Page:Pindar and Anacreon.djvu/22

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xiv
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF PINDAR.

This, according to Corsini, (Fast. Att.) is the year of Pindar's death, which however is by different authors assigned to various years between the 79th and 87th Olympiad.[1]

  1. The various themes on which his prolific muse was employed are thus enumerated by Horace, in his ode beginning "Pindarum quisquis," &c.; which it may not displease the English reader to peruse in the paraphrase of our excellent Cowley:—
    "Whether th' immortal gods he sings
    In a no less immortal strain,
    Or the great acts of god-descended kings,
    Who in his numbers still survive and reign;
    Whether in Pisa's race he please
    To carve in polish'd verse the conqueror's images;
    Whether some brave man's untimely fate
    In words worth dying for he celebrate;
    Such mournful and such pleasing words,
    As joy to his mother's and his mistress' grief affords."