THE FIRST OLYMPIC ODE.
TO HIERO, KING OF SYRACUSE, VICTOR IN THE SINGLE-HORSE RACE IN THE SEVENTY-THIRD OLYMPIAD.
ARGUMENT.
In this ode Pindar, who, together with other bards, was probably at this time a guest at the royal table, sets forth in a beautiful strain of poetry the glory and superiority of the Olympic contest, in which Hiero has been victorious, to all other games; he then digresses to the history of Pelops, son of Tantalus, who formerly possessed Pisa and Olympia, and is now honoured as a hero within the sacred grove Altis. Returning to his principal subject, he concludes the ode with good wishes for the continued prosperity of the victor.
Note.—The inner number, placed at the end of the several paragraphs, shows the corresponding line of the original.
Water with purest virtue flows;[1]
And as the fire's resplendent light
Dispels the murky gloom of night,
The meaner treasures of the mine
With undistinguish'd lustre shine 5
Where gold irradiate glows.
- ↑ In the Thalesian philosophy water was considered the most excellent of all the elements, as that to which all other things owed their origin. This opinion Plutarch (de Iside et Osiride) considers that Homer as well as Thales borrowed from the Egyptians. Juno, in the Iliad, b. xiv., v. 200, tells Venus, and afterward repeats it to Jupiter, that she came to visit the extremities of the earth, and Ocean, the progenitor of the gods, and their mother Tethys.
