And some in steeds and sports, and some in dice,
And some in harps have joy, and all wealth's flowers bloom ever there.
And fragrance spreads about their country fair,
As in the altar's dazzling flame they mingle all sweet spice."
As a companion picture to this, we may take a strophe from Pindar's earliest extant Ode, the Tenth Pythian. Here he is describing the bliss, not of the righteous dead, but of the happiest of living men, the wondrous Hyperboreans, dwellers "at the back of the North-wind," in a country visited by heroes like Heracles and Perseus, but to which "nor fleets nor feet" may avail to guide adventurous mortals.
"Nor at their customs stands
The muse aloof, but all around, the maiden bands
Dance ever to the sound of harp and shrilling fife;
Their locks with golden laurel crowned, they feast in careless joy.
Disease nor wasting eld may e'er their bliss alloy.
A consecrated race, remote from toil and strife."
Not dissimilar is the vision of a city in time of peace, sketched in a fragment of a Hymn by Pindar's contemporary and rival, Bacchylides.[1]
"But mighty Peace to mortals brings a dower
Of Wealth, and honeyed Music's every flower;
On carven altars then the fat of ox
Wastes in the yellow flame, and fleecy flocks;
And striplings' thoughts are bent on sport, and flute, and feast."
In other fragments of Pindar's Dirges we find allusions
- ↑ Bergk's Poetæ Lyrici, p. 966.
