The Odes of Pindar (Penguin ed.)

by Cecil Bowra

  [180] Who dwelt round the roots of Pangaion:

  For gladly with laughing heart and swiftly

  Their father Boreas, King of Winds,

  Sent Zetes and Kalaïs – men,

  Yet scarlet feathers ruffled upon their backs.

  And in these sons of Gods Hera kindled

  That all-persuading sweet desire

  IX

  [185] For the ship Argo, that none be left behind

  To nurse at his mother’s side a ventureless life,

  But, even though he die,

  Find in his own valour the fairest enchantment

  With others young as he.

  They came to the port of Iolkos, the finest of sailors,

  And Jason marshalled all, and approved them.

  [190] And the seer Mopsos, that watched the Gods’ will for him

  In birds and holy sortilege,

  Bade with good heart

  The host be started.

  They hung the anchor over the prow; and then

  The Captain at the stern

  Held in his hands a gold cup, and called

  On the Father of the Sons of Heaven,

  Zeus, whose spear is the lightning,

  [195] On the swift rushing of the waves, the winds,

  On the nights and the paths of the sea;

  For days of kind weather, and the sweet road home at last.

  From the clouds answered back to him

  The assenting voice of thunder,

  And the lightnings flashed and tore the sky.

  The heroes found fresh breath of courage,

  For they believed

  The omens of God.

  [200] The Seer of Signs called to them

  To fall to the oars,

  And he put sweet hopes into them: under their rapid hands

  The oars insatiably fell and rose.

  A south wind blew, and before it

  They reached the Unwelcoming Sea.

  They marked a holy acre there

  For Poseidon of the Deep

  [205] And there was a red herd of Thracian bulls

  And a hollow altar newly fashioned of stone.

  They were running toward deep danger

  And prayed to the Lord of Ships

  X

  To escape the awful onset

  Of the Clashing Rocks. Two they were, and alive,

  And they rolled swifter

  [210] Than the howling winds charge past.

  But that sailing of the sons of Gods

  Brought them to an end.

  After that they came to the River Phasis

  And matched their might

  Among the dark-faced Kolchians,

  In the very presence of Aietas.

  But from Olympos the Queen of sharpest arrows

  Bound past loosing

  The dappled wryneck

  [215] To the four spokes of a wheel:

  She, the Kypros-born, for the first time brought

  The maddening bird to men.

  She taught Aison’s wise son

  What sorceries he must chant, and Medeia forget

  To honour those who begot her,

  And her heart be all on fire for lovely Hellas

  And tremble under the lash of love.

  [220] She showed him at once

  How to achieve his father’s tasks:

  With olive-oil she made an enchantment against hard pains

  And gave it to him for anointing.

  And they swore to make a sweet marriage one with another.

  But when Aietas

  Dragged forth the adamantine plough in the midst of them

  [225] And the oxen who breathed from yellow nostrils

  A flame of burning fire,

  And hoof after bronze-shod hoof ripped up the ground –

  He took them and forced them to the yoke

  Alone, and straight was the furrow he ploughed as he drove them:

  He cast up the clods, and clove earth’s back

  [230] A fathom deep; and thus he spoke:

  ‘Let the King do this, the captain of the ship!

  Let him do this, I say,

  And have for his own the immortal coverlet,

  XI

  The Fleece, glowing with matted skeins of gold.’

  He spoke; and Jason

  Threw off his saffron clothing, and trusting in God

  Assayed the task.

  And the fire did not make him flinch,

  Through the strange woman’s words, that strong enchantress.

  He, grasping the plough,

  [235] Harnessed perforce the oxen’s necks, and driving

  In those huge flanks a steady goad

  With violence he achieved the appointed distance.

  And, speechless through

  His grief, Aietas

  Howled in amazement at his might.

  To the mighty man his comrades

  [240] Stretched out their hands, and gathered grass to crown him:

  With sweet words they caressed him.

  Then the Sun’s wondrous child

  Told him where the shining Skin

  Had been stretched by Phrixos’ sword (and there

  Was a labour where, he hoped, he yet may fail).

  It lay in a snake’s den,

  Caught on the monster’s raging teeth

  [245] That was thicker and longer

  Than a ship

  Of fifty oars

  Made by the smiting iron.

  The journey is long on the high road:

  Time presses me, and I know a short path,

  (In the wisdom of song I am the leader of many).

  – He slew by cunning

  The snake with glaring eyes and bright-scaled back;

  [250] O Arkesilas,

  He stole Medeia, she willing, – she, who was Pelias’ death.

  They came to the depths of Ocean, to the Red Sea,

  To the Land of Lemnians,

  Women the slayers of men.

  There in bodily games they proved their might

  (A garment for the prize)

  XII

  And there they wedded. Then it was, in foreign furrows

  [255] A day, or a night,

  Received the destined seed

  Of your house’s sunlike fortune.

  For then the race of Euphamos took root,

  Growing thereafter always higher.

  They mixed first in Lakedaimon’s dwellings,

  They went to live in the island

  Once called Loveliest.

  And after that Lato’s son

  Gave you Libya’s plain, for the Gods love you,

  [260] To enrich and govern

  The holy city

  Of Kyrene on her throne of gold

  Since judgement and right counsel are yours.

  Try now the Art of Oidipous.

  If a man with a keen axe-blade

  Lops the branches of a great oak,

  Defiling the beauty that men gazed at –

  [265] Though its fruit has perished, yet it gives

  Witness of itself, when it comes at last

  In winter to the fire,

  Or rests on the upright pillars of a master,

  Doing sad labour in a stranger’s house

  While its own land is desolate.

  [270] – But you can heal in the very nick of time.

  You give light, and Paian adds honour to it.

  Stretch out a gentle hand, to tend

  A sore wound.

  It is easy even for weaker men than you

  To shake a city, but hard indeed

  To set it back in the land,

  Unless a God be suddenly there, the pilot of kings.

  [275] For you

  The web of these bright years is being woven.

  Have patience for the sake of Kyrene’s happiness

  To give it all your care.

  XIII

  Remember a saying of Homer’s, and cherish
it –

  ‘A good messenger,’ he said, ‘heightens

  The honour of any errand.’

  Even the Muse’s stature

  Is more, if she be well reported.

  There was known in Kyrene

  [280] And to that most famous hall of Battos

  A man of just heart, Damophilos,

  Young in the eyes of boys, but in counsel

  An old man with a hundred garner’d years,

  He robs of loudness

  The slanderous tongue.

  He has learned to hate the insolent,

  [285] He does not strive counter to the good,

  None of his purposes tarry; for very swift

  Is the Moment for a man.

  He has seen it: Time is his servant now, and not running away.

  – They say there is nothing more sorrowful

  Than to see joy and stand perforce outside.

  [290] Atlas indeed still wrestles with the sky

  Far from his father’s country and his possessions:

  Yet deathless Zeus

  Set free the Titans.

  In time the wind sags, and we hoist

  New sails. – But now, he cries,

  He has done with foul illness at last, and he sees home.

  Near Apollo’s fountain

  [295] He shall lie at the feast, and yield his heart to youth

  Often, and playing his painted harp,

  Where men know music, shall touch the hands of peace:

  Giving sorrow to none, and having

  No wrong from his fellow-townsmen.

  And perhaps he will tell, Arkesilas,

  What a well of immortal words he found

  When lately a guest at Thebes.

  Pythian IV celebrates the same victory as Pythian V but seems to have been sung at the court of Arkesilas. It is by far the longest of Pindar’s surviving poems and owes something to the epic despite its formal lyrical art.

  1–8 The poem begins with recalling the occasion on which the first Battos was told by the Delphic Oracle to found a city in Africa.

  9–69 The Prelude. Through a prophecy once spoken by Medeia Pindar explains why North Africa was not colonized much earlier by Greeks. Her prophecy was fulfilled much later when men from Thera, where the prophecy was given and where Battos was born, went to Africa.

  14 The ‘daughter of Epaphos’ is Libya.

  16 Zeus Ammon had an oracular temple in an oasis in the desert.

  19 The omen is about to be mentioned – the clod offered to Euphamos. It is a sign that the Argonauts will rule Africa, but when it is washed away at sea (38 ff.) the prophecy is delayed. The promise comes from Eurypylos, son of Poseidon.

  43 ff. If Euphamos had placed the clod in the holy cave at Tainaron, Greeks would have colonized Africa in four generations from then.

  50 ff. As it is, events have had to wait for Battos to be sent by Apollo.

  64 The preliminaries being finished, Pindar prepares the way for his myth – the quest of the Golden Fleece. It is told as a story for its own sake and because Arkesilas is descended from an Argonaut.

  70–254 The tale of the quest.

  89 Otos and Ephialtas, sons of Poseidon, renowned for their size and beauty.

  119 ‘the godlike Beast’ is Cheiron.

  120 Jason’s father is Aison.

  135 The son of Tyro is Pelias.

  152 The son of Kretheus is Aison.

  159–62 Phrixos was saved by the ram with a golden fleece from being drowned at sea, as his step-mother, who was in love with him, wished. The ram’s fleece was in Kolchis, strongly guarded.

  208–10 The Argonauts pass safely through the Symplegades or Clashing Rocks.

  214 Aphrodita uses the wryneck to work a magical spell on Medeia and make her fall in love with Jason.

  247 The myth really ends with the recovery of the Fleece, but Pindar touches lightly on some later events.

  250 Medeia killed Pelias by claiming to rejuvenate him by magic.

  258 The island called Loveliest is Thera.

  262 Pindar changes his direction and sets a riddle. It concerns a kinsman of the king, one Damophilos, who recently conspired against Arkesilas and is now in exile in Greece. There Pindar met him, and he now pleads for clemency to him. The riddle of the oak means that Damophilos can be either wasted or turned to a profitable use.

  270 Now is the time to heal the wound.

  277 The actual words of Homer come from Iliad XIV, 207, ‘this too is a good thing, when a messenger says what is fitting’.

  290 If Zeus relented about the Titans, Arkesilas can about Damophilos.

  We do not know what happened, but Pindar’s hopes were not fulfilled, since soon afterwards Arkesilas was killed by his own people.

  Nemean VI

  For Alkimidas of Aigina, winner in the boys’ wrestling

  I

  Single is the race, single

  Of men and of gods;

  From a single mother we both draw breath.

  But a difference of power in everything

  Keeps us apart;

  For the one is as Nothing, but the brazen sky

  Stays a fixed habitation for ever.

  [5] Yet we can in greatness of mind

  Or of body be like the Immortals,

  Tho’ we know not to what goal

  By day or in the nights

  Fate has written that we shall run.

  Even now Alkimidas gives visible witness

  That his race is like the fruitful fields

  Which change about

  [10] And now give men abounding life from the soil,

  Now rest again and pick up strength.

  He has come from Nemea’s well-loved Games,

  A boy in the struggle,

  Who follows this calling from Zeus;

  He has been revealed a hunter

  And had good sport in the wrestling.

  [15] He plants his feet in the kindred tracks

  Of his father’s father, Praxidamas;

  For he, an Olympian victor,

  First brought twigs from Alpheos to the Aiakidai;

  He was crowned five times at the Isthmus,

  [20] Thrice at Nemea,

  And saved Sokleidas from oblivion,

  Who was first of Hagesidamos’ sons.

  II

  To his delight three prize-winners

  Reached the peak of prowess by tasting of toil.

  With good fortune from God

  [25] Boxing has proved no other house

  To hold more crowns in the heart of all Hellas.

  I hope with this big word

  To hit the mark as with a shot from the bow.

  Come, Muse, waft straight to him

  The glorious gale of your words;

  For when men pass away,

  [30] Songs and tables bring back

  Their noble achievements for them.

  Of these the Bassidai have no lack.

  A clan renowned of old,

  They convoyed their own hymns of praise

  And could give the Pierians’ ploughmen

  Many a song of their lordly doings.

  In rich Pytho one from the blood of this land,

  [35] His hands bound in the boxing-strap,

  Kallias, won, the favourite

  Of gold-haired Lato’s children;

  And at Kastalia in the evening

  The Graces’ loud song shed flame on him.

  The bridges of the unwearying sea

  In the Feast of the Dwellers Around

  [40] And the slaughter of bulls in the second year

  Honoured Kreontidas in Poseidon’s acre,

  And the Lion’s grass crowned him in victory

  Under the shaggy ancient hills of Phleious.

  III

  [45] For tellers of tales

  Wide avenues open on every side

  To grace this glorious island.

  For the Aiakidai gave them

  A surpassi
ng destiny

  And revealed their great acts of prowess.

  Their fame flies far over the earth and across the sea.

  It leaped even to the Ethiopians

  [50] When Memnon came not home.

  Heavy for them was the fight into which Achilles fell

  When he came down from his chariot to the ground

  And slew the son of the shining Dawn

  With the edge of his furious sword.

  This theme men of old found a road for traffic;

  I too follow and make it my care.

  [55] But the wave that rolls at times at the ship’s keel

  Is said most to trouble every man’s heart.

  On my willing back I shoulder a double burden

  And have come to tell the news

  Of this twenty-fifth prayer answered

  From the Games which men call holy.

  [60] Alkimidas, you have added it

  To your illustrious race.

  Twice the flowers of the Olympian Festival

  By the precinct of Kronos

  Were stolen from you in your boyhood

  By the wanton fall of a lot.

  To a dolphin in the sea

  [65] I would match Melesias for quickness,

  Charioteer of hands and strength.

  Nemean VI was possibly composed about 461 B.C.

  1–7 Gods and men are both born from a single mother, Earth, but differ immeasurably in the degree of their power and security.

  16 ff. The descent of the family is Hagesimachos – Sokleidas – Praxidamas – Theon – Alkimidas.

  33 ‘the Pierians’ ploughmen’ are poets.

  39 ‘the bridges of the … sea’ are the Isthmus of Corinth.

  64 It is not clear how the lot worked, but it is possible that it settled the order of contests, and thus anyone who drew an early place had an advantage, in that he could recover before the next round.

  65 Melesias is the Athenian trainer.

  Olympian VIII

  For Alkimedon of Aigina, winner in the boys’ wrestling

  I

  Mother of the gold-crowned Games,

  Olympia, mistress of truth,

  Where seers interpret burnt offerings

  And test the bright thunderer Zeus

  If he has any word about men

  [5] Who yearn in their hearts to win great glory

  And a breathing space after toil.

  In return for reverence

  Men’s prayers are accomplished.

  O wooded place of Pisa by Alpheos,