Page:Pindar (Morice).djvu/115

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE LEGENDS OF OLYMPIA.
101

In the chariots won—Halirothius' son:
And all unerring flew Phrastor's spear:
With strength unrivalled Eniceus flung the massy stone in his grasp that swung,
And loud and long was his comrades' cheer!"

A tedious list to us, perhaps,—but who can tell what associations it suggested to Pindar's audience?

Then the fair moon rose on the scene, and revelry succeeded to the contests:—

"And straight around rang from each banquet sweet
Such songs as yet the victors greet."

"We too, in our later days, will raise that strain, and sing of Zeus and of victory. Long have we delayed, but our lay will be all the more welcome, when at last from its Theban fount it reaches the Locrian land. Hope deferred only heightens the joy of the aged father when at last the long-expected heir is born. So will it be with our song, long promised, long withheld."

"With eager joy the glorious house I greet!
Watering with dews of honey sweet
The Locrians' well-peopled state, thy noble son I celebrate,
Archestratus,—as erst I saw him gain
Victory by Olympia's fane
On that auspicious day,
In form and feature fair,
Blent with such youthful bloom, as drove decay
Far from Ganymede, and brought him heavenly life with Zeus to share."

No such thread of a common legend as we have traced in the above Odes unites the remaining poems