An ode is sent over the sea "like Phoenician merchandise" (κατὰ Φοίνισσαν ἐμπολάν, Pyth. ii. 67). The poet's mind is a register of promised songs, in which a particular debt can be searched out: ἀνάγνωτέ μοι | Ἀρχεστράτου παῖδα, πόθι φρενὸς ἐμᾶς γέγραπται· "read me where the son of Archestratus [an Olympian victor] is written in my memory" (Ol. xi. 1). Ample praise, long deferred, is τόκος, payment with interest (ib. 9). The trainer who faithfully conveys the poet's thoughts to the chorus is ἄγγελος ὀρθός, ἠϋκόμων σκυτάλα Μοισᾶν (Ol. vi. 91), "an upright envoy, interpreter from man to man of the Muses with the beauteous hair": the point of σκυτάλη being that the message would not be intelligible if carried by one who was not in exact possession of Pindar's ideas. The cithern is invoked as Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ ἰοπλοκάμων | σύνδικον Μοισᾶν κτέανον (Pyth. i. 1), "witness for Apollo and the Muses with violet locks, whose thou art": cp. Ol. ix. 98, σύνδικος αὐτῷ Ἰολάου | τύμβος εἰναλία τ' Ἐλευσὶς ἀγλαΐαισιν, "the tomb of lolaus [at Thebes] and Eleusis by the sea is witness to his glories."
In other connections also Pindar can use homely images, which link his lofty style with the idiom and proverbial philosophy of daily life. Thus:—ἴστω γὰρ ἐν τούτῳ πεδίλῳ δαιμόνιον πόδ' ἔχων | Σωστράτου υἱός (Ol. vi, 8); "yea, let the son of Sostratus know that in this sandal he hath his foot, by grace divine": i.e. stands in this case. One recalls the famous σὺ μὲν ἔρραψας τοῦτο τὸ ὑπόδημα,
