Whom, seated on their thrones of gold,
They saw the splendid gifts unfold.
Thus every care and labour past,
Rewarded by the fostering love 175
That guards the favour'd sons of Jove,
Their drooping hearts were raised at last.
But Cadmus, in a later age,
By his three daughters' wretched fate, [1]
Their awful death and frantic rage, 180
Fell from his bless'd paternal state;
When Father Jove, in radiant flame,
To thy sweet couch, fair-arm'd Thyone, came. 177
While Peleus' offspring, whom on Phthia's shore
Her only son, immortal Thetis bore, 185
Burn'd on the funeral pyre, in cries of grief
Compell'd the Greeks to mourn their slaughter'd chief. 182
Whoever then of mortal kind
To certain truth directs his mind,
Let him with grateful heart enjoy 190
What good the blessed gods bestow:
His shortlived pleasures to destroy
Soon will the adverse tempests blow. [2]
How great soe'er, it speeds away,
- ↑ The fate of two of the daughters of Cadmus, Ino and Semele, has been mentioned before, ([[../../Olympic Odes/2|Ol. ii.]] 36.) To these Pindar now adds the third, Agave, who, in a fit of madness, slew her son Pentheus. (See Ovid. Met. lib. iii. ad fin.) The history of these three sisters, to whom may be added Autonoe, mother of the ili-fated Actæon, presents a striking instance of the uncertain tenure by which mortal prosperity is held. In v. 184 Semele is called Thyone; so named, says the scholiast, απο του περι τον Διονυσον παθους, ὁτι θυει και ενθουσιᾳ κατα τους χορους; as the name Semele was given, ὁτι σειει τα μελη των οινουργουντων (ὁ Διονυσος scil.)
- ↑ The metaphor is here expressed in nearly the same words as in the last verse of the [[../../Olympic Odes/7|seventh Olympic ode]].
