Called from yon bird divine.
Wide as the eagle's be his monarch-sway;
Swoop he as eagle on his prey.{{' "}—(S.)
Pindar describes with enthusiasm the exploits of Ajax in the Trojan war, and mourns over the hero's self-inflicted death. He had asserted his just claim to inherit the arms of Achilles. But the jealousy of the Greek chiefs and the cunning of Odysseus conspired successfully against the cause of right, and Ajax, baffled and maddened, fell upon his own sword:—
"'Twas bitter, envious hate
That on his buried sword great Ajax flung:
The hero strong of arm, unskilled of tongue,
Must bow to base defeat.
Artist of glozing lies, Laertes' son
The golden armour won:
The stealthy vote the dark injustice sped,
And baffled Ajax bled." [1]—(S.)
In the Seventh Nemean, Pindar's sympathy with Ajax leads him for once to question the veracity of Homer.[2] He hints that as the craft of Odysseus (Ulysses) perverted the judgment of Ajax's contemporaries, so have the ignorant public of a later age been misled by the craft of Homer. As in life, so after death, Odysseus has received more than his due, and Ajax less.
Further on, in the same Ode, Pindar alludes to the melancholy fate of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, slain in a brawl with the priests of Delphi:—
"On the sacred floor
His blood the sworded priest 'mid the meat-offering shed."
—(S.)
