x. 22, which contains this truly beautiful description of a thoroughly

successful life, as imagined by a Greek:

"That man is happy and song-worthy by the skilled, who, victorious by might of hand or vigor of foot, achieves the greatest prizes with daring and with strength; and who in his lifetime sees his son, while yet a boy, crowned happily with Pythian wreaths. The brazen heaven, it is true, is inaccessible to him; but whatsoever joys we race of mortals touch, he reaches to the farthest voyage."

With this we may compare the story of happy lives told by Croesus to Solon, and the celebrated four lines of Simonides: "Health is best for a mortal man; next, beauty; thirdly, well-gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasure of youth among friends."

Closely connected with Pindar's ethical beliefs were his religious notions, which were both peculiar and profound. Two things with regard to his theology deserve especial notice--its conscious criticism of existing legends, and its strong Pythagorean bias, both combined with true Hellenic orthodoxy in all essentials. One of the greatest difficulties in forming an exact estimate of the creed of a philosophical Greek intellect is to know how to value the admixture of scientific scepticism on the one hand, and of purer theism on the other. About Pindar's time the body of Hellenic mythology was being invaded by a double process of destructive and constructive criticism. Xenophanes, for example, very plainly denounced as absurd the anthropomorphic Pantheon made in the image of man, while he endeavored to substitute a cult of the One God, indivisible and incognizable. Plato still further developed the elements suggested by Xenophanes. But there was some inherent incapacity in the Greek intellect for arriving at monotheism by a process of rarefaction and purification. The destructive criticism which in Xenophanes, Pindar, and Plato had assailed the grosser myths, dwindled into unfruitful scepticism. The attempts at constructing a rational theosophy ended in metaphysics. Morality was studied as a separate branch of investigation, independent of destructive criticism and religious construction. Meanwhile the popular polytheism continued to flourish, though enfeebled, degenerate, and disconnected from the nobler impulses of poetry and art. In Pindar the process of decadence had not begun. He stood at the very highest point which it was possible for a religious Greek to reach--combining the æsthetically ennobling enthusiasm for the old Greek deities with so much critical activity as enabled him to reject the grosser myths, and with that moderate amount of theological mysticism which the unassisted intellect of the Greeks seemed capable of receiving without degeneracy into puerile superstition. The first Olympian ode contains the most decided passages in illustration of his critical independence of judgment:

"Impossible is it for me to call one of the blessed ones a glutton: I stand aloof: loss hath often overtaken evil speakers."

Again:

"Truly many things are wonderful; and it may be that in some cases fables dressed up with cunning fictions beyond the true account falsify the traditions of men. But beauty, which is the author of all delicious things for mortals, by giving to these myths acceptance, ofttimes makes even what is incredible to be credible: but succeeding time gives the most certain evidence of truth; and for a man to speak nobly of the gods is seemly; for so the blame is less."

These two passages suffice to prove how freely Pindar handled the myths, not indeed exposing them to the corrosive action of mere scepticism, but testing them[115] by the higher standard of the healthy human conscience. When he refuses to believe that the immortals were cannibals and ate the limbs of Pelops, he is like a rationalist avowing his disbelief in the savage doctrine of eternal damnation. His doubt does not proceed from irreligion, but from faith in the immutable holiness of the gods, who set the ideal standard of human morality. What seems to him false in the myths he attributes to the accretions of ignorant opinion and vain fancy round the truth.

The mystical element of Pindar's creed, whether we call it Orphic or Pythagorean, is remarkable for a definite belief in the future life, including a system of rewards and punishments; for the assertion of the supreme tribunal of conscience,[116] and, finally, for a reliance on rites of purification. The most splendid passage in which these opinions are expressed by Pindar is that portion of the second Olympian in which he describes the torments of the wicked and the blessings of the just beyond the grave:

"Among the dead, sinful souls at once pay penalty, and the crimes done in this realm of Zeus are judged beneath the earth by one who gives sentence under dire necessity.

"But the good, enjoying perpetual sunlight equally by night and day, receive a life more free from woes than this of ours; they trouble not the earth with strength of hand, nor the water of the sea for scanty sustenance; but with the honored of the gods, all they who delighted in the keeping of their oath pass a tearless age: the others suffer woe on which no eye can bear to look. Those who have thrice endured on either side the grave to keep their spirits wholly free from crime, journey on the road of Zeus to the tower of Kronos: where round the islands blow breezes ocean-borne; and flowers of gold burn some on the land from radiant trees, and others the wave feeds; with necklaces whereof they twine their hands and brows, in the just decrees of Rhadamanthus, whom father Kronos has for a perpetual colleague, he who is spouse of Rhea throned above all gods.

"Peleus and Cadmus are numbered among these: and thither was Achilles brought by his mother when she swayed the heart of Zeus with prayer: he who slew Hector, the invincible firm pillar of Troy, and gave Cycnus to death and Eo's Æthiopian son."

The following fragments from threnoi[117] translated by Professor Conington further illustrate Pindar's belief in a future state of weal or woe:

They from whom Persephone Due atonement shall receive For the things that made to grieve, To the upper sunlight she Sendeth back their souls once more, Soon as winters eight are o'er. From those blessed spirits spring Many a great and goodly king, Many a man of glowing might, Many a wise and learned wight: And while after-days endure, Men esteem them heroes pure.

And again:

Shines for them the sun's warm glow When 'tis darkness here below: And the ground before their towers, Meadow-land with purple flowers, Teems with incense-bearing treen, Teems with fruit of golden sheen. Some in steed and wrestling feat, Some in dice take pleasure sweet, Some in harping: at their side Blooms the spring in all her pride. Fragrance all about is blown O'er that country of desire. Ever as rich gifts are thrown Freely on the far-seen fire, Blazing from the altar-stone.

* * * * *

But the souls of the profane, Far from heaven removed below, Flit on earth in murderous pain 'Neath the unyielding yoke of woe; While pious spirits tenanting the sky Chant praises to the mighty one on high.

For Pindar's conception of the destinies of frail humanity, take this sublime but melancholy ending to an ode[118] which has been full of triumphant exultation: "Brief is the growing-time of joy for mortals, and briefly, too, doth its flower fall to earth shaken by fell fate. Things of a day! what are we--and what are we not! A shadow's dream is man. But when the splendor that God gives descends, then there remains a radiant light and gladsome life for mortals." Compare with this the opening of the sixth Nemean:

"One is the race of men, and one the race of gods; from one mother we both draw breath. But a total difference of force divides us, since man's might is naught, while brazen heaven abideth a sure seat for aye. Nevertheless, we are not all unlike immortals either in our mighty soul or strength of limb, though we know not to what goal of night or day fate hath written down for us to run." #/

Passing to the consideration of Pindar purely as an artist, we may first examine the structure of his odes, and then illustrate the qualities of his poetry by reference to some of the more splendid proemia and descriptions. The task which lay before him when he undertook to celebrate a victory at one of the Greek games was this: Some rich man had won a race with his chariot and horses, or some strong man had conquered his competitors by activity or force of limb. Pindar had to praise the rich man for his wealth and liberality, the strong man for his endurance of training and personal courage or dexterity. In both cases the victor might be felicitated on his good-fortune--on the piece of luck which had befallen him; and if he were of comely person or illustrious blood, these also offered topics for congratulation. The three chief commonplaces of Pindar, therefore, are #olbos, aretê, eutychia#, wealth or prosperity, manliness or spirit, and blessings independent of both, god-given, not acquired. But it could not be that a great poet should ring the changes only on these three subjects, or content himself with describing the actual contest, which, probably, he had not witnessed. Consequently Pindar illustrates his odes with myths or stories bearing more or less closely on the circumstances of his hero. Sometimes he celebrates the victor's ancestry, as in the famous sixth Olympian, in which the history of the Iamidæ is given; sometimes his city, as in the seventh Olympian, where he describes the birthplace of Diagoras, the island Rhodes; sometimes he dwells upon an incident in the hero's life, as when in the third Pythian the illness of Hiero suggests the legend of Asclepius and Cheiron; sometimes a recent event, like the eruption of Etna, alluded to in the first Pythian, gives color to his ode; sometimes, as in the case of the last Pythian, where the story of Medusa is narrated, the legendary matter is introduced to specialize the nature of the contest. The victory itself is hardly touched upon: the allusions to #olbos, aretê, eutychia#, though frequent and interwoven with the texture of the ode, are brief: the whole poetic fabric is so designed as to be appropriate to the occasion and yet independent of it. Therefore Pindar's odes have not perished with the memory of the events to which they owed their composition.

Pindar's peculiar treatment of the epinikian ode may best be illustrated by analyzing the structure of one or two of his poems. But first take this translation of one of the shorter and simpler of the series--the twelfth Pythian:

To thee, fairest of earthly towns, I pray-- Thou splendor-lover, throne of Proserpine, Piled o'er Girgenti's slopes, that feed alway Fat sheep!--with grace of gods and men incline, Great queen, to take this Pythian crown and own Midas; for he of all the Greeks, thy son, Hath triumphed in the art which Pallas won, Weaving of fierce Gorgonian throats the dolorous moan.

She from the snake-encircled hideous head Of maidens heard the wailful dirges flow, What time the third of those fell Sisters bled By Perseus' hand, who brought the destined woe To vexed Seriphos. He on Phorkys' brood Wrought ruin, and on Polydectes laid Stern penance for his mother's servitude, And for her forceful wedlock, when he slew the maid

Medusa. He by living gold, they say, Was got on Danaë: but Pallas bore Her hero through those toils, and wrought the lay Of full-voiced flutes to mock the ghastly roar Of those strong jaws of grim Euryale: A goddess made and gave to men the flute, The fountain-head of many a strain to be, That ne'er at game or nation's feast it might be mute,

Sounding through subtle brass and voiceful reeds, Which near the city of the Graces spring By fair Cephisus, faithful to the needs Of dancers. Lo! there cometh no good thing Apart from toils to mortals, though to-day Heaven crown their deeds: yet shun we not the laws Of Fate; for times impend when chance withdraws What most we hoped, and what we hoped not gives for aye.

Here it will be seen that Pindar introduces his subject with a panegyric of Girgenti, his hero's birthplace. Then he names Midas, and tells the kind of triumph he has gained. This leads him to the legend of Medusa. The whole is concluded with moral reflections on the influence of fate over human destinies. The structure of the sixth Pythian is also very simple. "I build an indestructible treasure-house of praise for Xenocrates (lines 1-18), which Thrasybulus, his son, gained for him; as Antilochus died for Nestor (19-43), so Thrasybulus has done what a son could do for his father (44-46); wise and fair is he in his youth; his company is sweeter than the honeycomb" (47-54). One of the longest odes, the fourth Pythian, is constructed thus: "Muse! celebrate Arcesilaus (1-5). Cyrene, Arcesilaus's home; its foundation and the oracle given to Battus (5-69). The tale of the Argonauts, ancestors of the founders of Thera and of Cyrene (69-262). Advice to Arcesilaus in the interest of Demophilus" (263-299). Here the victory at Pytho is but once briefly alluded to (l. 64). The whole ode consists of pedigree and political admonition, either directly administered at the end, or covertly conveyed through the example of Pelias. The sixth Olympian, which contains the pedigree of the Iamidæ, is framed on similar principles. The third Pythian introduces its mythology by a different method: "I wish I could restore Cheiron, the healer and the tutor of Asclepius, to life (1-7). The story of Coronis, her son Asclepius, and Hippolytus (7-58). Moral, to be content and submit to mortality (58-62). Yet would that Cheiron might return and heal Hiero (62-76)! I will pray; and do you, Hiero, remember that Heaven gives one blessing and two curses, and that not even Cadmus and Peleus were always fortunate (77-106). May I suit myself always to my fortune!" (107-115). The whole of this ode relates to Hiero's illness, and warns him of vicissitudes: even the episode of Coronis and Asclepius contains a covert warning against arrogance, while it gracefully alludes to Hiero's health.

The originality and splendor of Pindar are most noticeable in the openings of his odes--the proemia, as they are technically called. It would appear that he possessed an inexhaustible storehouse of radiant imagery, from which to draw new thoughts for the commencement of his poems. In this region, which most poets find but barren, he displayed the fullest vigor and fertility of fancy. Sometimes, but rarely, the opening is simple, as in the second Olympian: "Hymns that rule the lyre! what god, what hero, what man shall we make famous?" Or the ninth Pythian: "I wish to proclaim, by help of the deep-girdled Graces, brazen-shielded Telesicrates, Pythian victor," etc. Rather more complex are the following: Nem. iv., "The joy of the feast is the best physician after toil; but songs, the wise daughters of the Muses, soothe the victor with their touch: warm water does not so refresh and supple weary limbs as praise attended by the lyre;" or again: Ol. xi., "There is a time when men have greatest need of winds; there is when heaven's showers of rain, children of the cloud, are sorest sought for. But if a man achieves a victory with toil, then sweet-voiced hymns arise as the beginning of future fame," etc., etc. But soon we pass into a more gorgeous region. "As when with golden columns reared beneath the well-walled palace-porch we build a splendid hall, so will I build my song. At the beginning of the work we must make the portal radiant."[119] Or again: "No carver of statues am I, to fashion figures stationary on their pedestal; but come, sweet song! on every argosy and skiff set forth from Ægina to proclaim that Pytheas, Lampon's son, by strength of might is victor in Nemean games, upon whose chin and cheek you see not yet the tender mother of the vine-flower, summer's bloom."[120] Or again: "Hallowed bloom of youth, herald of Aphrodite's ambrosial pleasures, who, resting on the eyelids of maidens and of boys, bearest one aloft with gentle hands of violence, but another rudely!"[121] Or once again, in a still grander style:

"Listen! for verily it is of beauty's queen, or of the Graces, that we turn the glebe, approaching the rocky centre of the deep-voiced earth: where for the blest Emmenidæ and stream-washed Acragas, yea, and for Zenocrates, is built a treasure-house of Pythian hymns in the golden Apollonian vale. This, no rain of winter, driving on the wings of wind the pitiless army of the rushing cloud, no hurricane shall toss, storm-lashed with pebbles of the uptorn beach, into the briny ocean caves; but in pure light its glorious face shall speak the victory that brings a common fame on thy sire, Thrasybulus, and thy race, remaining in the windings of Crissean valleys."[122]

We have already seen how Pindar compares his odes to arrows, to sun-soaring eagles, to flowers of the Muses, to wine in golden goblets, to water, to a shrine which no years will fret away. Another strange figure[123] may be quoted from the third Nemean (line 76): "I send to thee this honey mingled with white milk; the dew of their mingling hangs around the bowl, a draught of song, flowing through the Æolian breath of flutes." It will be perceived that to what is called confusion of metaphors Pindar shows a lordly indifference. Swift and sudden lustre, the luminousness of a meteor, marks this monarch of lyric song. He grasps an image, gives it a form of bronze, irradiates it with the fire of flame or down-poured sunlight.

To do justice to Pindar's power of narrative by extracts and translations is impossible. No author suffers more by mutilation and by the attempt to express in another language and another rhythm what he has elaborately fashioned. Yet it may be allowed me to direct attention to the rapidity with which the burning of Coronis (Pyth. iii. 38) and the birth of Rhodes from the sea (Ol. vii. 54) are told in words the grandest, simplest, and most energetic that could be found. This is the birth of Iamos (Ol. vi. 39):

Nor could she hide from Æpytus the seed Divine: but he to Pytho, chewing care, Journeyed to gain for this great woe some rede; She loosening her crimson girdle fair, And setting on the ground her silver jar, Beneath the darksome thicket bare a son, Within whose soul flamed godhead like a star; And to her aid the golden-haired sent down Mild Eleithuia and the awful Fates, Who stood beside, while from the yearning gates

Of childbirth, with a brief and joyous pain, Came Iamos into the light, whom she therewith Sore-grieving left upon the grass: amain By gods' decree two bright-eyed serpents lithe Tended, and with the harmless venom fed Of bees, the boy; nor ceased they to provide Due nurture. But the king, what time he sped Homeward from rocky Pytho, to his side Called all his household, asking of the son Born of Evadne, for he said that none

But Phoebus was the sire, and he should be Chief for his prophecy 'mid mortal men, Nor should his children's seed have end. Thus he Uttered the words oracular: and then They swore they had not heard or seen the child, Now five days old; but he within the reed And thick-entangled woodland boskage wild, His limbs 'mid golden beams and purple brede Of gillyflowers deep-sunken, lay; wherefore He by his mother's wish for all time bore

That deathless name. But when he plucked the flower Of golden-wreathéd youth, he went and stood Midmost Alpheus, at the midnight hour, And called upon the ruler of the flood, His ancestor Poseidon, and the lord Of god-built Delos, praying that he might Rear up some race to greatness. Then the word Responsive of his sire upon the night Sounded:--'Arise, my son, go forth and fare Unto the land whereof all men shall share!'

So came they to the high untrodden mound Of Cronion; and there a double meed Of prophecy on Iamos was bound, Both from the voice that knows no lie to heed Immortal words, and next, when Herakles, Bold in his counsels, unto Pisa came, Founding the festivals of sacred peace And mighty combats for his father's fame, Then on the topmost altar of Jove's hill, The seat of sooth oracular to fill.

After so much praise of Pindar's style, it must be confessed that he has faults. One of these is notoriously tumidity--an overblown exaggeration of phrase. For example, when he wants to express that he cannot enlarge on the fame of Ægina, but will relate as quickly as he can the achievements of Aristomenes which he has undertaken, he says: "But I am not at leisure to consecrate the whole long tale to the lyre and delicate voice, lest satiety should come and cause annoy; but that which is before my feet shall go at running speed--thy affair, my boy--the latest of the noble deeds made winged by means of my art."[124] The imaginative force which enabled him to create epithets like #Philaglaos#, #pamporphyros#, and to put them exactly in their proper places, like blocks of gleaming alabaster or of glowing porphyry--for the architectural power over language is eminent in Pindar; the Titanic faculty of language which produced such phrases as #ex adamantos ê sidarou kechalkeutai melainan kardian psychrâi phlogi#, did also betray him into expressions as pompous and frigid as these: #poikilophormingos aoidas ... schoinoteneia t' aoida dithyrambôn#. These, poured forth by Pindar in the insolence of prodigality, when imitated by inferior poets, produced that inflated manner of lyrical diction which Aristophanes ridicules in Kinesias. The same may be said about his mixed metaphors, whereof the following are fair examples:

#doxan echô tin' epi glôssâi akonas ligyras ha m' ethelonta proselkei kallirooisi pnoais.#--Ol. vi. 82.

#Kôpan schason tachy d' ankyran ereison chthoni prôirathe choirados alkar petras enkômiôn gar aôtos hymnôn ep' allot' allon hôte melissa thynei logon.#--Pyth. x. 51.

Nor are these the worst, perhaps, of the sort which might be chosen: for Pindar uses images like precious stones, setting them together in a mass, without caring to sort them, so long as they produce a gorgeous show. Apparent incoherences, involving difficulty to the reader, and producing a superficial effect of obscurity, constitute another class of his alleged faults--due partly to his allusive and elliptical style, partly to his sudden transitions, partly to the mixture of his images. Incapable of what is commonplace, too fiery to trudge, like Simonides, along the path of rhetorical development, infinitely more anxious to realize by audacity the thought that seizes him than to make it easy to his hearer, Pindar is obscure to all who are unwilling to assimilate their fancy to his own. La Harpe called the Divine Comedy _une amplification stupidement barbare_: what, if he had found occasion to speak the truth of his French mind, would he have said about the Odes of Pindar? Another difficulty, apart from these of verbal style and imagination, is derived from the fact that the mechanism of Pindar's poetry, carefully as it is planned, is no less carefully concealed. He seems to take delight in trying to solve the problem of how slight a suggestion can be made to introduce a lengthy narrative. The student is obliged to maintain his attention at the straining-point if an ode of Pindar's, even after patient analysis, is to present more than a mass of confused thoughts and images to his mind. But when he has caught the poet's drift, how delicate is the machinery, how beautiful is the art, which governs this most sensitive fabric of linked melodies! What the hearers made of these odes--the athletes for whom they were written, the handsome youths praised in them, the rich men at whose tables they were chanted--remains an impenetrable mystery. Had the Greek race perceptions infinitely finer than ours? Or did the classic harmonies of Pindar sweep over their souls, ruffling the surface merely, but leaving the deeps untouched, as the soliloquies of _Hamlet_ or the profound philosophy of _Troilus and Cressida_ must have been lost upon the groundlings of Elizabeth's days, who caught with eagerness at the queen's poisoned goblet or the by-play of Sir Pandarus? That is a problem we cannot solve. All we know for certain is, that even allowing for the currency of Pindar's language and for the familiarity of his audience with the circumstances under which his odes were composed, as well as with their mythological allusions, these poems must at all times have been more difficult to follow than Bach's fugue in G minor to a man who cannot play the organ.

FOOTNOTES:

[104] This and all references are made to Bergk's text of Pindar.

[105] See above, p. 303.

[106] Translated by Conington, from Fragment ii. of _Dirges_.

[107] _Purg._, ix. 19.

[108] _Carm._, iv. 2. Translated thus by Conington:

Pindar, like torrent from the steep Which, swollen with rain, its banks o'erflows, With mouth unfathomably deep, Foams, thunders, glows.

[109] 7th Ol.

[110] Compare this with the passage in Pythian, iii. 68, where Pindar describes himself #Ionian temnôn thalassan#.

[111] Bergk, _Poetæ Lyrici_, p. 1301.

[112] Pyth. iv. 263.

[113] These pregnant words imply self-government and self-restraint in obedience to a high ideal of order and symmetry, as opposed to the perils and the uncomeliness of extravagance.

[114] "Hateful of a truth, even in days of old, was treacherous blandishment, attendant of wily words designing guile, mischief-making slander, which loves to wrest the splendor of fame and to maintain the unreal honors of ignoble men. Never may such be my temper, Zeus, my father! but may I follow the plain paths of life, that, dying, I may leave no foul fame to my children. Some pray for gold, and some for vast lands; but I to please my countrymen, and so to hide my limbs beneath the earth, praising where praise is due, and sowing blame for sinful men. Virtue grows and blooms, like a tree that shoots up under fostering dews, when skilled men and just raise it towards the liquid air." ... "Among my fellow-citizens I look with brightness in my eye, not having overstepped due bounds, and having removed from before my feet all violence. May future time come kindly to me." ... "May I obtain from Heaven the desire of what is right, aiming at things within my powers in my prime of life. For finding, as I do, that the middle status in a city flourishes with more lasting prosperity, I deprecate the lot of kings." ... "Passing the pleasure of the days, I gently glide towards old age and man's destined end; for all alike we die: yet is our fortune unequal; and if a man seek far, short is his strength to reach the brazen seat of the gods: verily winged Pegasus cast his lord Bellerophon, who sought to come into the dwellings of the heaven, unto the company of Zeus." ... "Seek not to be Zeus, ... mortal fortunes are for mortal men."

[115] Compare for a similar freedom of judgment Antigone's famous speech on the unwritten Laws.

[116] The conscience forms a strong point in the ethical systems of many of the ancients, especially of Plato, of Lucretius, of Persius--authors otherwise dissimilar enough as representing three distinct species of thought. In mythology it receives an imperfect embodiment in the Erinnyes, who, however, are spiritual forces acting from without, rather than from within, upon the criminal. Purifying rites belonged to the Mysteries, or #teletai#; they formed a prominent feature in the ethics of Empedocles and Pythagoras, and an integral part of the cult of Apollo and the nether deities. Philosophers like Plato rejected them as pertaining to ceremonial superstition.

[117] Bunsen's _God in History_, vol. ii. pp. 144 and 136.

[118] Pyth. viii.

[119] Ol. vi.

[120] Nem. v.

[121] Nem. viii.

[122] Pyth. vi.

[123] Compare, too, Nem. vii. 11, 62, 77.

[124] Pyth. viii. 30.