last an easy passage in his Thucydides, "Here the lion smiled!" It is occupied chiefly with an invocation of the Graces—the three sister-deities, Joy, Brightness, and Song; and then at its close, with a charming touch of natural feeling, the orphan-boy is reminded of his lost father, and Echo or Rumour is summoned to bear to the dead Cleudamus the tidings of his son's success:—
"How by the glens of glorious Pisa he
Crowned his young locks with plumes of victory."
Similarly in another Ode,[1] the victory of the Æginetan boy, Alcimedon, is described as the theme of mutual congratulations among deceased members of his house in Hades:—
"Iphion (by Rumour, Hermes' daughter, taught)
Shall to Callimachus repeat, what pride
Zeus in Olympia to their house hath brought."
Thus, with a simple and cheerful faith, Pindar enforces that creed which Aristotle tells us it would be "too unkind" to reject, that "the good fortunes of kinsmen count for something to the dead."
- ↑ Ol. viii. 81.
