that the pardon and restoration of his erring but repentant kinsman would be the crown and consummation of the glorious career of Arcesilas, and a fitting continuation to the generous traditions of his heroic house. Perhaps the best parallel which modern literature presents to the scheme of this Ode is the famous speech of Mark Antony in Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar." The reader will remember with what infinite tact in that incomparable speech the orator prepares imperceptibly the minds of his hearers for the conclusion to which he desires to lead them, but which he does not venture to present to them till they are ready to receive it. Nay, the ultimate determination of the audience to avenge the death of Cæsar seems to come from themselves, rather than from the orator. So it is with this Ode. Pindar does hot, even at the last, ask in plain terms for the pardon of Damophilus. He urges it, indirectly alone, by allegory and maxim; and finally he draws two pictures, exhibiting with incomparable force and pathos on the one hand the miseries of banishment, on the other the happy, tranquil, law-abiding life of the returned exile, repentant and forgiven. And he leaves it to the promptings of Arcesilas's own generous heart to convert this last picture into a glorious reality, to gladden Damophilus, and to bring honour upon himself.
The argument of the Ode falls naturally into three divisions; and these divisions, as has been pointed out by a German critic,[1] stand to each other precisely as the three members of a syllogism. First comes the
- ↑ Leop. Schmidt, Pindar's Leben u. Dichtung, p. 288.
