The Odes of Pindar (Penguin ed.)

by Cecil Bowra

  IV

  If a man of Achaia be near

  [65] In his home above the Ionian Sea,

  He will find no fault with me.

  I am host to his city and trust in that.

  Among my own people the look is clear in my eyes.

  I have not overshot the mark; I have thrust

  All violence from my goings.

  May the rest of my days come to me with kindness.

  Any who knows me can tell

  If I come with a song that is harsh and out of tune.

  [70] Sogenes, son of the Euxenid race, I swear

  That I did not step over the tape

  When I shot my quick tongue

  Like a bronze-cheeked javelin

  Which frees neck and thews from the sweat of wrestling

  Before limbs fall into the glaring sunlight.

  [75] Let me be. If in exaltation

  I raised too loud a cry,

  I am not sour about paying a song of joy to the victor.

  To plait garlands is easy. Strike up! The Muse

  Welds together gold and white ivory

  And the lily-flower snatched from the sea’s dew.

  Remember Zeus, and for Nemea

  [80] Swell softly the many-toned range of song.

  On this ground it is right to sing

  With gentle voice of the King of Gods.

  For he, they say, planted the seed of Aiakos

  In his mother’s welcoming womb,

  V

  [85] To rule towns in his own lucky land,

  And to be your loyal friend and brother, Herakles.

  If a man finds delight in a man,

  We can say that neighbour to neighbour,

  Should he love with unfaltering heart,

  Is a joy worth everything.

  If God too gives support to this,

  [90] With you who broke the Giants to help him,

  Sogenes will be glad to live in good fortune

  And nurse a heart kind to his father

  In his ancestors’ rich and holy road.

  As between the yokes of a four-horsed chariot

  He has his home in your precincts

  On either hand as he goes.

  You, Blessed One,

  [95] Must win Hera’s Lord and the bright-eyed Maiden;

  You can often give succour to men

  From the maze of confusion.

  May you link days of enduring strength

  To his youth and happy age,

  And weave them for him in bliss.

  [100] May his children’s children for ever

  Have what today gives and better hereafter.

  My heart shall never say

  That I have savaged Neoptolemos

  With dishonouring words. To plough

  Three times and four the same field

  [105] Is futility, like one idly yapping

  To children of ‘God’s own Korinth’.

  Nemean VII seems to have been written about 467 B.C. A little earlier is Paean VI, of which fragments survive, and which was sung at Delphoi. Pindar had given offence to the Aiginetans by his frank account of their hero Neoptolemos, who had killed Priam and was buried at Delphoi after being killed in a brawl there. Nemean VII combines the theme of the boy’s victory and appropriate sentiments of the relation of song to glory with the theme of Neoptolemos, on which Pindar makes some small concessions but no apology.

  12–16 Song keeps the memory of great doings alive.

  17–30 Song gives some men more than their due (Odysseus) and some less (Aias).

  30 The mention of Troy provides a point of transition to Neoptolemos, who is buried at Delphoi and stays there as a protecting hero.

  35 Pindar substitutes this vague phrase for the explicit statement in the Paean that Neoptolemos ‘killed old Priam, when he flung himself on the altar of the hearth’.

  38–9 Nothing is now said about the unsuccessful character of Neoptolemos’ reign in Molossia.

  42 The death now comes from an unknown man ‘with a knife’ instead of from Apollo. Also the fight is now simply ‘about meats’ instead of over the rights of the priests.

  44 ff. It is part of the divine plan that Neoptolemos should stay after death within the precinct of Apollo.

  49 The witness is Neoptolemos.

  50 ff. Pindar returns to the theme of the victor.

  75 A slight hint of the Neoptolemos theme.

  77 Anyone can compose a song, but not such a song as Pindar composes.

  79 ‘The lily-flower’ is coral.

  83 ff; Herakles and the Aiakidai are praised.

  92 ff. The house of Sogenes lies between two shrines of Herakles, like the pole of a four-horsed chariot between the double yoke.

  102–5 Pindar reverts for the last time to Neoptolemos.

  105 ‘God’s own Korinth’ was a proverbial example of boring repetition, perhaps connected with a children’s game.

  Olympian VII

  For Diagoras of Rhodes, winner in the boxing

  I

  As a man takes in his rich hand a bowl

  Bubbling inside with the wine’s dew,

  And shall give it

  To his daughter’s young bridegroom to pledge him

  From one home to another,

  – All of gold, crown of possessions,

  [5] Joy of the revel, – and honours his bridal,

  And makes him to be envied before his dear ones

  For his wedding in which two hearts are one,

  So I too pass flowing nectar,

  The Muses’ gift, sweet fruit of the heart,

  To men who win prizes,

  And make them glad,

  [10] To winners at Olympia and Pytho. Happy is he

  Who is held in good report.

  Beauty, who gives strength to life,

  Turns her eyes now on this man, now on that,

  With the harp often and the flute’s music in every key.

  With both I have landed

  In Diagoras’ company, chanting

  The sea-maiden, Aphrodita’s child

  And the Sun’s bride, Rhodes,

  [15] That I may praise a straight fighter, a towering man,

  Crowned at Alpheos for his boxing, and at Kastalia,

  And his father Damagetos, who gives pleasure to Right;

  On a three-towned island,

  With the ship’s beak of broad Asia for neighbour,

  They dwell among Argive spears.

  II

  [20] For them I have a message

  And wish to set straight from the start,

  From Tlapolemos, a tale that belongs to all the race

  Of Herakles, whose strength spreads far;

  For on their father’s side they boast themselves

  From Zeus; through their mother,

  Astydameia, they are sons of Amyntor.

  About the wits of men hang faults past number,

  [25] And there is no way to discover

  What now and in the end is best

  For a man to get. For once

  At Tiryns the founder of this land

  In anger slew with a hard olive-staff

  Alkmana’s brother, Likymnios,

  [30] When he came from Midea’s chambers,

  (The heart’s confusions send even a wise man astray.)

  He went to the God and questioned his oracle.

  From his sweet-scented shrine the Golden-Haired

  Told him to sail straight from Lerna’s shore

  To a sea-girt pasturage, where of old

  The great King of the Gods

  Soaked a city in golden snowflakes,

  [35] When, by the craft of Hephaistos

  And his bronze-beaten axe, from the top of her Father’s head

  Athana jumped out, and cried with a monstrous shout,

  And the sky shuddered at her, and Mother Earth.

  III

  Then the God who gives light to men,

  [40] Hy
perion’s child, bade his loved sons

  Look to their coming task, be first to build

  A manifest altar for the Goddess,

  Make holy sacrifices, and rejoice

  The Father’s heart, and the Daughter’s, the lightning-speared.

  (If forethought is honoured,

  It casts prowess and joy among men;

  [45] But past calculation comes a cloud

  Of forgetfulness and drags the straight path of duty

  Away from the mind.)

  They went up without the seed of flaming fire,

  And with sacrifices unburnt

  Made a holy place on the mountain-top.

  Zeus gathered for them a tawny cloud

  [50] And rained much gold, and the Bright-Eyed One gave to them

  Every craft, to surpass earth-dwellers

  In hands most skilful at labour.

  Streets carried their works like to living

  Creatures and walking: and deep was their glory.

  (In skilful hands art is better without guile.)

  [55] The ancient tales of men report

  That when Zeus and the Undying Ones portioned the earth,

  Rhodes was not yet to be seen in the sea’s water,

  But an island was hidden in the salty depths.

  IV

  The Sun was away, and no lot was declared for him;

  They left him without a portion of Earth,

  [60] A God undefiled.

  When he spoke of it, Zeus was for ordering

  A second cast, but the Sun forbade;

  For he said that in the grey sea

  He saw swelling up from the bottom

  A land with much food for men and friendly to flocks.

  Straightway he told gold-veiled Lachesis

  [65] To lift her hands and not betray

  The great oath of the Gods,

  But, with Kronos’ son, to grant

  That, when it was sent to the bright air,

  It should be his special gift henceforward.

  The high words fell out in truth

  And were fulfilled. There grew

  From the sea’s salt brine

  [70] An island. It belongs

  To the father and master of piercing sunbeams,

  The lord of fire-breathing horses.

  There on a day he wedded Rhodes, and begat

  Seven sons, who inherited wisdom

  Beyond all earlier men.

  Of them one begat Kamiros,

  And Ialysos for firstborn,

  [75] And Lindos. They portioned their father’s land

  In three, and kept their separate share of cities,

  And their places are called by their names.

  V

  A sweet requital for his pitiful fortune

  Is set up to Tlapolemos, the captain from Tiryns,

  As to a God,

  [80] And the strong reek of the flocks’ procession,

  And trial in the Games.

  In their flowers Diagoras was twice crowned;

  At the famous Isthmus he was four times fortunate,

  And in this victory after that

  At Nemea, and in hollow Athens.

  The brazen shield at Argos knew him, and the prizes

  In Arkadia and Thebes, and the games

  [85] Of the Boiotian land, and Pellana.

  Six times he won at Aigina, and at Megara

  The stone record holds no other tale.

  Father Zeus, ruler on Atabyrion’s ridges,

  Honour the rite of Olympian victory,

  And a man who has found prowess in boxing.

  Grant him favour and joy

  [90] From citizens and from strangers.

  For he goes straight on a road that hates pride,

  And knows well what a true heart

  From noble fathers has revealed to him.

  Hide not any who shares in the seed of Kallianax.

  When the Eratidai rejoice, the city also

  Is feasting. In a single moment of time

  [95] Many are the winds that blow this way and that.

  Olympian VII was composed in 464 B.C. and performed at Rhodes. In later times the poem was inscribed in golden letters at Lindos. The family of Diagoras was famous both for athletic prowess and for political activity on the anti-democratic side.

  1–10 Pindar compares his song with a pledge made in a golden bowl for a wedding.

  13 This suggests that Pindar himself has come to Rhodes. The nymph, Rhodes, is the child of Aphrodita and the Sun.

  15 Diagoras has won the boxing in the Olympian and the Pythian Games.

  17 The city of Rhodes was not built until the fourth century. The three ancient cities were Kamiros, Ialysos, and Lindos.

  19 The first colonists came from Argos with Tlapolemos.

  20–38 The first myth – Tlapolemos and the founding of Rhodes. It illustrates how a wrong action can yet lead to a good result.

  27 We do not know why Tlapolemos struck Likymnios.

  34 The golden rain on Rhodes is an expansion of a line of Homer, Iliad II, 670.

  35–8 Pindar makes this coincide with the birth of Athana from the head of Zeus, as depicted on the eastern pediment of the Parthenon.

  45 ff. The second myth – the inauguration of fireless sacrifices on Mount Atabyrion. Here too a mistake – forgetfulness – leads to a happy conclusion. The Bright-Eyed one is Athana.

  52 ff. Pindar refers to the early Rhodian artists. He does not mention by name the Telchines, because they had a name for undue cunning, but suggests an improved version of them.

  54–69 The birth of Rhodes from the sea. Here too a mistake leads to a good result.

  71 ff. Grandsons of the Sun and Rhodes are the three eponymous heroes of the Rhodian cities Kamiros, Ialysos, and Lindos.

  81–7 The athletic victories of Diagoras.

  93 The Eratidai, to whom Diagoras belongs, are descended from Kallianax, a Heraklid.

  94–5 It is tempting to see some political reference in these last lines, but the metaphor is common in Pindar and may refer to no more than the sudden emergence into fame of Diagoras and his family.

  Olympian XIII

  For Xenophon of Korinth, winner in the foot-race and the five events

  I

  Three times an Olympian victor

  Is the house I shall praise,

  Gentle to townsmen, of service to strangers.

  I shall come to know fortunate Korinth,

  [5] Poseidon’s porch on the Isthmos,

  Glorious in its young men.

  There Lawfulness dwells, and her sisters,

  Safe foundation of cities,

  Justice, and Peace, who was bred with her;

  They dispense wealth to men,

  Golden daughters of wise-counselling Right.

  They wish to keep away

  [10] Pride, the bold-spoken mother of Surfeit.

  I have fine things to say, and upstanding courage

  Stirs my tongue to speak.

  (The way of the blood is hard to fight or to hide.)

  Many times, sons of Alatas,

  Has the brightness of victory been given to you

  [15] From men who surpass on the heights of success

  In the holy Games,

  And many wise devices of old

  Were set in the hearts of men

  By the flower-laden Hours.

  Each thing belongs to its finder.

  Whence came the delights of Dionysos

  [20] With the ox-driving Dithyramb?

  Who added the bridle to horses’ harness?

  Or the king of birds

  Fore and aft on the God’s temples?

  There the Muse breathes sweetly; there Ares flowers

  Among young men’s deadly spears.

  II

  O mightiest One, ruler afar of Olympia,

  [25] Be not grudging to our prayers

  For the whole of time, father Zeus.

  Guide th
is people out of harm

  And give a straight wind to Xenophon’s fortune.

  Welcome from him this rite of crowns and choir,

  Which he brings from the plain of Pisa,

  [30] Victor in the foot-race and the Five Events together;

  He has won what no mortal man has won before.

  Two wreaths of wild celery crowned him

  When he showed himself

  At the Isthmian Games, and Nemea

  Does not resist him.

  By Alpheos’ stream is dedicated

  [35] The glint of foot of his father Thessalos;

  And at Pytho he has the glory

  Of the foot-race and the double-race in a single sun;

  And in the same moon at hollow Athens

  A day of fast running

  Set three beautiful prizes on his hair,

  [40] And seven the Hellotian Games.

  In Poseidon’s sea-girt festivals

  Too long would songs be to follow

  Terpsias and Eritimos with their father Ptoiodoros.

  For all your triumphs at Delphoi

  And in the Lion’s Grove I strive with many

  In the multitude of your honours.

  [45] Truly I should not know

  How to tell rightly

  The number of stones in the sea.

  III

  – In everything the Mean is right, and to know

  The Moment is best.

  In the convoy of all I sail my own course.

  [50] I shall tell of the counsel of men long ago

  And of war with surpassing heroes,

  Nor lie about Korinth or Sisyphos

  Most cunning in wits like a God,

  And Medeia, who in her father’s despite

  Made a wedding for herself

  And saved the ship Argo and her crew.

  [55] Of old also with valour

  Before Dardanos’ walls they were thought

  To cut short the issue of battle on either side;

  Some with the true breed of Atreus

  Sought to win Helen back, the others

  [60] With might and main to hold them off.

  When Glaukos came from Lykia, the Danaoi

  Trembled at him. He boasted to them

  That his father’s dominion was in Peirana’s city,

  His deep estate and his hall.

  He suffered much about the streams

  In his longing to yoke the snaky Gorgon’s child,