feature in Pindar's poetry, by no means proves a corresponding rapidity in its production. Pindar has sometimes been represented as a sort of improvisatore, dashing off his Odes at lightning pace, with much natural and acquired skill, but little or no reflection. Such a view, however, though it has been maintained by competent critics, seems at once unsupported by evidence, and improbable in itself.
It cannot be proved by appealing to the amount of poetry produced by our author, and inferring from this the rapidity of its production. Much as he undoubtedly produced, it may be calculated with some probability that the extant Odes amount to at least a sixth of all his published poetry.[1] But let us suppose the total mass far greater than this, and allow that, for every poem catalogued by the industrious librarians of Alexandria, another may have existed of which all their research had failed to discover a trace. Still the probable amount will fall far short of that which many Greek authors, and notably the great Athenian dramatists, are estimated to have produced. Yet it has never been suggested that these authors sacrificed finish to rapidity of production. A long life, devoted solely to his art, would have surely afforded to a poet of Pindar's talents ample space for the composition, without undue pressure, of a very large number of Odes and Hymns and Dithyrambs. The mere extent of his poetry, then, proves nothing.
- ↑ By "published" is here meant, produced and performed at public or family gatherings.
