winds," [1] or a pot of oil as "the olive's produce pent in fire-scorched earth;" [2] but where we see incongruity, Pindar's audience saw sublimity, and there is something heroic in the poet's confidence that so it would be. The same may be said of many another daring phrase in his Odes, as where he speaks of smoke that "kicks" [3] against the sky, or personifies an apology as "Excuse, the child of Afterthought," [4] or bids Hiero "forge his tongue on the anvil of truth," [5] or describes the remembrance of his own ancestry as a "whetstone shrilling at his tongue." [6] A poet who dares to speak thus, shows a confidence of his power to make language produce a desired effect on his audience which must command admiration, if the result proves that such confidence was well founded. And in the case of Pindar, his contemporary reputation supplies this proof.
Pindar's rapidity is not an unmixed advantage. Often, before his readers have grasped one thought, he hurries them to another and yet another, so that—like travellers whirled in an express train through fine scenery—they receive impressions which are neither clear nor permanent. But sometimes he presents an idea so vividly that it cannot fail to arrest attention; and in such cases, the rapidity with which he produces his effect is a distinct element in our enjoyment of it. Thus, in the Fifth Olympian, in his picture of the new settlement at Camarina, he makes a few brief phrases serve for pages of description, and
