Pindar and Anacreon/Pindar/Pythian Odes/11
THE ELEVENTH PYTHIAN ODE.
TO THRASYDÆUS, THE THEBAN, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE STADIC COURSE, GAINED WHEN A BOY, IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH PYTHIAD.
ARGUMENT.
The poet begins this ode with an invocation to the deities of his country—Semele, Ino, and Alcmena—entreating their presence when the pomp of triumph is to be brought to the temple of Ismenian Apollo, and naming the field of conquest the rich plain of Pylades, he digresses to the story of his friend Orestes, and the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra.—Returns to his subject, commending the victor and his father on account of his numerous triumphs.—Declares his preference of the moderate but secure fortune which they enjoy to the unstable pomp by which tyrants are surrounded.—Concludes by citing the examples of Iolaus, son of Iphiclus, Castor, and Pollux.
Daughters of Cadmus! Semele the fair, [1]
Companion of th' Olympic train,
And Ino, now Leucothea, given to share
The couch of Nereids in the main;
Go with the mother of Alcides brave
To Melia's dark and sacred cave, [2]
Where lies the golden tripod's store,
To which unerring Loxias bore
Superior love, and bade the hallow'd fane,
Seat of prophetic truth, Ismenus' name retain. 10
Harmonia's children! ye whose heroine band,
Assembled by the god's command,
At close of day he bids in social state
Pytho and Themis celebrate,
With earth's truth-speaking centre—to proclaim 15
Seven-portall'd Thebes and Cirrha's game,
Where Thrasydæus by the third won crown [3]
Hath his paternal hearth's renown
Exalted where great Pylades' command
(Spartan Orestes' friend) ruled o'er the fertile land. 24 20
Him, when his slaughter'd father lay,
By Clytemnestra's hand subdued,
The nurse Arsinoe stole away
From the dire scene of fraud and blood;
What time with Agamemnon's soul 25
She, whom no pity could control,
Urging the sharp and glittering blade,
Dardanian Priam's daughter hurl'd
Cassandra to th' infernal world,
Where flows sad Acheron through realms of shade. 31 30
Did her to the unhallow'd stroke
Iphigenia's doom provoke,
Who died, far from her native land,
A victim on Euripus' strand?
Or lust of an adulterous bed, 35
That to the nightly dalliance led?
A crime of most abhorrent die
In her whose wedded bliss is young!
The violated marriage tie
Is told by every foreign tongue— 40
Since naught to hide the guilty tale
From slanderous townsmen can avail. 44
Envy is wealth's perpetual foe,
'Gainst which the humble mutter low.
Ev'n when the great Alcides came 45
To Sparta, seat of ancient fame,
Bringing destruction on the prophet maid;
He fell, who saw the wasting fire
For Helen's baneful charms aspire,
And low in dust Troy's splendid fabrics laid. 50
Orestes with his youthful head
To hospitable Strophius fled,
His aged friend, who dwelt below
Parnassus' elevated brow.
At length with valiant arm he gave 55
His mother and Ægisthus to the grave. 57
Now, friends, in devious track I stray
From the direct and beaten way;
Slave to some arbitrary gale,
That guides the pliant vessel's sail. 60
Muse, if by compact or for gain
A mercenary voice thou raise,
Exaggerate in varied strain
The subject of thy venal praise.
Let Trasydæus now inspire 65
Thy lay, or his triumphant sire,
The Pythian victor, they whose fame
Shines with a bright and glorious flame. 69
Late conquerors in th' Olympic car,
And the renown'd equestrian war, 70
With naked limbs in Pytho's race,
They rushing through the stadium's space,
The Grecian host in speed o'ercame.
Such blessings as the gods impart
Still may I love with tranquil heart, 75
Seeking in life an easy state—
I find the middle ranks endure
In lasting happiness secure,
And blame th' exalted tyrant's fate. 81
The virtues of a common kind 80
Engage my unambitious mind,
Since loss o'er envy still impends.
He who has gain'd the summit fair,
Living remote from anxious care,
Nor to injurious wrong descends, 85
Reaches black death's most wish'd-for bound,
Shedding, to bless a lovely race,
The richest of possessions round
His noble deeds' illustrious grace; 90
Such as in hymns transmits to fame 90
Triumphant Iphiclides' name.
Thee, kingly Pollux, and great Castor's might—
Sons of the gods! who one day dwell [4]
Within Therapne's gloomy cell,
Another on Olympus' towering height. 95
- ↑ The opening of this ode affords another proof of the fondness with which Pindar alludes to the story of the daughters of Cadmus and Harmonia; Semele, now an assessor or companion of the gods, and Ino, deified as Leucothea, or Matuta, goddess of the morning, whose rites were only approached by freeborn matrons. (See Ol., ii.; Pyth., iii. and xi.)
- ↑ Melia was an ocean nymph, who became the mother of Ismenus and Tenerus by Apollo.
- ↑ One by his father, one by his uncle, one by himself. Orestes is called Spartan, (v. 20,) since, although a native of Mycenæ, he was made king of Sparta. The following digression, relating his story, with the adultery of Clytemnestra, &c., is also reprehended by the scholiast as irrelevant to the subject of the ode.
The same narration is made by the shade of Agamemnon to Ulysses in the infernal regions: (Od., xi., 404–434.) Compare the tale as related by Sophocles: (Electra, 94, et seq.)
- ↑ This part of the history of Castor and Pollux, who underwent for each other the alternate vicissitudes of life and death, is also related by Homer: (Od., xi., 371, seq.:)—
"By turns they visit this ethereal sky,
And live alternate, and alternate die."—Pope."Si fratrem Pollux alterna morte redemit,
Itque reditque viam toties."Therapne was a town of Laconia, where Castor and Pollux were born. Heyne conjectures, and I think with great probability, that this fable of the Dioscuri owed its origin to some confused notion of the daily rising and setting of Luciferus and Hesperus. Pindar again relates the story: (Nem., x., 100, et seq. 173, seq.)