by Cecil Bowra
Which Adrastos spoke
In justice from truthful lips
For the son of Oikleës, Amphiaraos,
When the earth swallowed him and his shining mares.
[15] Then, when the seven pyres of the dead were done,
Talaos’ son spoke such a word in Thebes:
‘I pine for the eye of my army,
Twice excellent,
Prophet and champion with the spear.’
This word holds of a man,
The Syracusan master of the victory-choir.
I am not out to quarrel
Nor over-eager to win,
[20] But I shall swear a mighty oath and witness
This for him truly,
And the honey-tongued Muses will approve.
II
Come, Phintis, now yoke the strong mules for me
Quickly, that in a clean road
We may mount the car and I may come
[25] To a race of true men.
Beyond others these mules know
To lead the way; for they have won
Wreaths at Olympia. Therefore to them
I must fling wide the gates of song
And come in good time today
To the ford of Eurotas and to Pitana.
She wedded, story tells
[30] Kronos’ son, Poseidon,
And bore the violet-haired girl, Evadna.
She hid her maiden travail in her dress,
And in the month of birth she sent servants
And told them to give the child to Eilatidas’ keeping –
He ruled at Phaisana
Over the men of Arkadia,
And had Alpheos for home;
[35] There Apollo cared for her, and first
She touched the delights of Aphrodita.
All that time she hid her child by the god,
But kept not her secret from Aipytos.
With carking care he beat down
Unspeakable wrath in his heart
And went on his way to Pytho
To ask about the sorrows he could not bear.
She laid down her belt of scarlet woof
[40] And her silver pitcher under a blue bush,
And bore a child of godlike spirit. To her
The Golden-Haired sent
The kind-hearted Birth-Goddess and the Fates.
III
From her womb and from the loved travail
Came Iamos straight to the light.
[45] In sharp distress she left him on the ground,
But the Gods planned
That two bright-eyed serpents
Should nurse and feed him
On the innocent poison of bees.
When the King came driving from rocky Pytho,
He questioned all in the house
On the child whom Evadna had borne:
‘The boy is begotten of Phoibos
[50] For sire. He shall surpass all men
In prophecy to dwellers on earth,
And his race shall never fail.’
So spake he, and they swore
They had not seen or heard of the child,
Though he was five days old. He was hidden
In the reeds and the pathless briars,
His delicate body soaked
[55] With gillyflower rays of yellow and deep purple.
Therefore his mother proclaimed
That for all time he should be called
By this undying name.
When he plucked the flower of youth
The delightful, the golden-crowned,
He went down to the middle of Alpheos
And called on Poseidon, the wide ruler,
His grandfather, and on the Archer,
The Watcher of Delos, built by the Gods.
[60] He asked for himself the honour of nursing his people,
At night under the sky.
Clear-toned his father’s words
Spoke in answer and called him:
‘Rise, son, and behind my voice
Come hither to a land which all shall share.’
IV
They came to the steep rock
[65] Of Kronos’ exalted son, who gave him there
A double treasure of prophecy:
‘Now you shall hear a voice that knows not lies,
And when Herakles, the bold deviser, comes,
A holy shoot from Alkaios’ sons,
And founds a feast of many men
For his Father and orders the greatest of Games,
[70] You shall set up an oracle
On the topmost altar of Zeus.’
Since then the breed of Iamos’ sons
Has wide renown among the Hellenes.
Prosperity went with them.
They honour achievement and pass
To a way for all to see.
Their witness is each thing done.
Abuse from envious rivals
Hangs over all
[75] Who drive in first on the twelfth round,
While a holy Grace
Sheds honour and beauty upon them.
If in truth, Hagesias, the men of your mother’s race
Dwelt under Kyllana’s boundaries
And honoured often in humbleness
With many a suppliant sacrifice
The Gods’ Messenger, Hermes,
Who has charge of the Games and the allotting of prizes,
[80] And honours Arkadia and its brave men, he,
Son of Sostratos, with his loud-thundering Father
Brings your good luck to fulfilment.
On my tongue I feel
A sharp whetstone, and all willing
I am dragged towards her with lovely streams of song
By my mother’s mother,
Stymphalian Metopa,
With beautiful flowers.
V
Her daughter was Theba, the driver of horses,
Whose beloved water I shall drink
When I weave my patterned song for fighting men.
Now stir your companions, Aineas,
First to proclaim aloud Hera of the Maidens,
And then to know if in honest truth we are quit
[90] Of the old gibe ‘Boiotian pig’.
For you are a trustworthy messenger,
Cipher-stick of the lovely haired Muses,
Sweet mixing-bowl of loud-sounding songs.
I have told you to remember Syracuse
And Ortygia, which Hieron rules
With a clean sceptre and justice in his heart.
[95] He cares for crimson-footed Damater and for the feast
Of her daughter, the white-horsed lady,
And for the strength of Zeus of Aitna.
The sweet-voiced harps and songs know him.
May coming time not shatter his bliss.
But with that gentleness men love
May he welcome the victory-choir of Hagesias,
When it comes from one home to another,
From the walls of Stymphalos,
[100] Leaving Arkadia’s mother and her fine flocks.
On a winter’s night it is good
To have dropped two anchors from a swift ship. May God
Love them and bestow
Fortune and fame on both races.
King, Lord of the Sea,
Give straight sailing out of trouble,
O husband of golden-spindled Amphitrita,
[105] And swell to fruit the delicious flower of my songs.
Olympian VI was written in 472 B.C. and performed at Pitana in Arkadia by a choir which Pindar had instructed, though he was not present at the performance.
4–7 Hagesias, son of Sostratos, comes from an ancient, founding family at Syracuse, and is also a seer who interprets burnt offerings at Olympia.
12 Hagesias is compared with Amphiaraos for being both a soldier and a seer.
13 When Amphiaraos is swallowed up in the earth before Thebes, Adrastos praises him for hi
s double gifts.
22 Phintis is the charioteer of Hagesias, and drove the victorious mule-car, which is now imagined as driving through the air to Pitana.
29–70 Myth of Iamos, an ancestor of Hagesias, and founder of a famous clan.
29–30 Pitana sleeps with Poseidon and bears the child Evadna.
35 Evadna sleeps with Apollo and has the child Iamos, whose birth is told at length. Her father is Aipytos, son of Elatos.
47 The ‘poison of bees’ is honey. Pindar plays with the verbal echo in Iamos of the word ios meaning ‘poison’, as he does also in 55 with the word for gillyflowers, ia.
58 Second stage of the myth – Iamos and Apollo.
84 ff. Pindar finds a connexion between himself and the victor’s home, because Theba is the child of the Stymphalian Metopa.
88 Aineas is the choir-master.
89 In performing the song he will show that the Boiotians do not deserve their name of ‘pig’ for rural crudity.
91 A cipher-stick was for sending cryptic messages, since the message wrapped round the stick could be read only by someone who had a stick of exactly the same shape.
99 ff. Hagesias has a second home in Syracuse, where he is a friend of Hieron.
Olympian XII
For Ergoteles of Himera, winner in the long foot-race
I beg you, daughter of Zeus the Deliverer,
Watch over Himera’s wide dominion,
Saviour Fortune. At your will
Fast ships are steered on the sea,
[5] And on land stormy wars and assemblies at council.
The hopes of men are now thrown up,
Now down again, as they cleave
The wind-tossed sea of lies.
No man on earth has yet found from the Gods
A certain token of success to come,
But their sight is blinded to what is to be.
[10] Many things fall against men’s reckoning,
Contrary to delight, and others,
After facing the enemy surges,
Exchange in a brief moment
Sorrow for deep joy.
Son of Philanor, in truth like a cock in the yard
The fame of your running would have shed its leaves
[15] Ingloriously by your kinsmen’s hearth,
Had not the quarrel of men with men
Robbed you of your Knossian fatherland.
Now, being crowned at Olympia,
And twice from Pytho, and at the Isthmos,
Ergoteles, you exalt the Nymphs’ hot springs
Dwelling by fields your own.
Olympian XII was written in 470 B.C.
1–2 There had recently been a revolution in Himera, and Pindar prays that things may turn out for the best.
13–16 Ergoteles is by birth a Cretan from Knossos, but civil strife has sent him to Sicily.
19 Himera was famous for its hot springs.
Pythian I
For Hieron of Aitna, winner in the chariot-race
I
O lyre of gold, Apollo’s
Treasure, shared with the violet-wreathed Muses,
The light foot hears you, and the brightness begins:
Your notes compel the singer
When to lead out the dance
The prelude is sounded on your trembling strings.
[5] You quench the warrior Thunderbolt’s everlasting flame:
On the eagle of Zeus the eagle sleeps,
Drooping his swift wings on either side,
The king of birds.
You have poured a cloud on his beak and head,
And darkened his face:
His eyelids are shut with a sweet seal.
He sleeps, his lithe back ripples:
[10] Your quivering song has conquered him.
Even Ares the violent
Leaves aside his harsh and pointed spears
And comforts his heart in drowsiness.
Your shafts enchant the souls even of the Gods
Through the wisdom of Lato’s son
And the deep-bosomed Muses.
And things that Zeus loves not
Hear the voice of the maids of Pieria: they shudder
On earth and in the furious sea.
[15] And he is afraid who lies in the horrors of Hell,
The Gods’ enemy,
Typhos the hundred-headed,
Nursed once in the famed Cilician Cave.
But now above Kyma the foam-fronting heights,
And the land of Sicily, lie
Heavily on his shaggy chest.
The Pillar of Heaven holds him fast,
[20] White Aitna, which all the year round
Suckles its biting snows.
II
Pure founts of unapproachable fire
Belch from its depths.
In the day-time its rivers
Pour forth a glowing stream of smoke:
But in the darkness red flame rolls
And into the deep level sea
Throws the rocks roaring.
[25] And that huge worm
Spouts dreadful fountains of flame –
A marvel and wonder to see it, a marvel even
To hear, from those that are there,
What a monster is held down
Under Aitna’s dark-leaved peaks, and under the plain.
The bed he lies on
Driving furrows up and down his back
Goads him.
Let, O Zeus,
Let thy favour be found, thou that art on
[30] This mount, the brow of a fertile land.
Whose namesake city near
Took her great founder’s glory: the herald declared it
On the course at Pytho, when he cried the name
‘Hieron!’, proud victor
In the chariot-race. – Sea-faring men
Look first for the luck of the wind
To start them outward: they reckon
[35] That promises well for the road home at the end:
So does this happy fortune
Give argument to hope
That this city shall have renown for ever
For wreaths and horses,
And fame in the music of her feasts.
Thou Lykian, thou Lord of Delos,
Phoibos, who lovest
Kastalia, Parnassos’ stream,
[40] Be pleased to have this in thy thought
And enrich the land with men.
III
For the Gods give all the means of mortal greatness.
They grant men skill,
Might of hand and eloquence.
My praise is ripe for One:
I do not mean
To make a No-Throw with the javelin’s bronze cheek
That quivers in my hand,
[45] But with a great cast to outdistance all the field.
Ah! may the rest of time guide him straight
As now, in prosperous and rich possession,
And grant him to forget his troubles.
Then will he remember the wars and the battles,
When his soul endured, and he stood firm,
When in the strength of the Gods his house won glory
More than is reaped by any in Hellas,
[50] A nobleness to crown their wealth.
– But this last time he went to war
Like Philoktetes of old: (enforcement here
Brought even a mighty Lord
To fawn on him for friendship).
For the godlike heroes fetched from Lemnos once
(The tale says), weary with his wound,
The son of Poias, the archer:
Who broke down Priam’s city and ended the Danaans’ toil,
[55] His body weak as he went, yet it was foreordained.
So God be Hieron’s maintainer
In the time that comes, and give him
Enough of his heart’s desire.
Muse, I pray you consent
To sing in the house of
Deinomenes also
The chariot’s due of song:
He too has joy in his father’s victory.
Come, now, let us find a song
[60] Of love for Aitna’s King.
IV
Hieron founded for him this city
In the Gods’ pattern of freedom.
He founded her in the laws
Which the people of Hyllos keep;
A race born of Pamphylos,
Yes, and of the sons of Herakles,
That dwells below the heights of Taygetos,
Has chosen to remain for ever in the Laws of Aigimios
[65] A Dorian people. They prospered and took Amyklai;
From Mount Pindos they came.
Now beside the Tyndaridai, the lord of white horses,
They dwell deep in glory:
The renown of their spears has come to flower.
God the achiever,
I pray that by the waters of Amenas
A fate like this may be set aside for ever
For the men of the city and their princes,
By the truthful speech of men.
With thy help, the man who leads them
[70] (And he shall instruct his son)
Shall give his people honour, and turn them
To peaceful concord. – Grant, I beg,
O son of Kronos, that the Phoenician
And the Tyrrhenians’ war-cry
Keep quiet at home: it has seen what woe to its ships
Came of its pride before Kyma,
And all that befell when the Lord of Syracuse routed them,
Who out of their swift-sailing ships
Cast down their youth in the sea
[75] – The dragger of Hellas from her weight of slavery.
Salamis shall win me
The thanks of the Athenians for payment;
And in Sparta the battles before Kithairon,
For there the Medes gave way with their bended bows:
But by Himera’s well-watered banks
A song composed for Deinomenes’ sons,
That their valour earned
When the hosts of their enemies gave way.
V
Say enough and no more,
And spin in a slender twine
The threads of many tales,
And men shall carp less at your heels.
Tedious Too-much dulls the quick edge of hope:
And words in a city weigh on men’s hidden pride
Worst, when you say good things of another.
[85] Yet, to be envied is better than pitied!
Loose not your hold on beautiful things.
