190
PINDAR.
Thus does Pindar give a consolatory turn to the old simile of Homer, "The race of man is as the race of leaves." Other ancient poets adapted it to teach a gloomier lesson, the shortness and misery of life. This was all that Mimnermus[1] saw in it, when he expanded it into an elaborate and melancholy allegory; or Simonides,[2] when he applauded and quoted it in condemnation of the Fallacies of Hope. Pindar's doctrine is more cheerful, and more unselfish. He sees that the leaves fall, but he remembers that the tree will bud again. The individual aspirant to fame may fail, but the poet consoles him with the hope that he may live again in his descendants, and triumph in the reflected glories of their successes.
