The Odes of Pindar (Penguin ed.)
Page 15
The Feast of Friends, and the sacrifices, came
To us, who at your banquet,
[80] Apollo Karneios,
Honour the strong-built city of Kyrene,
The city of the bronze-armoured strangers,
Antenor’s sons from Troy.
They came with Helen, after they saw
Their country in smoke
[85] From the God of war.
That was a race of horsemen;
And others, who found them,
Were gentle, offering sacrifices and gifts,
Aristoteles’ men,
Whom he carried in swift ships, cleaving
A deep path in the sea.
He enlarged the groves of the Gods, and made
[90] For Apollo’s processions, which keep his people safe,
A straight hewn way,
Level and paved,
Sounding with the tramp of horses.
And there at the far end of the Market Place
He lies apart in death.
IV
He dwelt in bliss among men: and afterwards, a hero,
[95] The people worshipped him.
Apart, before the Palace,
Are others who have found death,
Holy Kings: their mighty greatness
Is drenched with delicate dew
[100] When the revellers pour libation: and deep
In the earth, their heart listens.
This is their bliss: in this delight their son
Arkesilas shares in his right.
His name in the young men’s song
Let Phoibos of the Gold Sword cry aloud.
[105] Now that from Pytho comes
The sweet of triumph, the ransoming of cost.
This music of delight!
Lo, there is a man whom the wise praise.
I will say what is said:
[110] He pastures a mind and a tongue beyond his youth:
With the long wings of his courage
He is an eagle among the birds:
He is the strength of victory like a wall.
The Muses know him
Winged from his mother’s lap.
[115] He is proved a right charioteer:
He has entered the lists of the noble arts of this land
Boldly. Now God is kind to him
And establishes his power.
And in years to come, you blessed sons of Kronos,
In his acts and his counsels
[120] Grant him the like. Let no stormy wind
Of autumn overwhelm his days.
The great mind of Zeus
Is pilot of the doom of men whom he loves.
I pray Him at Olympia
To add His glory to the House of Battos.
In 462 B.C. Arkesilas IV, king of Kyrene, sent a chariot-team to the Pythian Games, which its driver, Karrhotos, brought to victory. Pythian V was sung at Kyrene probably in the following year. It is not likely that Pindar himself was present.
24 Kyrene is called the garden of Aphrodita because of its fertility.
26 Karrhotos, the charioteer, was a personal friend of Pindar.
39–42 The reins and gear of the chariot are dedicated in a wooden chamber close to a wooden Cretan statue made of a single block and presumably of some antiquity.
45 The son of Alexibios is Karrhotos.
57 Battos, the founder of the royal family at Kyrene, asked the Delphic Oracle how to heal his stammer, and was told to found Kyrene. The lions fled from his stammer in terror.
63 Kyrene was famous for its doctors, which were said to be the best after those of Kroton.
69–73 Through the Aigid clan to which he belongs, Pindar claims kinship with Sparta, Argos, Pylos, and Thera, where the clan has representatives.
80 The Dorian feast of the Karneia is now being celebrated at Kyrene.
82 The earliest colonists of Kyrene were said to be Trojans after the sack of Troy.
87 Aristoteles is another name for the first Battos.
90–93 The song is sung on the paved street of Battos, at the end of which is his tomb.
96 The dead kings hear the song from their tombs.
107–16 Praise of Arkesilas.
121 Read χρόνον.
124 Pindar prays that Arkesilas may win an Olympian victory.
Pythian IV
For Arkesilas of Kyrene, winner in the chariot-race
I
Today, Muse, you must stand by the side of a friend,
By the King of Kyrene, the land of good horses:
And when Arkesilas holds his triumph
Swell the gale of your songs,
Paying your debt to Lato’s Twins, and to Pytho,
[5] Where once, when Apollo was in his land,
The priestess – she who sits by the gold eagles of Zeus –
Ordained Battos a leader of men
Into fruitful Libya.
He must straightway leave his holy island
And build a city
Of charioteers
On a silver breast of the earth.
To bring back the word of Medeia
[10] In the seventeenth generation,
Which at Thera once Aietas’ terrible child
Breathed from immortal lips, the Kolchians’ Queen –
And thus she spoke:
To the seed of Gods, to the sailors of Jason the fighter:
‘Hear, sons of high-hearted men and of Gods!
I tell you, from this wave-beaten land shall go
A stock, and shall beteem the daughter of Epaphos,
And cities shall rise
[15] And the world know it
In the place where Zeus Ammon stands.
Instead of the short-finned dolphins
They shall have swift horses, and reins for oars:
They shall drive the stormfoot chariots.
The Omen, that shall make
[20] Thera mother-city of mighty cities,
Was given, where Lake Tritonis flows to the sea,
To Euphamos once
(A guest-gift from the God in a man’s likeness)
A Clod. Euphamos, alighting from the bows,
Took it, and Father Zeus, the son of Kronos,
Well pleased rang out in thunder.
II
He found us slinging the bronze-jawed anchor
[25] Beside the prow, swift Argo’s bridle.
I had bidden them haul her, our sea-timber, ashore,
And he had borne her from Ocean
Twelve days across earth’s lonely ridges.
Out of his solitudes then
The God appeared
Clothed in the bright shape of a reverend lord:
[30] And friendly words he began,
As a good host when strangers come,
Begins with his offers of supper.
But we spoke of our sweet road home
And could not stay. He told us his name
Eurypylos, son of the undying
Shaker and Holder of Earth.
And he knew our hurry: and there and then
[35] Took a clod in his right hand, fain to offer
What gift he could;
And the hero did not refuse it.
He leaped to the beach, and clasping hand in hand
Took the piece of earth divine, –
But a wave broke,
I hear, and washed it
Overboard into the sea
[40] At evening, and it went with the waters of the deep.
O often I bade the servants we had for our ease
Keep it safe: but their souls forgot.
So now against this isle has been washed
The undying seed of Libya’s wide meadows,
Out of due time.
For had he come home, and cast it
Beside Hell’s mouth in the earth,
Had he come to holy Tainaros, – he
Euphamos, son of Poseidon the captain of horse,
[45] B
orn on Kaphisos’ banks of Europa, Tityos’ child, –
III
Then the blood of his grandsons’ grandsons after him,
With a Danaan host, had taken that wide mainland.
For then, behold!
Men coming from great Lakedaimon,
From the gulf of Argos and from Mykenai!
[50] – But now, he shall lie with foreign women
And get a chosen race: who shall come to this island
(For the Gods will care for them)
And have a son to be lord
Of those dark-clouded plains.
Him one day
In that gold-stored House
Phoibos shall tell in oracles
[55] (When in later days he comes down to the Pythian shrine)
To carry cities in ships
To the land where Neilos dwells, the son of Kronos.’
Medeia’s words filed past: and the godlike heroes
Kept silent and still, and bowed their heads,
Listening to her deep wisdom.
O happy son of Polymnastos!
To you, as was here foretold,
The oracle of the Delphic Bee gave glory
[60] In her unprompted cry,
Bidding you three times ‘Hail!’
Foreshown
Kyrene’s King to be.
(You were asking
About your stammering tongue, might the Gods release you.)
And later in time, even today,
There flowers, as when spring puts out her reddest blossoms,
[65] The eighth generation, Arkesilas.
He has got from Apollo, and from Pytho
A name for chariot-driving
Among the peoples around.
I will offer to the Muses
Him, and the Ram’s Fleece of Gold.
For the Minyai sailed to find it; and from that root
Sprang up the honours of the house
About whose goings is God.
IV
[70] What was the beginning of their voyage?
And what danger held them in strong adamantine bolts?
– It was appointed that Pelias
Must die by the hands of Aiolos’ proud sons
Or their unrelenting counsels.
A prophecy came to him, chilling his wary heart,
Spoken at the midmost navel-stone
Of earth, fair-forested mother:
[75] ‘Let him beware at all costs
The man with one sandal,
When he comes from the steadings in the hills
To the sunny plains of great Iolkos,
Stranger be he or townsman.’ In time he came,
With two spears, a terrible man.
And he wore two kinds of clothing:
[80] The garment of the Magnesian land
Fitted close on his marvellous limbs,
And a leopard-skin over it
Kept off the shivering rains.
His bright locks of hair, not cut and cast away,
Flamed all down his back.
And at once, when he came.
He stood testing his never-flinching heart
[85] Where the people thronged in the main square.
None knew him: yet despite their amazement
Thus spoke one:
‘This is not Apollo, I think,
No, nor Aphrodita’s bronze-charioted lord,
And they say that in bright Naxos
The sons of Iphimedeia died,
Otos, and you, daring lord Ephialtas:
[90] And the swift arrow of Artemis
Caught Tityos, sped from that unconquered quiver,
That a man be fain to choose
Attainable loves’
V
So they spoke
One to another in question and answer.
But then drove up, with his mules and burnished car,
[95] Pelias, in headlong haste.
Amazed at once he stared and knew well
The single sandal on the right foot.
But he hid his fear in his heart, and said:
‘What sort of country do you say is yours, O stranger?
And pray, what gutter-bred wench
Dropped you from her aged womb?
[100] No loathsome, filthy lies, but tell me your race.’
And the other answered without fear and gently:
‘Cheiron I name my master
And men shall see it. I come from the cave,
From Chariklo and Philyra,
The Centaur’s holy daughters who nursed me.
I have brought twenty years to an end, and in them
[105] Have done, nor said, nothing to shame me.
And I have come home
Claiming the ancient honour of my father
(Now against right overruled)
Which Zeus once gave
To Aiolos and his sons.
I am told that Pelias the transgressor
Gave way to his pale heart
[110] And stole this by force
From my parents, who ruled of right.
When the sun first opened my eyes, they feared
That violent prince’s malice:
So they darkened the house and made a keening
As if I had died,
And amongst the wailing of women
Stealthily they sent me away
In swaddling bands of purple,
[115] And Night knew the secret of our road.
So they gave me to Cheiron, Kronos’ son, for nurture.
VI
You have heard the sum of my story.
But where
Is the house of my fathers that rode white horses?
Good citizens, tell me clearly.
I am Aison’s son, a man of the land,
Nor am I come to a strange country
Belonging to others.
By my name Jason the godlike Beast addressed me.’
[120] He spoke; and when he went in, his father’s eyes
Knew him, and tears welled down
From his old eyelids:
For in his soul
He was glad, seeing
His chosen son, the fairest of men.
And his two brothers came to that house
[125] At the fame of the man. From near
Pheras came, leaving the fountain Hypereia,
From Messana Amythaon.
And soon Admatos came and Melampos,
For their hearts yearned to their cousin.
– With due feasting, and words honey-sweet,
Jason their host made pleasant entertainment
[130] And long stretched-out delight, five nights
Without ceasing
And five days
Gathering the great luxurious hours.
But on the sixth day, with sober words
He let his kinsman know all from the beginning:
And they gave him heed.
And he leaped up quickly from his couch, and they with him,
And went to Pelias’ hall
[135] And made haste and stood within.
When the King heard them, himself came forth to them,
The son of Tyro, lovely-haired queen;
And Jason with soft voice, let smooth words fall,
Laying a foundation of wise speech:
‘Son of Poseidon of the Rock,
VII
The hearts of men are perhaps too quick
[140] At choosing a smart advantage rather than right
(Though the next day the taste is wry in the mouth).
But I and you must rule our wrath
And weave our future fortune.
You know as well as I, one womb
Bore Kretheus and Salmoneus hardy in cunning,
From whom in the third generation ourselves sprang,
Who look on the golden strength of the sun.
[145] – The Fates recoil
When men of one blood
Hating each
other, lose sight of shame.
We must not take, you and I,
Swords of biting bronze or javelins
To divide our father’s honours.
The sheep and the tawny herds of oxen
I yield you, and all the fields,
[150] Which you stole from my parents and live on,
Fattening your substance.
Nourish with these your house, it irks me little.
But there is the sceptre of absolute rule,
And the throne on which the son of Kretheus sat
And gave straight judgements
To a people of horsemen.
To spare both of us sorrow
[155] Let me have these;
And no fresh evil come of them!’
– So he spoke: and gently too
Pelias answered him:
‘I will do as you say.
But already the sere end of life attends me
And your youth bursts into flower.
You have power to lay the wrath of those in earth.
[160] Phrixos is calling, that someone redeem his ghost,
And, going to the halls of Aietas, fetch
The thick-piled Fleece
Of the Ram, by whom he was saved of old
From the sea,
VIII
And from the godless knives of his step-mother.
A marvellous dream came and told me of this.
I have asked the oracle of Kastalia:
“Shall I follow this up?”, and he bids me find
At once the crew for a ship.
[165] – Achieve this task, so please you; and I swear
I will let you be sole ruler and king.
Let Him be our strong oath,
Zeus the Witness, the father of both our races.’
So they approved
This covenant:
And these two parted, but as for Jason, already
[170] He was sending messengers everywhere
That a quest was afoot.
– And soon there came, that never tired of battle,
The sons of Zeus Kronidas,
Of Alkmana of the dancing eyelids and of Leda:
And two tall-crested men, the Earth-Shaker’s seed,
In the proudness of valour,
From Pylos and Cape Tainaros:
– Fair was the fame they won,
[175] Euphamos, and you, strong Periklymenos.
From Apollo’s house
The lute-player came,
The father of songs, ever-worshipped Orpheus.
Hermes of the golden wand
Sent his twin sons to that long stretch of labour,
Echion one (O loud exultation of youth),
The other Erytos. Quick came two