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,
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,