The Extant Odes of Pindar Part 4

For thee, Agesias, is that praise prepared which justly and openly Adrastos spake of old concerning the seer Amphiaraos the son of Oikleus, when the earth had swallowed him and his s.h.i.+ning steeds. For afterward, when on seven pyres dead men were burnt, the son[2] of Talaos spake on this wise: 'I seek the eye of my host, him who was alike a good seer and a good fighter with the spear.'

This praise also belongeth to the Syracusan who is lord of this triumphal song. I who am no friend of strife or wrongful quarrel will bear him this witness even with a solemn oath, and the sweet voice of the Muses shall not say me nay.

O Phintis[3] yoke me now with all speed the strength of thy mules that on the clear highway we may set our car, that I may go up to the far beginning of this race. For those mules know well to lead the way in this course as in others, who at Olympia have won crowns: it behoveth them that we throw open to them the gates of song, for to Pitane by Eurotas' stream must I begone betimes to-day.

Now Pitane[4], they say, lay with Poseidon the son of Kronos and bare the child Euadne with tresses iris-dark. The fruit of her body unwedded she hid by her robe's folds, and in the month of her delivery she sent her handmaids and bade them give the child to the hero son[5]

of Elatos to rear, who was lord of the men of Arcady who dwelt at Phaisane, and had for his lot Alpheos to dwell beside.

There was the child Euadne nurtured, and by Apollo's side she first knew the joys of Aphrodite.

But she might not always hide from Aipytos the seed of the G.o.d within her; and he in his heart struggling with bitter strain against a grief too great for speech betook him to Pytho that he might ask of the oracle concerning the intolerable woe.

But she beneath a thicket's shade put from her silver pitcher and her girdle of scarlet web, and she brought forth a boy in whom was the spirit of G.o.d. By her side the gold-haired G.o.d set kindly Eleutho and the Fates, and from her womb in easy travail came forth Iamos to the light. Him in her anguish she left upon the ground, but by the counsel of G.o.ds two bright-eyed serpents nursed and fed him with the harmless venom[6] of the bee.

But when the king came back from rocky Delphi in his chariot he asked all who were in the house concerning the child whom Euadne had born; for he said that the sire whereof he was begotten was Phoibos, and that he should be a prophet unto the people of the land excelling all mortal men, and that his seed should be for ever.

Such was his tale, but they answered that they had neither seen nor heard of him, though he was now born five days. For he was hidden among rushes in an impenetrable brake, his tender body all suffused with golden and deep purple gleams of iris flowers; wherefore his mother prophesied saying that by this holy name[7] of immortality he should be called throughout all time.

But when he had come to the ripeness of golden-crowned sweet youth, he went down into the middle of Alpheos and called on wide-ruling Poseidon his grandsire, and on the guardian of G.o.d-built Delos, the bearer of the bow[8], praying that honour might be upon his head for the rearing of a people; and he stood beneath the heavens, and it was night.

Then the infallible Voice of his father answered and said unto him: Arise, my son, and come hither, following my voice, into a place where all men shall meet together.

So they came to the steep rock of lofty Kronion; there the G.o.d gave him a twofold treasure of prophecy, that for the time then being he should hearken to his voice that cannot lie; but when Herakles of valorous counsels, the sacred scion of the Alkeidai, should have come, and should have founded a mult.i.tudinous feast and the chief ordinance of games[9], then again on the summit of the altar of Zeus he bade him establish yet another oracle, that thenceforth the race of Iamidai should be glorious among h.e.l.lenes.

Good luck abode with them; for that they know the worth of valour they are entered on a glorious road.

The matter proveth the man, but from the envious calumny ever threateneth them on whom, as they drive foremost in the twelfth[10]

round of the course, Charis sheddeth blus.h.i.+ng beauty to win them fame more fair.

Now if in very truth, Agesias, thy mother's ancestors dwelling by the borders of Kyllene did piously and oft offer up prayer and sacrifice to Hermes, herald of the G.o.ds, who hath to his keeping the strife and appointment of games, and doeth honour to Arcadia the nurse of goodly men,--then surely he, O son of Sostratos, with his loud-thundering sire, is the accomplisher of this thy bliss.

Methinks I have upon my tongue a whetstone of loud sounding speech, which to harmonious breath constraineth me nothing loth. Mother of my mother was Stymphalian Metope[11] of fair flowers, for she bare Thebe the charioteer, whose pleasant fountain I will drink, while I weave for warriors the changes of my song.

Now rouse thy fellows, Aineas, first to proclaim the name of maiden[12] Hera, and next to know for sure whether we are escaped from the ancient reproach that spake truly of Boeotian swine. For thou art a true messenger, a writing-tally[13] of the Muses goodly-haired, a bowl wherein to mix high-sounding songs.

And bid them make mention of Syracuse and of Ortygia, which Hieron ruleth with righteous sceptre devising true counsels, and doth honour to Demeter whose footsteps make red the corn, and to the feast of her daughter with white steeds, and to the might of Aetnaean Zeus. Also he is well known of the sweet voices of the song and lute. Let not the on-coming time break his good fortune. And with joyful welcome may he receive this triumphal song, which travelleth from home to home, leaving Stymphalos' walls, the mother-city of Arcadia, rich in flocks.

Good in a stormy night are two anchors let fall from a swift s.h.i.+p. May friendly G.o.ds grant to both peoples[14] an ill.u.s.trious lot: and thou O lord and ruler of the sea, husband of Amphitrite of the golden distaff, grant this my friend straight voyage and unharmed, and bless the joyous flower of my song.

[Footnote 1: Agesias is so called because an Iamid ancestor of his had gone with Archias when he planted the Corinthian colony of Syracuse.]

[Footnote 2: Adrastos.]

[Footnote 3: Phintis was Agesias' charioteer.]

[Footnote 4: I. e. the nymph who gave her name to the place.]

[Footnote 5: Aipytos.]

[Footnote 6: Honey.]

[Footnote 7: Iamos, from [Greek: ion]: the iris was considered a symbol of immortality.]

[Footnote 8: His father, Apollo.]

[Footnote 9: At Olympia.]

[Footnote 10: The course in the chariot-race was twelve times round the Hippodrome.]

[Footnote 11: The nymph of the lake Metope near Stymphalos.]

[Footnote 12: Hera was wors.h.i.+pped in her prenuptial as well as her postnuptial state.]

[Footnote 13: It was a custom between correspondents who wished for secrecy to have duplicate [Greek: skutalai], or letter-sticks. The writer wrote on a roll wrapt round his stick, and the receiver of the letter read it wrapt similarly on his. And thus Aineas the bearer of this ode would teach the chorus of Stymphalians how rightly to sing and understand it. See [Greek: skutalae] in Dict. Ant.]

[Footnote 14: I. e. of Stymphalos and Syracuse. Agesias was a citizen of both, and thus his two homes are compared to two anchors.]

VII.

FOR DIAGORAS OF RHODES,

WINNER IN THE BOXING-MATCH.

Rhodes is said to have been colonised at the time of the Dorian migrations by Argive Dorians from Epidauros, who were Herakleidai of of the family of Tlepolemos. They founded a confederacy of three cities, Kameiros, Lindos, and Ialysos. Ialysos was then ruled by the dynasty of the Eratidai. Their kingly power had now been extinct two hundred years, but the family was still pre-eminent in the state.

Of this family was Diagoras, and probably the ode was sung at a family festival; but it commemorates the glories of the island generally.

The Rhodians caused it to be engraved in letters of gold in the temple of Athene at Lindos.

There is a noteworthy incident of the Peloponnesian war which should be remembered in connection with this ode. In the year 406, fifty-eight years after this victory of Diagoras, during the final and most embittering agony of Athens, one Dorieus, a son of Diagoras, and himself a famous athlete, was captured by the Athenians in a sea-fight.

It was then the custom either to release prisoners of war for a ransom or else to put them to death. The Athenians asked no ransom of Dorieus, but set him free on the spot.

As when from a wealthy hand one lifting a cup, made glad within with the dew of the vine, maketh gift thereof to a youth his daughter's spouse, a largess of the feast from home to home, an all-golden choicest treasure, that the banquet may have grace, and that he may glorify his kin; and therewith he maketh him envied in the eyes of the friends around him for a wedlock wherein hearts are wedded--

So also I, my liquid nectar sending, the Muses' gift, the sweet fruit of my soul, to men that are winners in the games at Pytho or Olympia make holy offering. Happy is he whom good report encompa.s.seth; now on one man, now on another doth the Grace that quickeneth look favourably, and tune for him the lyre and the pipe's stops of music manifold.

Thus to the sound of the twain am I come with Diagoras sailing home, to sing the sea-girt Rhodes, child of Aphrodite and bride of Helios, that to a mighty and fair-fighting man, who by Alpheos' stream and by Kastalia's hath won him crowns, I may for his boxing make award of glory, and to his father Demegetos in whom Justice hath her delight, dwellers in the isle of three cities with an Argive host, nigh to a promontory of s.p.a.cious Asia.

Fain would I truly tell from the beginning from Tlepolemos the message of my word, the common right of this puissant seed of Herakles. For on the father's side they claim from Zeus, and on the mother's from Astydameia, sons of Amyntor.

Now round the minds of men hang follies unnumbered--this is the unachievable thing, to find what shall be best hap for a man both presently and also at the last. Yea for the very founder[1] of this country once on a time struck with his staff of tough wild-olive-wood Alkmene's b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother Likymnios in Tiryns as he came forth from Midea's chamber, and slew him in the kindling of his wrath. So even the wise man's feet are turned astray by tumult of the soul.

Then he came to enquire of the oracle of G.o.d. And he of the golden hair from his sweet-incensed shrine spake unto him of a sailing of s.h.i.+ps that should be from the sh.o.r.e of Lerna unto a pasture ringed with sea, where sometime the great king of G.o.ds rained on the city golden snow, what time by Hephaistos' handicraft beneath the bronze-wrought axe from the crown of her father's head Athene leapt to light and cried aloud with an exceeding cry; and Heaven trembled at her coming, and Earth, the Mother.