The Odes of Pindar (Penguin ed.) Read online

  C. M. Bowra

  * * *

  THE ODES OF PINDAR

  Translated with an Introduction by C. M. Bowra

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction

  Main Events in the Games

  PYTHIAN X

  PYTHIAN VI

  PYTHIAN XII

  OLYMPIAN XIV

  PYTHIAN VII

  NEMEAN II

  NEMEAN V

  ISTHMIAN VI

  ISTHMIAN V

  ISTHMIAN VIII

  ISTHMIANS III–IV

  OLYMPIAN XI

  OLYMPIAN I

  NEMEAN I

  OLYMPIAN III

  OLYMPIAN II

  PYTHIAN IX

  PYTHIAN III

  NEMEAN III

  OLYMPIAN X

  NEMEAN IV

  NEMEAN IX

  OLYMPIAN VI

  OLYMPIAN XII

  PYTHIAN I

  ISTHMIAN II

  ISTHMIAN I

  PYTHIAN II

  OLYMPIAN IX

  NEMEAN VII

  OLYMPIAN VII

  OLYMPIAN XIII

  NEMEAN X

  PYTHIAN V

  PYTHIAN IV

  NEMEAN VI

  OLYMPIAN VIII

  NEMEAN VIII

  PYTHIAN XI

  ISTHMIAN VII

  OLYMPIAN IV

  NEMEAN XI

  PYTHIAN VIII

  (OLYMPIAN V)

  Register of Names

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN CLASSICS

  THE ODES OF PINDAR

  ADVISORY EDITOR: BETTY RADICE

  Pindar was born in 518 B.C. near Thebes in Boiotia of an aristocratic family which sent him in boyhood to study music and poetry at Athens. When he was only twenty he was commissioned by the royal house of Thessaly to write Pythian X, and he soon found patrons in many parts of Greece and in Sicily, which he visited in 476. Pindar and the aristocratic families with whom he was at home in most parts of Greece, particularly in Aigina, were little interested in the new ideas which Athens was enforcing on Greek cities. When Pindar praised his own special world in 474 he was reprimanded and fined at Thebes. He realized how dangerous Athens was to his kind of society when, after 460, first Aigina, then Boiotia was conquered. Pindar reached the height of his fame and found the fullest scope of his powers in the seventies and sixties of the fifth century. He died at Argos c, 438. In antiquity his poems were collected in seventeen books, from which survive, more or less intact, four books of Epinician Odes – choral songs written in honour of victories in the great Games.

  Sir Maurice Bowra studied Greek at Oxford under Gilbert Murray and gained first class honours. In 1922 he became tutor and fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and in 1938 he was made Warden, a post which he retained until his death in 1971. From 1946 to 1950 he was Professor of Poetry in the University, and from 1951 to 1954 he was its Vice-Chancellor. From 1958 to 1962 he was President of the British Academy. He wrote a number of books on Greek subjects, but also extended his studies to include parts of other literatures. He travelled a great deal in Greece, Asia Minor, and the Near East, and the United States. He was knighted in 1951, became a Commander of the Legion of Honour, a Doctor of Letters of Oxford University, and was the holder of eight honorary doctorates.

  Preface

  In 1928 Professor H. T. Wade-Gery and I published with the Nonesuch Press a little book, Pindar: Pythian Odes. This contained translations of all the Pythian Odes, together with a general introduction and separate introductions to the individual poems. The book, which was charmingly produced, very soon sold out and has not been reprinted. After forty years I have gone back to it and tried to make it the core of a complete translation of Pindar’s Epinician Odes. The Nonesuch Press has given permission for it to be reproduced in this way, and though Professor Wade-Gery has not been able to collaborate in new translations, he has willingly given permission for the republication of the Pythian Odes, in all of which he had a large share. So the Pythian Odes are here printed, with very few and small exceptions, as they were in 1928. The others are my own work, made over a period of years. Considerations of space have discouraged me from reprinting the original introductions, but as Pindar is notoriously difficult to understand, I have added a few notes of explanation to each poem. I am not convinced that they are adequate, but I hope that they will give some help. I have also added at the end of the book a register of names to assist in deciphering Pindar’s allusive methods of nomenclature. I have confined myself to the complete odes and not made any attempt to translate the fragments. I have arranged the poems in what seems to me a likely chronological order, as this may help to illustrate Pindar’s development, but I am conscious that much in it is uncertain. I have followed the text of my own Pindari Carmina in the Oxford Classical Texts, and in the very few places where I have diverged from it, I record the fact in a note.

  In my translation I have followed the method of the earlier book and made no attempt to keep either Pindar’s metres, which cannot be reproduced in English, or his formality of structure. I have tried to maintain a kind of free verse, but I have aimed much more at preserving the meaning of the original than its rhythm. I have not made my lines correspond with Pindar’s, and the numbers in the margin refer to the Greek original and not to the English translation. I have put them in since, even with this defect, I hope that they will make it easier to look up references.

  I owe a great debt to Father Peter Levi, S.J., who has read my text with generous care and made many wise suggestions. For the many faults that remain I must myself bear the responsibility.

  C.M.B.

  Introduction

  1

  Pindar was born in 518 B.C. near Thebes in Boiotia. His family was aristocratic and claimed connexion with the ancient clan of the Aigeidai, which was important at Sparta and through its branch at Thera numbered the royal house of Kyrene among its members. Pindar’s family did not merit the common Greek gibe that the Boiotians were ignorant boors, for they sent him in boyhood to study music and poetry at Athens. The last tyrant had just been expelled and a radically new democracy was being created, but though later in life Pindar was to be alarmed and even horrified by the unprecedented policies of Athens, he can hardly have foreseen them at this time. What he must have studied was the art of the choral ode, which had won a special prominence at Athens in the annual competitions for Dithyrambs in honour of Dionysos. In these Simonides, from the neighbouring island of Keos, won a long succession of prizes, and the fragments of his work show certain similarities to Pindar’s. Pindar matured rapidly. When he was only twenty he was commissioned by the royal house of Thessaly to write Pythian X, which is already highly accomplished and forecasts much that is most characteristic in Pindar’s later work. Before long he found patrons in many parts of Greece and in Sicily, and formed connexions, which meant much to him for the rest of his life, with noble families in Aigina. He seems hardly to have noticed the first wave of Persian invasion in 490 B.C., which ended in defeat by the Athenians at Marathon, but when the Persians returned with a more formidable army and fleet in 480–479 B.C., he was caught in an ugly position; for, while his friends in Aigina took a leading part in the defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis, his own Thebes fought on the Persian side and earned the deadly hatred of those other Greeks who opposed it.

  Pindar’s anguished feelings are revealed in Isthmian VIII, but the general dislike of Thebes does not seem to have in-included him, nor is there any sign that he wished the Persians to win. Almost before the war was finished he was writing for Aiginetan friends, and soon afterwards he was invited by generous and powerful patrons elsewhere to celebrate their suc
cesses. In Sicily Hieron of Syracuse and Theron of Akragas were military autocrats who wished to enhance their reputations on the Greek mainland and were rich enough to make a fine showing in the great Games in which victory was prized beyond all other honours. When in 476 B.C. Hieron won the horse-race and Theron the chariot-race in the Olympian Games, Pindar accepted an invitation to visit Sicily and supervise the performance of his own odes in honour of the victories. He stayed for the winter, but returned to the mainland in the spring and never visited Sicily again. From Pythian II we form the impression that he was not happy in a tyrant’s court and preferred to compose poems for his Sicilian patrons in the detachment of his own home.

  Pindar reached the height of his fame and found the fullest scope of his powers in the seventies and sixties of the fifth century. Though Thebes was his native place and, despite intermittent conflicts, he kept a loyal affection for it, he was at home among aristocratic families in almost any part of Greece. If Aigina won his deepest love, he entered easily into the spirit of successful athletes in Rhodes, Argos, and Korinth, and above all gave of his fullest powers to Arkesilas IV, king of Kyrene, for whom he wrote on an almost epic scale his Pythian IV. The families which he favoured and which favoured him belonged to an old-fashioned world and were little interested in the new ideas which Athens was enforcing on Greek cities. Even if they survived, it must have been at some cost to themselves in vitality and creative vigour. Nor did they all survive. The military monarchies of Theron and Hieron collapsed after their deaths; Arkesilas was murdered by his own people soon after the performance of Pythian IV. Pindar was slow to see that Athens threatened his own special world, and about 474 B.C. praised it in some famous words:

  O glittering, violet-crowned, chanted in song,

  Bulwark of Hellas, renowned Athens,

  Citadel of the Gods.

  For this he was reprimanded and fined at Thebes, and traces of the dispute and his own defence can be seen in Pythian IX. For a time he failed or refused to see how dangerous Athens was to the kind of society which meant everything to him, but after 460 B.C. he saw the brutal truth when Athens conquered first Aigina and later Boiotia. His later poems symbolized Athens variously as the arrogant Bellerophon, the murderous Aigisthos, and the unruly giant Porphyrion. His latest extant poem, Pythian VIII, written in 446 B.C., recognizes and approves the desire of Aigina to be free of Athens in what looks like a very favourable moment, but even so Pindar has doubts and misgivings and sees the passing issues of politics in a much wider setting.

  Pindar died at Argos c. 438 B.C., not long before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, but he had lived to see the liberation of Boiotia at the battle of Koroneia in 447 B.C. But though he could not fail to be touched by political events, especially when they affected his friends, Pindar saw human affairs from a more exalted and more exalting level. He belonged to an older world than we associate with the fifth century, its Athenian innovations and restless energy and pursuit of power. He admired heroism, but had no great liking for war, and preferred that things should stay as they were and men cultivate peace with one another and with themselves. He lived through one of the most eventful periods of history, but hardly marked its salient characteristics. He was concerned with the individuals whom he knew and with the world of gods above and around them that made them what they were.

  2

  In antiquity Pindar’s poems were collected in seventeen books. From these survive, more or less intact, four books of Epinician Odes, that is choral songs written in honour of victories in the great Games. Though many cities of Greece held games, the most highly regarded were the Olympian, held at Olympia in Elis, and the Pythian, held at Delphoi, both in every fourth year, and the Nemean, held in the north-east Peloponnese, and the Isthmian, held on the Isthmos of Korinth, both in every second year. Each of the four books of Epinicians deals with one of these Games. Of Pindar’s other books we have many fragments but no complete poem of any size. We might think it an odd whim of chance to have preserved the Epinicians when so little remains of such promising material as Hymns, Dirges, and Dithyrambs. But in fact, though the survival of the Epinicians may be largely an accident, there is no reason to complain; for in them Pindar deals with a great deal more than athletic success. So far as the actual Games were concerned, he seems to have been not very interested in their details; what concerned him was the significance of success in his scheme of things. For him victory in the Games raised questions of mystical and metaphysical importance. It illustrated the fact of glory as something which came from the Gods and the reality of success which is won by a proper use of natural gifts and laborious effort. The result is that the Epinicians contain a mass of poetry about many matters which range from a vision of life after death to many lively and stirring accounts of mythical events. It is hard to think of any subject which Pindar would normally have put into some other kind of poem and does not bring sooner or later into an Epinician. One advantage of his comparative lack of interest in the actual Games was that he found himself moved to speak of many other, more exalted matters and to use some actual occasion to convey his inner convictions.

  3

  The Epinician Ode is extremely formal in structure and governed by strict rules. In its simpler form, as in Pythian VI or Nemean VIII, it consists of a series of strophes or stanzas, each of which is metrically identical with all the rest, and this identity extends even to small points of prosody. Alternatively, and more often, Pindar uses not a series of single, similar strophes, but a series of triads, each of which consists of strophe, antistrophe, and epode, or, as Ben Jonson called them, Turne, Counter-Turne, and Stand. Strophe and antistrophe are metrically identical not merely in the same triad but throughout the poem, and though the epode is different from them, all epodes in a single poem are exactly alike. This is a very demanding structure, and its demands are seen more clearly when we find that no poem of Pindar is metrically the same as any other. Each time that he composed a poem he invented a new metrical pattern. It is true that his patterns are based on recognizable principles and that rhythmically his odes may be divided roughly into two classes, which may be called Dorian and Aeolian, but each single poem has its own metrical individuality. It is impossible to reproduce Pindar’s metres in English, and even in Greek, where the quantitative system allows so much more variety and assurance than our own accentual system, it takes a little time to catch their lilt and movement, but once it is caught it has no rival in variety, speed, and lightness.

  Yet Pindar’s formality is almost entirely external. It does not correspond to anything in what he has to say. Sometimes he ends a theme or a sentence with the end of a triad, but more often he sails gaily beyond it. Moreover, he does not present his material in an obviously formal arrangement but often seems to enjoy puzzling his readers by following some whimsical, apparently unmeditated plan. He is not interested in making an obvious beginning, middle, and end, but places his ingredients as his fancy wills. Though he learned his craft in Athens, it was in origin Dorian, and we can trace its history back to at least the seventh century. From a very early date the choral ode, such as the Epinician was, contained diverse elements sanctioned by tradition which the poet was expected to bring together. He had to praise the gods, to tell something about his human subject and his family, to illustrate the present occasion by a myth drawn from legend, and to enunciate grave truths in the form of maxims. All these things Pindar does but in no given order and with no recurring rules or proportion. More than this, his method of progression is more often than not by apparently abrupt changes of subject, which leave us guessing what his intention is. These changes are usually clear if we look closely at them, but Pindar likes to surprise us by the way in which he manages them. These traditional elements he understands intimately, and his control of them indicates how ancient they are and how welcome is variety in their treatment. But both the divergent character of his main elements and his handling of them make him a difficult author.

 
No formula solves the difficulty of reading Pindar, but it becomes less formidable when we remember that in each poem he is writing for a single occasion and that the main elements in this complex whole must somehow have a place in his poem. As he moves from theme to theme, from particular to general, from meditative wisdom to exciting narrative, he adds something new to his whole effect which is never fully visible until the whole pattern has been displayed. Even when he tells a myth it is not at all in the straightforward Homeric manner. He assumes that his audience know the main outline of his myths, and from his material he selects the points that appeal most strongly to him and enriches them with his finest poetry, but though his high moments can be intensely dramatic, his method is often whimsical and ingenious. He leads us through a series of different effects – narrative, personal, didactic – and we find ourselves shifting from one mood to another as he imposes his enchantment on us. Once we grasp his method and follow its twists and turns through a poem we see how rich his understanding of a single occasion is, how much new matter he finds in it and how much he gives to it.

  4

  Pindar’s style, like that of most Greek poetry, is a highly artificial creation with roots in a distant past. Greece had no single, common speech but every district had its own dialect. Sometimes a local dialect was used for poetry, but then its popularity was necessarily limited, as it might not be intelligible in some other places. Just as the epic was composed in a language which everyone understood because he was brought up on it, and contained a large variety of forms and synonyms, so did the language of choral song. It had a Dorian colouring, as the epic had an Ionian, but it was not any spoken Dorian dialect. It had been built up for some three centuries, and in the course of time had developed not only a rich vocabulary with many linguistic variations but a large number of literary devices. Pindar’s allusive methods and indirect progress gain much from little tricks which give surprise and variety to his movement. Above all he secures a remarkable concentration in his use of words. He is able by judicious omission and selection to say a lot in a very small space – not in the sense that he conveys much information, but in the sense that the poetical weight and force of a phrase or a sentence are much more noticeable than in more straightforward poetical speech. This kind of concentration sometimes comes at the end of a long tradition, and though it may always have been natural to Greek choral song, it is understandable that Pindar, writing in his own way in an ancient form, secures an even greater richness than his predecessors, and if we may judge by the fragments of poets like Simonides or Pindar’s own contemporary Bacchylides, this is what he does. Pindar comes at the end of a long tradition, and sums up in himself the special outlook of the aristocratic age of Greece.