He loves to exhibit the compassion and forgiveness of gods for sins of oblivion or heedless rashness.[1] Filial and family love is elevated above the sphere of physical instinct, and becomes a divine inspiration, which can triumph over the fear of death, and even over death itself.[2] With a grief too great for consolation, the poet will at least express a sympathy—
Ah me! the speechless woe I felt." [3]—(S.)
Yet no doubt the usual tone of these Odes is jubilant rather than pathetic, and occasionally the poet's exultation indulges itself in a sort of grim humour at the expense of a defeated rival, which might expose him to a charge of heartlessness. We do not quite like to think of Pindar's audience laughing over his picture of the baffled competitor, slinking home by back lanes to avoid the jeering of his comrades;[4] and prefer the morality which he elsewhere inculcates, the lesson of the Ancient Prophet of the Sea—
"Who bade mankind full praise bestow
E'en on the prowess of a noble foe." [5]
A similar tone of sarcasm may perhaps be detected in a passage of the Seventh Isthmian, which tells how Memnon and Hector and many another champion were "directed to the house of Persephone,"—i. e., in plain terms, slain—"by Achilles." But we cannot be quite sure how the phrase would strike a Greek audience. The sense of the ludicrous varies from age
