time throughout Hellas who excelled thee in honour or in the multitude of possessions, such an one with vain purpose essayeth a fruitless task.
Upon the flower-crowned prow[1] will I go up to sing of brave deeds done. Youth is approved by valour in dread wars; and hence say I that thou hast won boundless renown in thy battles, now with horsemen, now on foot: also the counsels of thine elder years give me sure ground of praising thee every way.
All hail! This song like to Phenician merchandize is sent across the hoary sea: do thou look favourably on the strain of Kastor in Aeolian mood[2], and greet it in honour of the seven-stringed lute.
Be what thou art, now I have told thee what that is: in the eyes of children the fawning ape is ever comely: but the good fortune of Rhadamanthos hath come to him because the fruit that his soul bare was true, neither delighteth he in deceits within his heart, such as by whisperer's arts ever wait upon mortal man.
An overpowering evil are the secret speakings of slander, to the slandered and to the listener thereto alike, and are as foxes in relentless temper. Yet for the beast whose name is of gain[3] what great thing is gained thereby? For like the cork above the net, while the rest of the tackle laboureth deep in the sea, I am unmerged in the brine.
Impossible is it that a guileful citizen utter potent words among the good, nevertheless he fawneth on all and useth every subtlety. No part have I in that bold boast of his, 'Let me be a
- ↑ The prow of the ship carrying this ode, with which Pindar, as has been said, identifies himself.
- ↑ It is supposed that another ode, more especially in honour of the chariot-victory, is here meant, which was to be sent later.
From this point to the end the ode reads like a postscript of private import and reference.
- ↑ κέρδως[errata 1] a fox is not really connected with κέρδος gain.
