admires Homer, he accepts his legends, he often embodies them in his work, he quotes his sentiments, and appeals to them as a modern divine would appeal to the words of Scripture. And yet he does not shrink from an occasional rejection of the authority of his oracle. He is willing to believe that Homer gave Ulysses more and Ajax less than his due. But while he exposes this unfairness, he pays a tribute to Homer's powers, designed, as it were, to rob his criticisms of their sting.
"Far greater than his meeds, I ween,
Ulysses' praise hath been,
In Homer's sweet immortal verse enshrined.
For in that verse that soars on wings doth dwell
A wondrous art of secret spell,
Throwing a haze of seeming sooth
On fair untruth;
While by the spell bewitched and blind
Is the rapt hearer's ear and mazed mind,
The hidden truth to find." [1]—(S.)
This attitude of Pindar towards the traditions of Greek religion—an attitude of occasional criticism, but hardly ever of actual revolt—finds a close parallel in that of his great contemporary, the Athenian Æschylus. The latter, also, though in his general tone a conservative of the conservatives, deeply and sincerely attached to the nati6nal religion, can yet at times use language which would have seemed at first sight more natural in the mouth of an Euripides. He rejects the ancient "grandsire tales" that human prosperity, as such, is the
- ↑ Nem. vii. 20.
