not see is wrong.

  [65] Therefore the Immortals thrust back his son

  Among men to whom death comes soon;

  And when he came to the sweet flower of his growth

  And down covered his darkening chin,

  He lifted his thoughts to a bridal awaiting him,

  [70] To have far-famed Hippodameia

  From her Pisatan father.

  He went down beside the grey sea

  In the darkness alone,

  And cried to the loud-bellowing Lord of the Trident.

  And the God was with him

  Close beside his feet: and Pelops said:

  [75] ‘If the dear love you had of me, Poseidon,

  Can turn, I pray, to good,

  Keep fast now the brazen spear of Oinomaos,

  And on the swiftest chariots carry me

  To Elis and bring me to victory;

  For he has slain thirteen men that wooed her,

  [80] And puts back the bridal day

  Of his daughter. The danger is great

  And calls not the coward: but of us who must die,

  Why should a man sit in darkness

  And cherish to no end

  An old age without a name,

  Letting go all lovely things?

  For me this ordeal waits: and you,

  [85] Give me the issue I desire.’

  So he spoke, and the prayer he made was not unanswered.

  The God glorified him, and gave him a chariot of gold

  And winged horses that never tired.

  IV

  So he brought down the strength of Oinomaos,

  And the maiden to share his bed.

  She bore him princes,

  Six sons very eager in nobleness.

  And now by the Ford of Alpheos

  [90]
He is drenched in the glorious blood-offerings,

  With a busy tomb beside that altar

  Where strangers throng past number.

  The fame of the Olympiads in the Games of Pelops

  Overlooks the wide earth.

  [95] There a man’s strong prime endures its toils,

  And the victor all his remaining days

  Breathes a delicious and serene air

  When he remembers the Games.

  And yet these good things

  [100] That come with each day as it comes

  Are still the best of all for all men.

  I must crown the victor with the Horsemen’s Tune

  In my Aeolian melody.

  I know well there is no friend of strangers

  Among men alive

  Greater than he, whether in knowledge

  Of all good things or in power,

  [105] For me to enrich in the splendid folds of song.

  God is your guardian, Hieron:

  He charges himself with this, and watches over all your cares,

  And if he desert you not soon,

  I hope to find a sweeter path even

  [110] And to join with a swift chariot in giving you glory,

  When I come along the path that awakens speech,

  To Kronos’ Hill standing in the sun.

  The Muse is nursing for me a javelin

  Marvellously valiant and strong.

  One man is great in this way, another in that,

  But at the peak of all

  Are Kings. Look no farther than this.

  [115] I pray you may walk exalted

  All these days of your life,

  And may I so long keep company with victors,

  A beacon-light of song

  Among the Hellenes everywhere.

  Olympian I was written in 476 B.C. and performed at Syracuse at the court of Hieron in the presence of Pindar.

  1 As water, gold, and the sun are each in their spheres supreme, so in athletics is a victory in the Olympian Games.

  4 Pindar speaks to himself as ‘my heart’.

  17 Pindar again addresses himself.

  18 The horse Pherenikos, which has won the horse-race, had also won in the Pythian Games in 482 and 478 B.C.

  18 Pisa is near Olympia and next to the actual racing-ground.

  24 ff. Pindar prepares the way for his rejection of the myth that Tantalos served up his son Pelops as a dish for the gods, and that Damater ate the shoulder, for which afterwards, when the boy was brought back to life, an ivory shoulder was substituted. This was allegedly to be seen at Olympia. Pindar’s words are as yet ambiguous and fit both the old version and his own revision of it.