friend to my friend, but toward an enemy I will be an enemy, and as a wolf will cross his path, treading now here now there in crooked ways[1].' For every form of polity is a man of direct speech best, whether under a despotism, or whether the wild multitude, or the wisest, have the state in their keeping.
Against God it is not meet to strive, who now upholdeth these, and now again to those giveth great glory. But not even this cheereth the heart of the envious; for they measure by an unjust balance, and their own hearts they afflict with bitter pain, till such time as they attain to that which their hearts devise.
To take the car's yoke on one's neck and run on lightly, this helpeth; but to kick against the goad is to make the course perilous. Be it mine to dwell among the good, and to win their love.
- ↑ It appears to me to be an absurdity to suppose that Pindar means to express in this sentence his own rule of conduct, as the commentators have fancied. He is all through this passage condemning 'crooked ways.'
