THE SEVENTH ISTHMIAN ODE.
TO STREPSIADES THE THEBAN, VICTOR IN THE PANCRATIUM.
ARGUMENT.
Pindar begins this highly poetical ode with an address to Thebes; concisely enumerating her ancient glories, and the most remarkable events in her history.—Praises the maternal uncle of Strepsiades, who had fallen in battle.—Then returns to the victor, and mingles good wishes with his commendations.—Concludes with beseeching Apollo to add a victory in the Isthmian games to the other triumphs of Strepsiades.
Oh happy Thebes! of all thy former joys,[1]
Which now the most thy mind employs?
Is it the hour when first to light of day
The fair-hair'd Bacchus sprang,
By Ceres throned, whose priests their homage pay
With cymbals' brazen clang? 6
Or think'st thou of the midnight hour
When veil'd within a golden shower
The chief of the celestial band
Deign'd at Amphitryo's doors to stand? 10 10
- ↑ Dodwell, in his classical Travels in Greece, (vol. i., p, 271,) has a passage in which the glories and heroic characters of Thebes are enumerated, apparently in illustration of the highly poetical exordium of this ode.
"The early or heroic history of Thebes is particularly splendid; and neither Athens, Lacedæmon, Argos, nor Mycene, were so much celebrated as the capital of Bœotia for great events, for heroes, and for demigods. The names of Kadmos, Semele, Bacchus, Antiope, Zethes, Amphion, Amphitryon, Alcmena, Hercules, Laius, and his unfortunate race, furnish strong evidence of the early power and original lustre of this country. No part of Greece produced characters of more exalted
