Pindar and Anacreon/Pindar/Preface
PREFACE.
The version of Pindar's Odes which is here offered to the public was first undertaken in compliance with a suggestion contained in a critique written some years ago in the Quarterly Review; to which was annexed, by way of illustrating the plan, a metrical translation of the first two Olympic odes, in which the usual division into strophe, antistrophe, and epode was neglected, after it had been exposed in a strain of playful irony, and that into corresponding paragraphs made use of in its stead.
The versions of these two odes were afterward republished at the end of a small volume of poems by the late Bishop Heber; and this plan appeared to the author of the present translation to be so worthy of adoption, that he has been induced to go regularly through the odes in the same manner; and now submits his effort to the ordeal of public opinion.
If the sentiment of Denham, in his fine panegyric on Sir R. Fanshaw, translator of Il Paster Fido, expressed in the following lines, be well founded,
"Nor ought a genius less than his that writ,
Attempt translation; for transplanted wit
All the defects of air and soil doth share,
And colder brains like colder climates are,"
few would be sufficiently bold to grapple in verse with a poet of so sublime a genius as the Theban bard; the difficulty of transfusing whose peculiar beauties into another language can be appreciated by those alone who have attempted to preserve this poet's sublimity without soaring into empty loftiness; and to adopt his occasional free tone of diction, without degenerating into the language of colloquial familiarity: so high a degree of caution is required in the translator always to be on his guard, lest
"Migret in obscuras humili sermone tabernas;
Aut dum vitat humum, nubes et inania captet."
Horat. ad Pison. 229.
But whatever fate may attend the present version, I shall scarcely know how to repent of the temerity which urged me to the undertaking, and induced me to persevere in a labour that has furnished an agreeable occupation for many a vacant hour.
It has been my wish to give throughout my version some idea of the energetic, but rather abrupt, style and manner of an author whose language is exalted by sentiments of piety and genuine patriotism—deserved encomiums to the virtuous and brave, as well as heartfelt gratitude to his generous benefactors; whose various compositions are appealed to as authority in doubtful cases by Cicero, Pausanias, and other ancient writers quoted by the scholiast on different passages; whom Plato distinguishes by the epithets most wise and divine; who was considered by one of the early Christian fathers, Clement of Alexandria, to have been well versed in the Scriptures of the Old Testament, and to have borrowed many passages from that treasury of sacred wisdom and sublime eloquence, particularly from the Book of Proverbs; to whom, while living, honours all but divine were paid; and whose dwelling was spared, many ages after his death, in the general sack of his native city.
I have annexed a brief account of the four most celebrated games of Greece, as well as an analysis of each ode; sufficient, I trust, to show the connection of idea that often binds together the most apparently digressive of Pindar's compositions; and added occasional illustrative notes, which may be found useful in explaining historical and mythological allusions: nor shall I, perhaps, be thought too presuming in expressing a hope that the English reader may now be enabled to form a more accurate idea of the poetical character of Pindar than he has hitherto been enabled to effect.