In the Tenth Pythian, Pindar has been saying that a man who is at once a conqueror and the father of a conqueror has attained the summit of human happiness. What matters it, he cries, that there are further heights which he can never scale; that he cannot climb the brazen heaven, or reach the Paradise beyond the pole, the happy country of the Hyperboreans? And then he tells the legend of the hero Perseus, who had foimd the wondrous way to that mysterious region. No digression could seem more uncalled for; yet Boeckh suggests reasons for believing that the legends of Perseus had a special interest for the family of the Thessalian noble at whose request the poem was written. The pretended link again is a deception. The real occasion for the introduction of the myth is the family history of the patron.
Yet again, in the Eleventh Pythian, Pindar has occasion to tell the famous tale of Agamemnon's murder by his wife, probably, as Boeckh argues at length, in connection with a misfortune which had befallen the victor's family. But how does he introduce it? Does he condole plainly with his patron, and pass by obvious steps to compare the present disaster with its legendary parallel? Far from it. Pindar disdains to tread such "beaten paths."
"Learnt have I shorter paths, and others have in them led." [1]
His patron had conquered at Pytho—Pytho had once been ruled by Pylades—Pylades was the bosom
- ↑ Pyth. iv. 248.
