by Cecil Bowra
[10] Welcome this company and wearing of garlands.
His glory is great for ever
Whom your glittering prize attends.
To each man come different goods, and many
Are the paths of success
When the Gods give help.
[15] Timosthenes, fate has allotted
Your race to Zeus for its own God.
He made you renowned at Nemea,
And Alkimedon by Kronos’ Hill
An Olympian conqueror.
He was lovely to see, and his acts
Did not dishonour his beauty,
[20] When he won in the wrestling and proclaimed
His fatherland, long-oared Aigina.
There Saviour Right is honoured
At the side of Zeus, the strangers’ God
II
Most among men.
When the balance
Is heavy and heavily sways,
[25] It is hard to judge
With clear head at the right moment.
An ordinance of the Immortals
Placed this sea-girt land
As a holy pillar for strangers from everywhere,
– May Time rising ahead
Not weary of doing this –
[30] A Dorian people watch over it
From Aiakos’ time.
Him Lato’s Son and Poseidon, who rules afar,
When they started to make a crown for Ilion,
Called to share the work at the wall;
For it was fated
That, when wars were awakened
[35] In fights and destruction of cities,
It should breathe up angry smoke.
Three yellow snakes, when the town was just built,
Jumped on the wall. Two fell down
And straightway in amazement threw up their lives,
[40] But one leapt with a cry.
Apollo pondered the adverse sign
And forthwith cried: ‘By the work of your hands, hero,
Pergamos shall be taken,
– So says a vision sent to me
From Kronos’ son, loud-thundering Zeus –
III
[45] Not without your sons. It shall be broken
In the first and the third generations.’
So spoke the God truly, and drove in haste
To Xanthos, and the Amazons, the fine horse-women,
And to Ister.
And the Trident-lifter hurried his fast chariot
[50] To the sea Isthmos, and sent away Aiakos
Hither on golden mares,
While he went to watch over
The ridge of Korinth famous for feasting.
But no joy will stay the same among men.
If for Melesias I have run back in my song
To the fame he wins from young athletes,
[55] Let no sharp stone of hatred strike me.
I will tell, too, of this joy he won
Himself at Nemea,
And that later he fought with grown men
In the Fighting Match. (Who knows for himself
[60] Will more easily teach:
Not to learn first is folly,
Since untried men have less weight to their minds.)
But here is the Master, to say beyond others
The right way for the man to go
Who would get from the holy Games
His heart’s desire of glory.
Now as a gift for him
[65] Alkimedon wins his thirtieth victory.
IV
God favoured him, neither
Did he lack manhood.
On the limbs of four boys he put away from him
The hateful return, the dishonouring tongue,
The secret by-path,
[70] And into his father’s father he breathed
Strength to resist old age.
A man forgets death when all goes well.
But I must wake Memory and tell
[75] This final triumph of the hands of the Blepsiadai.
Now on their brows a sixth wreath is fastened
From the leaf-garlanded Games.
Dead men also have a part
In rites lawfully done,
Nor does the dust hide from them
[80] Their kinsmen’s fond delight.
Iphion has listened to Hermes’ daughter,
Good-Tidings, and will tell Kallimachos
Of the bright ornament at Olympia
Which Zeus gave to their race.
[85] May he consent to give good upon good
And keep away the stabs of sickness.
I pray that in bestowing glory
He will not let Doom waver in purpose,
But bring a life without sorrow
And strengthen them and their city.
Olympian VIII was composed in 460 B.C.
20 Aigina was at this time being attacked by Athens.
28 He expresses his anxiety for the future of Aigina.
30–46 The myth tells how Aiakos helped Poseidon and Apollo to build Troy, and an omen of its future was seen in the behaviour of three snakes.
45 The first generation is Aiakos. His sons Telamon and Peleus fight with Herakles against Troy. Their sons, Aias and Achilles, make the third generation. The fourth is Neoptolemos.
47 Xanthos is a Lykian river; Ister possibly the Danube.
51 ‘Hither’, to Aigina.
53 Melesias, already mentioned in Nemean VI, is being attacked as an Athenian, and his employers almost for co-operating with the national enemy.
66 Alkimedon’s victory is the thirtieth won by a pupil of Melesias.
69 Pindar has no consolation to offer to the unsuccessful competitors.
77 The news of the boy’s victory reaches his dead father, Iphion, and Kallimachos, his dead uncle.
Nemean VIII
For Deinias of Aigina, winner in the double foot-race
I
Lady Youth, herald
Of Aphrodita’s celestial loves,
Seated on the eyelids of girls and boys,
One you lift with gentle hands of compulsion,
Another with different touch.
In every action the heart
Desires not to stray from the right moment
[5] But to have power to win the nobler loves,
Such as waited upon the bed of Zeus and Aigina,
And brought the Cyprian’s gifts to the fold.
A son was born, king of the Vineland,
Foremost in hand and in counsel.
Many men often prayed to look on his face:
Unbidden the finest heroes around
[10] Wished to choose and obey his dominion,
Both those who in rocky Athens hammered an army together,
And Pelops’ sons in Sparta.
I cling to Aiakos’ knees in prayer.
For his dear city and for these citizens,
[15] And bring a Lydian scarf embroidered with ringing bells.
An ornament from Nemea for two races on foot,
Which Deinias and his father Megas won.
When a god has helped its planting
Happiness stays longer with men;
II
Such as once loaded with wealth
Kinyras in sea-girt Kypros. I stand on feet lightly poised
And take a deep breath before speaking.
[20] Much has been said in many a way;
To find new themes
And put them to the touchstone for proof
Is nothing but danger. Words
Sharpen the appetite of envy,
Which clings always to the noble
And struggles not against the base.
It put its teeth into Telamon’s son,
And rolled him onto his sword.
A man without words but noble in heart
[25] Oblivion hides in ugly strife;
And the greatest prize has been handed to slippery falsehood.
For in privy ballot
And Aias, robbed of the golden armour,
Came to grips with death.
Unequal indeed were the wounds they tore
In the warm flesh of their adversaries
[30] With succouring spears, hard pressed,
Some over Achilles newly slain,
And in other tasks in days of huge slaughter.
– Of old too was hateful trickery;
She walked with wheedling words and plotted death,
Slander who works evil;
She does violence to glory
And sets up a flimsy fame for the unknown.
III
[35] Father Zeus, may such a temper never be mine,
But may I keep to plain paths of life,
And when I die,
Leave to my children a name
Of which no evil is spoken.
Men pray for gold, others for boundless land,
But I to please my townsmen,
Till I wrap my limbs in earth,
Praising what should be praised,
And scattering reproach on wrongdoers.
[40] Prowess swells as a shoot of the vine
With fresh dews,
Lifted on high among the wise and the good among men
To the liquid sky. Manifold are the uses
Of friends. Help in trouble
Is highest, but delight also seeks
To set its truth before their eyes.
– Megas, to call your life back again
[45] I am not able. Hopes are empty, and vain their end.
But it is a light task
To support your land and the Chariadai
On a stone of the Muses,
In honour of two men’s running twice fortunate. I am glad
To utter fit praise of what has been done,
[50] And by songs a man takes the pain out of toil.
In truth of old was a triumph-song
Even before the quarrel began
Between Adrastos and the Sons of Kadmos.
Nemean VIII was written about 459 B.C.
8 The son is Aiakos.
18 For Kinyras see Pythian II, 15.
23–34 The suicide of Aias is an example of what slander can drive a man to do.
44 Megas is the dead father of Deinias.
50–51 The last lines seem to mean no more than that song has always been a reward and consolation to men. In the present case war between Aigina and Athens may be in the offing, and song is needed as much as ever.
Pythian XI
For Thrasydaios of Thebes, winner in the boys’ foot-race
I
Daughters of Kadmos,
Semela, neighbor
Of the mistresses of Olympos,
And Ino, White Goddess,
Sharer of the Nereids’ sea-chambers,
Come with the mother of Herakles
(Blessed was her womb)
To Melia’s presence, where the gold tripods stand
Inviolate in the Treasury,
[5] That Loxias honoured before all,
And named it Ismenion, faithful seat
Of prophecy, O children of Harmonia,
Where now he bids assemble together
The folk that inhabits the Princesses’ land,
Come here and sing aloud
Of holy Themis and Pytho
And the straight justice of the navel of the world,
[10] When the evening has come,
Giving beauty to seven-gated Thebes
And to the course at Krisa, where Thrasydaios
Renowned the hearth of his fathers
And cast on it a third crown,
[15] Triumphing in the rich ploughlands of Pyladas,
The friend of Spartan Orestas:
II
Whom Arsinoa, his nurse,
After his father’s murder at the strong hands
Of Klytaimestra,
Saved from that grievous traitress, whose grey bronze
[20] Made Kassandra, Dardanid Priam’s child,
Bear company with Agamemnon’s spirit
To Acheron’s shadowy shore,
Pitiless woman. Was it Iphigeneia,
Slain at Euripos far from her land,
That stung her to uplift
The wrath of her heavy hand?
Or was she broken in to a paramour’s bed
[25] And the nightly loves
Turned her mind? That sin in young wives
None forgives,
And there is no way to hide it,
For others will talk,
And foul speech runs in a city.
For bliss makes envy as big as itself;
[30] And he who breathes the dust
Whispers, but is not known.
And the son of Atreus himself, the hero,
Died, when with years he returned,
In famous Amyklai,
III
And brought death on the maiden prophetess, he
Who had burned for Helen’s sake
The Trojans’ houses, and made cease their delight.
And Orestas the young child
[35] Came to a friend, old Strophios, who dwelt
At the foot of Parnassos. Yet Ares at the last
Brought him to slay his mother, and lay Aigisthos in blood.
– My friends, I have been in confusion
At the crossroads where the ways divide
Though I went on a straight path before.
Has a gale thrown me
[40] Out of my course like a boat at sea?
– Muse, you have made a bargain to hire
Your tongue for silver
And have got to keep it agog, now here, now there,
For Pythonikos today
Or Thrasydaios his son. Behold
[45] The fire of their mirth and glory!
Proud chariot-victors of old
At the famed Olympic contest, with their horses
They won that lightning splendour,
IV
And at Pytho they entered the naked lists
[50] And foiled the hosted Hellenes with their swiftness.
God help me to love beauty, yet desire
What I may have, among men of my age.
Having seen that the middle fortune in a city
Abounds longer in bliss, I have no use
For the state of tyrants.
I have put my strength
To achievements that all share, but envious men
Are kept away.
[55] He that has found those heights
And by living in quietness there
Has escaped devilish presumption,
Comes to a verge more beautiful
Than black death, if to his children,
His sweet joy, he leaves
The best of his treasures,
A good and well-loved name;
Such as carries about in song
[60] Iolaos, Iphikles’ son,
And strong Kastor, and you, prince Polydeukes,
You sons of Gods,
Who dwell, one day, in graves below Therapna,
And Olympos holds you on the morrow.
Pythian XI is variously said by the ancient commentators to have been composed in 474 B.C., and in 454 B.C. The latter seems more likely, and the background is the conquest of Boiotia in the autumn of that year by Athens. The song seems to have been sung at Thebes in the following spring.
4–5 The festival is held at night in honour of Theban heroines. Melia was a nymph who bore a son to Apollo and was honoured in the Ismenion.
7 Harmonia is the wife of Kadmos.
10 Delphoi was thought to be the centre of the earth; the navel was a primitive stone presumed to be the actual centre.
14 Victories have been won by the father and before him by an unnamed forebear at Delphoi.
15 Though the transition to the myth looks entirely superficial, the myth itself demonstrates that in due course t
he gods punish the wicked. In this we may see a forecast that Athens will in time be expelled from Boiotia, as indeed she was in 447 B.C.
17–37 The myth of the vengeance taken by Orestas on Klytaimestra for her murder of his father. Pindar’s version differs from those of the tragedians.
17 Arsinoa is Orestas’ nurse.
32 In other accounts the murder took place in Mykenai or Argos.
38 ff. Pindar moves abruptly away from the myth to speak of the family.
41–2 Pindar certainly seems to be paid for his work. See Isthmian II.
46 The Olympian victory is at some time in the past.
51 ff. Pindar has been accused of some political misdemeanour, perhaps of having relations with the pro-Athenian governors of Boiotia. He disclaims anything of the kind.
53 The ‘state of tyrants’ refers to the present kind of government.
59–64 The close association of the Theban hero Iolaos and the Spartan heroes, the Dioskouroi, suggests that Pindar sees the liberation of Thebes as depending on her co-operation with Sparta.
Isthmian VII
For Strepsiadas of Thebes, winner in the Trial of Strength
I
In which of your land’s past glories,
O happy Theba,
Have you most delighted your heart?
Was it when you exalted Dionysos with flowing hair
[5] To sit beside Damater for whom the brass rings,
Or when at midnight
You welcomed the greatest of Gods
In a shower of gold,
When he stood at Amphitryon’s doorway
And sought his wife for the begetting of Herakles?
Or in Teiresias’ subtle counsels?
Or in Iolaos’ skilled horsemanship?
[10] Or in the unwearying spears of the Sown Men? Or when
You sent Adrastos from the violent battle-cry,
Widowed of countless companions,
To Argos city of horses?
Or set upright on steady ankle
The Dorian colony of Lakedaimonians,
[15] And the Sons of Aigeus, your descendants,
Took Amyklai by oracles from Pytho?
But ancient beauty slumbers, and men forget
II
Whatever has not been yoked to echoing streams of song
To come to the topmost peak of art.
[20] Revel then with the hymn’s sweet notes
And with Strepsiadas. For at the Isthmos he wins