Odes of Pindar, Including the Principal Fragments (Loeb Classical Library, No 56)

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THE ODES OF PINDAR

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THE ODES OF

PINDAR INCLUDING

THE PRINCIPAL FRAGMENTS WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY

SIR

JOHN SANDYS,

FELLOW OF

ST.

Lttt.D., F.B.A.

JOHN'S COLLEGE AND PUBLIC (JRATOR

IN'

THK

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBKIDGE HON. LiTT.D., Dublin; hon. ll.d., Edinburgh akd athens

LONDON

:

NEW YORK

WILLIAM HEINEMANN THE MACMILLAN CO. :

6G0800

CONTENTS PAGE

INTRODUCmON 1

THE OLYMPIAN ODES

151

THE PYTHIAN ODES THE NEMKAN ODES

'

313

THE ISTHMIAN ODES

435

FRAGMENTS

509

INDEX

615

—

INTRODUCTION I.

The Life

of Pindar

Pindar, the greatest of the lyrical poets of Greece,

was a native of Boeotia.

He

was born at Cynos-

cephalae, about half a mile to the west of Thebes.

He

has himself recorded the fact that the date of

birth coincided with the celebration of the Pythian festival at Delphi/ a festival that always

his

fell in

the third of the four years of the Olympic

According to the lexicographer Suidas, was born in the sixty -fifth OljTnpiad. Ol. 65, 3 corresponds to 518 B.C., and this date has been widely accepted."^ The most probable alternative is Ol. 64, 3, that is 522 b.c.^ In support of this earlier date, it is urged that all the aiPcient authorities

period.

the

f)oet

described the poet as " flourishing," that

is,

as being

about forty years of age, at the time of the Persian

war of 481-479 B.C. Had Pindar been bom in 518, he would have been only 37 at the beginning, and 39 at the end of the war. Had the date of his birth »

Frag. 193 (205).

by Christ, Wilamowitz, and Schroder. Accepted by Boeckh and Caspar.

- e.g. '

INTRODUCTION been 522, he would have been

fort}'^

in

482, the

year preceding the expedition of Xerxes.^

The poet was proud of his Theban birth and his Theban training.^ He was the son of Daiphantus and Cleodice. From his uncle Scopelinus he learnt play the flute, an instrument which held an important place in the worship of Apollo at Delphi, and was perfected at Thebes, where it was always to

more highly esteemed than at Athens. At Athens he was instructed in the technique of lyrical composition by Agathocles and Apollodorus, and probably also by Lasus of Hermione, who brought the dithyramb to its highest perfection. During his stay in Athens he could hardly have failed to meet his slightly earlier

born in 525

On

contemporary, Aeschylus, who was

B.C.

returning to Thebes, he began his career as a

lyrical poet.

neglected

In his earliest

poem he

the use of myths.

is

This

said to

have

neglect was

out by the Boeotian poetess, Corinna whereupon Pindar went to the opposite extreme, and crowded his next composition with a large

pointed

Gaspar, Chronologie Pindarique, Bruxelles, 1900, p. 15 f. for the birth of Pindar is due to the corresponding uncertainty between 586 and 582 as the beginning of the Pythian era. If Pindar was born at the 17th Pythiad, the date of his birth would be or 518, if we reckon from 582. 522, if we reckon from 586 The latter of the two dates for the Pythian era is now known to be right, and this is a presumption in favour of 518 as the date of the poet's birth. ^ Frag. 198^ ^

The uncertainty between the dates 522 and 518

;

LIFE OF PINDAR limber of mythological allusions.^

He soon received

" One must sow with the hand, and not with the whole sack." ^ '

roni his

He

critic

said to

is

Myrtis,

the wise admonition

:

have subsequently defeated the poetess

who was reproached by Corinna

for

com-

peting with Pindar.^

The poet

has generally been regarded as claiming

descent from the aristocratic family of the Theban

may be, he was connected and was an admirer of the Dorian aristocracy. He was an oligarch, but, " in politics," he "deemed that the middle state was crowned with more enduring good " ^ and his objection to " the raging crowd " of Sicilian revolutionAegeidae.*

However

this

closely with the Dorians,

;

aries^

is

consistent with his appreciation of the reason-

able democracy of Athens.^

It

was from the powerful

family of the Thessalian Aleuadae that he received

498

in

his

first

commission

for

an epinician ode

(P.x).

In September, 490, the Persians were defeated by Athens at Marathon. A few days before the battle, Xenocrates, the younger brother of Theron of Acragas,

won

the chariot-race in the Pythian games.

The

ode was composed by Simonides, then at the height of his fame, while Pindar's extant poem was

official

De gloria Athenitnsmm,

*

Frag. 29

(5).

'

/iffKpoixai

Sc Kal \iyvpav MvprlS' Iwvya,

Tlivhapot ror' tpiv.

Mdic

^

Plutarch,

8t( /Savck

Corinna, Frag. 21 Bergk

;