But the remotest point that lies
Open to human enterprise
Their course has gain'd, well skill'd to sweep
The wide expanse of glory's deep; 45
But not along the wondrous way [1]
To Hyperborean crowds can ships or feet convey.
Of old, as at their sacred feast,
Whole hecatombs appeased the god,
The steps of an illustrious guest, 50
Perseus, their habitation trod;
Whose festivals and songs of praise
Apollo with delight surveys;
And smiles to see the bestial train
In wanton pride erect and vain. 56 55
Yet never will th' impartial muse
To dwell with minds like these refuse:
Around them move the virgin choirs,
The breathing flutes and sounding lyres;
And twining with their festive hair 60
The wreath of golden laurel fair,
With temperate mirth and social glee
They join in solemn revelry.
Nor dire disease, nor wasting age,
Against their sacred lives engage: 65
But free from trouble and from strife,
- ↑ This digression to the Hyperborean regions, which Pindar here seems to consider as the western boundary of the world, and to the story of Perseus, who came suddenly on the pious inhabitants as they were sacrificing hecatombs of wild asses to Apollo, is greatly censured by the scholiast as an unreasonable deviation from the original scope and design of the ode. But these irregularities are so characteristic of our poet, that whatever place or persons the progress of his story leads him, however slightly, to mention, we look as a matter of course for any mythological record connected with them.
rible prophetic denunciation of the Jewish lawgiver: (Deut., xxviii., 3:) "Thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass."
