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PINDAR (Gr. HivSapos, c. 522–443 B.c.) , the See also: great lyric
poet of See also: ancient See also: Greece, was See also: born at Cynoscephalae, in See also: Boeotia, at the See also: time of the Pythian See also: games (Jr
.
175, Bergk4, 193),1 which is taken by See also: Bockh to be 522 B.C
.
He would thus be some See also: thirty-four years younger than See also: Simonides of See also: Ceos
.
He was the son of Daiphantus and Cleodice (or Cleidice)
.
The traditions of his See also: family have See also: left their impress on his See also: poetry, and are not without importance for a correct estimate of his relation to his contemporaries
.
The clan of the Aegidae—tracing their See also: line from the See also: hero Aegeus—belonged to the " Cadmean " See also: element
1 The references are to the edition of Pindar by C
.
A
.
M
.
Fennell (1893-1899), and the See also: fourth edition of See also: Bergk's Poetae l_yrici graeci.of See also: Thebes, i.e. to the elder See also: nobility whose supposed date went back to the days of the founder See also: Cadmus
.
A branch of the Theban Aegidae had been settled in Achaean times at Amyclae in the valley of the Eurotas (Pind
.
Isthm. vi
.
14), and after the Dorian See also: conquest of the See also: Peloponnesus had apparently been adopted by the Spartans into one of the three Dorian tribes
.
The Spartan Aegidae helped to colonize the See also: island of See also: Thera (Pyth. v
.
68–7o)
.
Another branch of the See also: race was settled at See also: Cyrene in See also: Africa; and Pindar tells how his Aegid clansmen at Thebes " showed honour " to Cyrene as often as they kept the festival of the See also: Carnea (Pyth. v
.
75)
.
Pindar is to be conceived, then,, as See also: standing within the circle of those families for whom the heroic myths were domestic records
.
He had a See also: personal See also: link with the memories which everywhere were most cherished by See also: Dorians, no less than with those which appealed to men of " Cadmean " or of Achaean stock
.
And the wide ramifications of the Aegidae throughout Hellas rendered it peculiarly fitting that a member of that illustrious clan should celebrate the glories of many cities in verse which was truly Panhellenic
.
Pindar is said to have received lessons in See also: flute-playing from one Scopelinus at Thebes, and afterwards to have studied at Athens under the musicians See also: Apollodorus (or See also: Agathocles) and See also: Lasus of Hermione
.
In his youth, as the See also: story went, he was defeated in a poetical contest by the Theban Corinna—who, in reference to his profuse employment of Theban See also: mythology, is said to have advised him " to sow with the See also: hand, not with the See also: sack." There is an extant fragment in which See also: Corinna reproves another Theban poetess, Myrtis, " for that she, a woman, contended with Pindar " (sin f3ava Oda' if3a Hev5apowo 7ror' Epw) —a sentiment which hardly fits the story of Corinna's own victory
.
The facts that stand out from these meagre traditions are that Pindar was precocious and laborious
.
Preparatory labour of a somewhat severe and complex kind was, indeed, indispensable for the See also: Greek lyric poet of that age
.
Lyric composition demanded studies not only in metre but in See also: music, and in the adaptation of both to the intricate movements of the choral dance (opXr7o-See also: rod)
.
Several passages in Pindar's extant odes glance at the long technical development of Greek lyric poetry before his time, and at the various elements ofSee also: art which the lyrist was required to temper into a harmonious whole (see, e.g
.
01. iii
.
8, vi
.
91, xiii
.
18, xiv
.
15; Pyth. xii
.
23, &c.)
.
The earliest ode which can be dated (Pyth. x.) belongs to the twentieth See also: year of Pindar's age (502 B.C.); the latest (Olymp. v.)
to the seventieth (452 B.C.).2 He visited the See also: court of See also: Hiero at Syracuse; Theron, the despot of Acragas, also entertained him; and his travels perhaps included Cyrene
.
Tradition notices the See also: special closeness of his relations with See also: Delphi: " He was greatly honoured by all the Greeks, because he was so beloved of See also: Apollo that he even received a share of the offerings; and at the sacrifices the See also: priest would cry aloud that Pindar come in to the feast of the See also: god." a His wife's name was Megacleia (another account says Timoxena, but this may have been a second wife), and he had a son named Daiphantus and two daughters, Eumetis and Protomache
.
He is said to have died at See also: Argos, at the age of seventy-nine, in 443 B.C
.
Among the Greeks of his own and later times Pindar was pre-eminently distinguished for his piety towards the gods
.
He tells us that, " near to the See also: vestibule " of his See also: house (Pyth. iii
.
78), choruses of maidens used to dance and sing by See also: night in praise of the See also: Mother of the Gods (Cybele) and Pan—deities peculiarly associated with the Phrygian music of the flute, in which other members of Pindar's family besides the poet himself are said to have excelled
.
A statue and shrine of Cybele, which he dedicated at Thebes, were the See also: work of the Theban artists, Aristomedes and See also: Socrates
.
He also dedicated at Thebes a statue to See also: Hermes Agoraios, and another, by See also: Calamis, to See also: Zeus Ammon
.
The latter god claimed his especial veneration because Cyrene, one of the homes of his Aegid ancestry, stood " where Zeus Ammon hath his seat," i.e. near the oasis and See also: temple
2 According to others, his latest poem is the eighth Pythian ode, 450 or 446
.
4 llwSapov ybios, in ed
.
Ald
.
PINDAR
victory of the Athenian Megacles, he begins thus: " Fairest of preludes is the renown of Athens for the mighty race of the See also: Alcmaeonidae
.
What home, or what house, could I See also: call mine by a name that should See also: sound more glorious for Hellas to hear ?" Referring to the fact that an Aeginetan victor in the games had been trained by an Athenian, he says (Nem. v
.
49) " meet it is that a shaper of athletes should come from Athens" — and recollecting how often Pindar compares the poet's efforts to the athlete's, we may well believe that he was thinking of his own early training at Athens
.
Pindar's versatility as a lyric poet is one of the characteristics remarked by Horace (Odes, iv
.
2), and is proved by the fragments,
though the poems which have come down entire See also: works. represent only one class of compositions—the
Epinicia, or odes of victory, commemorating successes in the great games
.
The lyric types to which the fragments belong, though it cannot be assumed that the See also: list is See also: complete, are at least numerous and varied
.
(I) "T.zvoc, See also: Hymns to deities—as to Zeus Ammon, to Persephone, to See also: Fortune
.
The fragmentary iµvos entitled Oni3aLocs seems to have celebrated the deities of Thebes
.
(2) llacaves, Fragments. paeans, expressing prayer or praise for the help of
a protecting god, especially Apollo, See also: Artemis or Zeus
.
(3) OcObpaµsoc, Dithyrambs, odes of a lofty and impassioned strain, sung by choruses in honour of Dionysus (cf
.
Pind
.
01. xiii
.
18, raL Ocwvboou ar6Oev iEHpavev obv /3oiXarg %aperes S&Ovpaµ4m—where Pindar alludes to the choral See also: form given to the dithyramb, c
.
60o B.C., by Arion—13onXariLs, " ox-driving," perhaps meaning " winning an ox as prize ")
.
(4) Hpoo6Sca, Processional Songs, choral chants for worshippers approaching a shrine
.
One was written by Pindar for the Delians, another for the Aeginetans
.
(5) IIapOEVCa, Choral Songs for Maidens
.
The reference in Pyth. iii
.
78 to maidens worshipping Cybele and See also: Pan near the poet's house is illustrated by the fact that one of these HapOfvca invoked " Pan, See also: lord of See also: Arcadia, attendant of the Great Mother, watcher of her awful shrine " (fr
.
72, Bergk4, 95)
.
(6) 'Tropxi See also: Tara, Choral Dance-Songs, adapted to a lively See also: movement, used from an early date in the cult of Apollo, and afterwards in that of other gods, especially Dionysus
.
To this class belongs one of the finest fragments (84, Bergk4, 107), written for the Thebans in connexion with propitiatory See also: rites after an eclipse of the See also: sun, probably that of the 3oth of See also: April 463 B.C
.
(7) See also: Eye(uµca, Songs of Praise (for men, while uµvoc were for gods), to be sung by a Kn iO or festal See also: company
.
In strictness E'rKWjCOV was the genus of which ErevLKGOV was a See also: species; but the latter is more conveniently treated as a distinct kind
.
Pindar wrote encomia for Theron, despot of Acragas, and for See also: Alexander I
.
(son of Amyntas),
See also: king of Macedon
.
(8) ZsbXia, Festal Songs
.
The usual sense of rsbawv is a drinking-
See also: song, taken up by one See also: guest after another at a banquet
.
But Pindar's oKOXca were choral and antistrophic
.
One was to be sung at See also: Corinth by a See also: chorus of the LspbSovaoc attached to the temple of See also: Aphrodite Ourania, when a certain See also: Xenophon offered sacrifice before going to compete at See also: Olympia
.
Another brilliant fragment, for Theoxenus of Tenedos, has an erotic character . (9) Opfivoc, Dirges, to be sung with choral dance and the music of the flute, either at theSee also: burial of the dead or in commemorative rituals
.
Some of the most beautiful fragments belong to this class (Io6—IIo, Bergk4, 129-133)
.
One of the smaller fragments (114, Bergk4, 137)—in memory of an Athenian who had been initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries (L&bv KEtva)—has been conjecturally referred to the Opfivos which Pindar is said to have written (schol
.
Pyth. vii
.
18) for See also: Hippocrates, the grandfather of See also: Pericles
.
A number of small fragments, which cannot be certainly classified, are usually given as EE b,MOwv ELMi v, " of uncertain class." On comparing the above list with Horace, Odes, iv
.
2, it will be seen that he alludes to No
.
3 (dithyrambos) ; to Nos
.
1, 2, and 7 (seu deos regesve canit); and to No
.
9 (flebili sponsae juvenemve raptum Plorat)—as well as to the extant Epinicia (sive quos Elea domum red ucit Palma caelestes)
.
• The Epinicia.—The ErcPbaa (sc
.
OM), or ErwisCoc (sc . Divot)," Odes of Victory," form a collection of See also: forty-four odes, traditionally divided into four books, answering to the four great festivals: (I) 'OXvµrcov2Kac (sc. uµvoc): fourteen odes for winners of the See also: wild See also: olive-wreath in the Olympian games, held at Olympia in honour of Zeus once in four years; (2) l vOcoviKa : twelve odes for winners of the See also: laurel-wreath in the Pythian games held at Delphi in honour of Apollo, once in four years, the third of each See also: Olympiad; (3) NepeoviKac: eleven odes for winners of the See also: pine-wreath in the Nemean games, held at Nemea, in honour of Zeus, once in two years, the second and fourth of each Olympiad; and (4) 'IaOtuoeZsac: seven odes for winners of the See also: parsley wreath in the Isthmian games, held at the See also: Isthmus
(Pyth. iv
.
16)
.
The author of one of the Greek lives of Pindar says that, " when See also: Pausanias the king of the Lacedaemonians was burning Thebes, some one wrote on Pindar's house, ` See also: Burn not the house of Pindar the poet'; and thus it alor.; escaped destruction." This incident, of which the occasion is not further defined, has been regarded as a later invention .l Better attested, at least, is the similar clemency of Alexander the Great, when he sacked Thebes one See also: hundred and eight years after the traditional date of Pindar's See also: death (335 B.c.)
.
He spared only (I) the Cadmeia, or citadel, of Thebes (thenceforth to be occupied by a Macedonian garrison); (2) the temples and See also: holy places; and (3) Pindar's house
.
While the inhabitants were sold into See also: slavery, exception was made only of (I) priests and priestesses;
(2) persons who had been connected by private Eevia with See also: Philip or Alexander, or by public evla with the Macedonians;
(3) Pindar's descendants
.
It is probable enough, as Dio
See also: Chrysostom suggests (ii
.
33), that Alexander was partly moved by personal gratitude to a poet who had celebrated his ancestor Alexander I. of Macedon
.
But he must have been also, or chiefly, influenced by the sacredness which in the eyes of all Hellenes surrounded Pindar's memory, not only as that of a great See also: national poet, but also as that of a See also: man who had stood in a specially close relation to the gods, and, above all, to the Delphian Apollo
?
Upwards of six hundred years after Pindar's death the traveller Pausanias saw an iron chair which was preserved among the most precious treasures of the temple in the sanctuary at Delphi
.
It was the chair, he was told, " in which Pindar used to sit, whenever he came to Delphi, and to chant those of his songs which pertain to Apollo " (x
.
24, 5)
.
During the second See also: half of Pindar's See also: life, Athens was rising to that supremacy in literature and art which was to prove more lasting than her See also: political primacy
.
Pindar did not live to see the See also: Parthenon, or to witness the mature triumphs of See also: Sophocles; but he knew the sculpture of Calamis, and he may have known the masterpieces of See also: Aeschylus
.
It is interesting to note the feeling of this great Theban poet, who stands midway between Homeric epos and Athenian drama, towards the Athens of which Thebes was so often the bitterest foe, but with which he himself had so large a measure of spiritual kinship
.
A few words remain from a dithyramb in which he paid a glowing tribute to those " sons of Athens " who " laid the shining See also: foundations of See also: free-
dom " (raises 'AOavaicav 13hXov-ro 4asvvav Kprtrit' EXeveepias, fr
.
55, Bergk4, 77), while Athens itself is thus invoked:
ca red Acrapai Kai toorErbavoc Kal aot&got, 'EAXhSos Epecoµa, KAetrai 'ABavac, Sacµovtov rroMeOpov (fr
.
54, Bergk4, 76)
.
Isocrates,
writing in 353 B.C., states that the phrase 'EXXttSos Epecoaa, stay of Hellas," so greatly gratified the Athenians that they conferred on Pindar the high distinction of rpoEevia (i.e. appointed him honorary See also: consul, as it were—for Athens at Thebes), besides presenting him with a large sum of See also: money (Antidosis, 166)
.
One of the letters of the pseudo-Aeschines (Ep. iv.) gives an improbable turn to the story by saying that the Thebans had fined Pindar for his praise of Athene, and that the Athenians repaid him twice the sum .3 The See also: notice preserved by Isocrates —less than one hundred years after Pindar's death—is See also: good warrant for the belief that Pindar had received some exceptional honours from Athens
.
Pausanias saw a statue of Pindar at Athens, near the temple of See also: Ares (i
.
8, 4)
.
Besides the fragment just mentioned, several passages in Pindar's extant odes bespeak his love for Athens
.
Its name is almost always joined by him with some epithet of praise or reverence
.
In alluding to the great battles of the PersianSee also: wars, while he gives the See also: glory of See also: Plataea to the Spartans, he assigns that of See also: Salamis to the
Athenians (Pyth. i
.
76)
.
In celebrating (Pyth. vii.) the Pythian A
.
Schafer, See also: Demosthenes and See also: seine Zeit. iii
.
119
.
2 It wilt be remarked that See also: history requires us to modify the statement in See also: Milton's famous lines:
" The great Emathian conqueror bade spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground."
Indeed, the point of the incident depends much on the fact that the temples and Pindar's house were classed together for exemption
.
3 Compare Jebb, See also: Attic Orators, ii
.
143
.
of Corinth, in honour of See also: Poseidon, once in two years, the first and third of each Olympiad
.
The Greek way of citing an ode is by the nomin. plug. followed by the numeral, e.g
.
" the ninth Olympian " is ' OXvµ rwvv7Kat 8'
.
The See also: chronological range of the collection (so far as ascertainable) is from 502 B.C
.
(Pyth.x.) to 452 B.C . (01 . V.) . With respect to the native places of the victors, the See also: geographical distribution is as follows: for the mainland of Greece proper, 13 odes; for See also: Aegina, for See also: Sicily, 15; for the Epizephyrian Locrians (See also: southern See also: Italy), 2; for Cyrene (Africa), 3
.
The general characteristics of the odes may be briefly considered under the following heads: (r) language; (2) treatment of theme; (3) sentiment—religious, moral and political; (4) relation to contemporary art
.
i
.
The diction of Pindar is distinct in character from that of every other Greek poet, being almost everywhere marked by the greatest imaginative boldness
.
Thus (a) See also: metaphor is used even for the expression of See also: common ideas, or the See also: translation of See also: familiar phrases, as when a cloak is called (01. ix
.
97) " a warm remedy for winds." (b) Images for the highest excellence are See also: drawn from the farthest limits of travel or navigation, or from the fairest of natural See also: objects; as when the superlative hospitality of a man who kept open house all the year round is described by saying, " far as to Phasis was his voyage in summer days, and in winter to the shores of See also: Nile " (Isthm. ii
.
41); or when Olympia, the " See also: crown " or " flower " of festivals, is said to be excellent as See also: water, bright as gold, brilliant as the noonday sun (01. i. ad init.)
.
This trait might be called the Pindaric imagery of the superlative
.
(c) Poetical inversion of ordinary phrase is frequent; as, instead of, " he struck fear into the beasts," " he gave the beasts to fear " (Pyth. v
.
56) . (d) The efforts of the poet's See also: genius are represented under an extraordinary number of similitudes, borrowed from See also: javelin-throwing, chariot-driving, leaping, rowing, sailing, ploughing, See also: building, See also: shooting with the See also: bow, sharpening a knife on a See also: whetstone, mixing See also: wine in a bowl, and many more
.
(e) Homely images, from common life, are not rare; as from account-keeping, See also: usury, sending merchandise over See also: sea, the oKUTPAr/ or secret See also: dispatch, &c
.
And we have such homely proverbs as, " he hath his See also: foot in this shoe," i.e. stands in this See also: case (01. vi
.
8)
.
(f) The natural See also: order of words in a See also: sentence is often boldly deranged, while, on the other hand, the syntax is seldom difficult
.
(g) Words not found except in Pindar are numerous, many of these being compounds which (like Evapi.y0poros, KarackMXXopodv, &c.) suited the dactylic metres in their Pindaric combinations
.
Horace was right in speaking of Pindar's " nova verba," though they were not confined to the " audaces dithyrambs."
2
.
The actual victory which gave occasion for the ode is seldom treated at length or in detail—which, indeed, only exceptional incidents could justify
.
Pindar's method is to take some heroic myth, or See also: group of myths, connected with the victor's city or family, and, after a brief prelude, to enter on this, returning at the close, as a See also: rule, to the subject of the victor's merit or good fortune, and interspersing the whole with moral comment
.
Thus the fourth Pythian is for See also: Arcesilaus, king of Cyrene, which was said to have been founded by men of Thera, descendants of one of See also: Jason's comrades
.
Using this link, Pindar introduces his splendid narrative of the Argonauts
.
Many odes, again, contain shorter mythical episodes—as the See also: birth of Iamus (01. vi.), or the vision of See also: Bellerophon (01. xiii.) —which form small pictures of masterly finish and beauty
.
Particular notice is due to the skill with which Pindar often manages the return from a mythical digression to his immediate theme
.
It is bold and See also: swift, yet is not felt as harshly abrupt—justifying his own phrase at one such turn—Kai See also: rum oiµov %craµi 1paxbv (Pyth. iv
.
247)
.
It has been thought that, in the parenthesis about the See also: Amazons' See also: shields (quibus Mos unde deductus
.
. . quaerere distuli, Odes, iv
.
4, 18), Horace was imitating a Pindaric transition; if so, he has illustrated his own observation as to the peril of imitating the Theban poet
.
3. a
.
The religious feeling of Pindar is strongly marked in the odes
.
" From the gods are all means of human excellence."
He will not believe that the gods, when they dined with Tantaluss See also: ate his son See also: Pelops; rather Poseidon carried off the .youth to See also: Olympus
.
That is, his reason for rejecting a scandalous story about the gods is purely religious, as distinct from moral; it shocks his conception of the divine dignity
.
With regard to oracles, he inculcates precisely such a view as would have been most acceptable to the Delphic priesthood, viz. that the gods do illumine their prophets, but that human wit can foresee nothing which' the gods do not choose to reveal
.
A mystical See also: doctrine of the soul's destiny after death appears in some passages (as 01. ii
.
66 sq.)
.
Pindar was familiar with the idea of metempsychosis (cf. ibid
.
68), but the attempt to trace Pythagoreanism in some phrases (Pyth. ii
.
34, iii
.
74) appears unsafe
.
The belief in a fully conscious existence for the soul in a future See also: state, determined by the character of the earthly life, entered into the teaching of the Eleusinian and other mysteries
.
Comparing the fragment of the Opijvos (See also: i14, Bergk4, 137), we may probably regard the mystic or See also: esoteric element in Pindar's See also: theology as due to such a source
.
b
.
The moral sentiment pervading Pindar's odes rests on a See also: constant recognition of the limits imposed by the divine will on human effort, combined with strenuous exhortation that each man should strive to reach the limit allowed in his own case
.
Native temperament (¢1717) is the See also: grand source of all human excellence (aperi7), while such excellences as can be acquired by study (Maki- al aperai, 01. ix. roo) are of relatively small scope—the sentiment, we may remark, of one whose thoughts were habitually conversant with the native qualities of a poet on the one hand and of an athlete on the other
.
The elements of iryiets 6X(3os—" sane happiness," such as has least reason to dread the jealousy of the gods—are substance sufficing for daily wants and good repute (ebXoyia)
.
He who has these should not " seek to be a god." " See also: Wealth set with virtues " (aXoiiros aperais SehaLSaXµEVos), as gold with precious gems, is the most fortunate See also: lot, because it affords the amplest opportunities for honourable activity
.
Pindar does not rise above the ethical See also: standard of an age which said, " love thy friend and hate thy foe " (cf
.
Pyth. ii
.
83; Isthm. iii
.
65)
.
But in one sense he has a moral See also: elevation which is distinctively his own; he is the glowing See also: prophet of generous emulation and of reverent self-control
.
c
.
The political sentiments of the Theban poet are suggested by Pyth. xi
.
52; " In polities I find the See also: middle state crowned with more enduring good; therefore praise I not the despot's portion; those virtues move my zeal which serve the folk." If in Pyth. ii
.
87, a democracy is described as o Xhi3pos c rparbs, " the raging See also: crowd," it is to be noted that the ode is for Hiero of Syracuse, and that the phrase clearly refers to the violence of those democratic revolutions which, in the early See also: part of the 5th century B.C., more than once convulsed Sicilian cities
.
At Thebes, after the Persian wars, a " constitutional oligarchy " (6X yapxia ivb)oµos, Thuc. iii
.
62) had replaced the narrower and less temperate oligarchy of former days (bvvacreia ob µera vbµcov); and in this we may probably recognize the phase of Greek political life most congenial to Pindar
.
He speaks of a king's lot as unique in its opportunities (01. i . 113); he sketches the character of an ideal king (Pyth. iii . 71); but nothing in his poetry implies liking for the 'rupavvis as a form of See also: government
.
Towards the Greek princes of Sicily and Cyrene his See also: tone is ever one of manly independence; he speaks as a Greek citizen whose lineage places him on a level with the proudest of the Dorian race, and whose office invests him with an almost sacred dignity
.
In regard to the politics of Hellas at large, Pindar makes us feel the new sense of leisure for quiet pursuits and civilizing arts which came after the Persian wars
.
He honours " Tranquillity, the friend of cities " (`Ao-vxia 6/nMaoXcs, 01. iv
.
16)
.
The epic poet sang of wars; Pindar celebrates the " rivalries of. See also: peace."
4
.
Pindar's genius was boldly See also: original; at the same time he was an exquisite artist
.
" Mine be it to invent new strains, mine the skill to hold my course in the chariot of the Muses; and may courage go with me, and power of ample grasp " (01
.
ix
.
8o)
.
Here we see the exulting sense of inborn strength; in many other places we perceive the feeling of conscious art —as in the phrase Sal&aXXeww, so See also: apt for his method of See also: inlaying an ode with mythical subjects, or when he compares the opening of a song to the front of a stately building (01. vi
.
3)
.
Pindar's sympathy with See also: external nature was deeper and keener than is often discernible in the poetry of his age
.
It appears, for example, in his welcome of the season when " the chamber of the See also: hours is opened, and delicate See also: plants perceive the fragrant spring" (fr
.
J3, Bergk 4, 75); in the passage where Jason invokes " the rushing strength of waves and winds, and the nights, and the paths of the deep " (Pyth. iv
.
195); in the lines on the eclipse of the sun (fr
.
84, Bergk,4 107); and in the picture of the eruption, when Etna, " pillar of the sky, nurse of keen snow all the year," sends forth " pure springs of fire unapproachable " (Pyth
.
20)
.
The poet's feeling for colour is often noticeable --as in the oeautiful story of the birth of lamus—when Evadne See also: lays aside her See also: silver See also: pitcher and her girdle of See also: scarlet web; the babe is found, " its delicate See also: body steeped in the See also: golden and deep See also: purple rays of pansies " (01. vi
.
55)
.
The spirit of art, in every form, is represented for Pindar by xapts—" the source of all delights to mortals " (01. i
.
30)—or by the personified Charites (Graces)
.
The Charites were often represented as See also: young maidens, decking themselves with early flowers—the See also: rose, in particular, being sacred to them as well as to Aphrodite
.
In Pindar's mind, as in the old Greek conception from which the worship of the Charites sprang, the See also: instinct of beautiful art was inseparable from the sense of natural Sculpture, beauty
.
The See also: period from 500 to 460 B.C., to which
most of Pindar's extant odes belong, marked a stage in the development of Greek sculpture
.
The See also: schools of Argos, Sicyon and Aegina were effecting a transition from archaic types to the art which was afterwards matured in the age of See also: Pheidias
.
Olympia forms the central link between Pindar's poetry and Greek sculpture
.
From about 56o B.C. onwards sculpture had been applied to the See also: commemoration of athletes, chiefly at Olympia
.
In a striking passage (Nem. v. ad. init.) Pindar recognizes sculpture and poetry as See also: sister arts employed in the commemoration of the athlete, and contrasts the merely See also: local effect of the statue with the wide diffusion of the poem
.
" No sculptor I, to fashion images that shall stand idly on one pedestal for aye; no, go thou forth from Aegina, sweet song of mine, on every freighted See also: ship, on each See also: light bark." Many particular subjects were common to Pindar and contemporary sculpture
.
Thus (I) the sculptures on the See also: east pediment of the temple at Aegina represented 'Heracles coming to seek the aid of Telamon against Troy—a theme brilliantly treated by Pindar in the fifth Isthmian; (2) Hiero's victory in the chariot-race was commemorated at Olympia by the joint work of the sculptors See also: Onatas and Calamis; (3) the Gigantomachia, (4) the See also: wedding of Heracles and See also: Hebe, (5) the war of the See also: Centaurs with the See also: Lapithae, and (6) a contest between Heracles and Apollo, are instances of mythical material treated alike by the poet and by sculptors of his See also: day
.
The contemporary improvements in See also: town architecture, introducing spacious and well-paved streets, such as the uKVpwri7 6Sos at Cyrene (Pyth. v
.
87), suggests his frequent comparison of the paths of song to broad and stately causeways 00.am-eat 7rp6vo5oi—EearoµaeSot KEXevOot, Nem. vi
.
47; Isthm
.
Vi . 22) . A song is likened to cunning work which blends gold, ivory andSee also: coral (Nem. vii
.
78)
.
Pindar's feeling that poetry, though essentially a divine gift, has a technical See also: side (vo4ta), and that on this side it has had an See also: historical development like that of other arts, is forcibly illustrated by his reference to the inventions (ooQiio-,uara) for which Corinth had early been famous
.
He instances (I) the development of the dithyramb, (2) certain improvements in the harnessing and driving of horses, and (3) the addition of the pediment to temples (01. xiii
.
21)
.
In the development of Greek lyric poetry two periods are broadly distinguished
.
During the first, from about 600 to 500 B.C., lyric poetry is local or tribal—as See also: Alcaeus and See also: Sappho write for Lesbians, Alcman and See also: Stesichorus for Dorians
.
Duringthe second period, which takes its rise in the sense of Hellenic unity created by the Persian wars, the lyric poet addresses all Greece
.
Pindar and Simonides are the great representatives of this second period, to which See also: Bacchylides, the See also: nephew of Simonides, also belongs
.
These, with a few minor poets, are classed by See also: German writers as die universalen Meliker
.
The Greeks usually spoke, not of " lyric," but of " melic " poetry (i.e. meant to be sung, and not, like the epic, recited); and " universal melic " is lyric poetry addressed to all Greece . But Pindar is more than the chief extant lyrist . Epic, lyric and dramatic poetry succeeded each other in Greek literature by a natural development . Each of them was the spontaneous utterance of the age which brought it forth . In Pindar we can see that phase of the Greek mind which produced Homeric epos passing over into the phase which produced Athenian drama . His spirit is often thoroughly dramatic—witness such scenes as the interview between Jason andSee also: Pelias (Pyth. iv.), the meeting of Apollo and See also: Chiron (Pyth. ix.), the See also: episode of See also: Castor and Polydeuces (Nem. x.), the entertainment of Heracles by Telamon (Isthm. v.)
.
Epic narrative alone was no longer enough for the men who had known that great trilogy of national life, the Persian invasions; they longed to see the heroes moving and to hear them speaking
.
The poet of Olympia, accustomed to see beautiful forms in vivid See also: action or vivid art, was well fitted to be the lyric interpreter of the new dramatic impulse
.
Pindar has more of the Homeric spirit than any Greek lyric poet known to us
.
On the other side, he has a genuine, if less evident, kinship with Aeschylus and Sophocles
.
Pindar's work, like Olympia itself, illustrates the spiritual unity of Greek art
.
The fact that certain glosses and lacunae are common to all cur See also: MSS. of Pindar make it probable that these MSS. are derived from a common archetype
.
Now the older scholia on Pindar, which appear to have been compiled mainly from the commentaries of See also: Didymus (c
.
15 B.C.), sometimes presuppose a purer text than ours
.
But the compiler of these older scholia lived after Herodian (A.D
.
160)
.
The archetype of our MSS., then, cannot have been older than the end of the 2nd century
.
Our MSS. fall into two general classes: (I) the older, representing a text which, though often corrupt, is comparatively free from interpolations; (2) the later, which exhibit the traces of a See also: Byzantine recension, in other words, of lawless conjecture, down to the 14th or 15th century
.
To the first class belong Parisinus 7, breaking off in Pyth. v.; Ambrosianus 1, which has only 01. i.–xii.; Mediceus 2; and Vaticanus 2—the two last-named being of the highest value
.
The editio prirceps is the Aldine (Venice, 1513)
.
A See also: modern study of Pindar may be almost said to have begun with C
.
G
.
See also: Heyne's edition (1773)
.
Hermann did much to advance Pindaric See also: criticism
.
But See also: August Bockh (1811–1821), who was assisted in his commentary by L
.
Dissen, is justly regarded as the founder of a scientific treatment of the poet
.
The edition of Theodor Bergk (Poetae lyrici graeci, new ed. by O
.
Schroder, 1900) is marked by considerable boldness of conjecture, as that of Tycho See also: Mommsen (1864) by a sometimes excessive adherence to MSS
.
A recension by W
.
Christ has been published in Teubner's series (2nd ed., 1896), also with Prolegomena and commentary (1896); and by O
.
Schroder (1908)
.
The complete edition of J
.
W
.
Donaldson (1841) has many merits; but that of C
.
A
.
M
.
Fennell (1879–1883; new ed., 1893–1899) is better adapted to the needs of See also: English students
.
The Olympia and Pythia have been edited by B
.
L
.
See also: Gildersleeve (1885), the Nemea and Isthmia by J
.
B
.
See also: Bury (1890–1892); the Scholia by E
.
See also: Abel (1890, unfinished) and A
.
B
.
Brachmann (1903)
.
There is a special See also: lexicon by J
.
Rumpel (1883)
.
The translation into English See also: prose by Ernest Myers (2nd ed., 1883) is excellent; verse translation by T
.
C . See also: Baring (1875), and of the Olympian Odes by Cyril See also: Mayne (1906)
.
Pindar's metres have been analysed by J
.
H
.
H
.
See also: Schmidt, in Die Kunstformen der griechischen Poesie (See also: Leipzig, 1868–1872)
.
On Pindar generally, see monographs by A
.
F
.
See also: Villemain (1859), L
.
Schmidt (1862), G
.
Lubbert (1882), A
.
Croiset (188o), W
.
Christ, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898) ; and the little See also: volume by F
.
D
.
Morice in See also: Blackwood's Ancient See also: Classics for English Readers
.
Exhaustive See also: bibliographical information on the earlier literature will be found in Engelmann, Scriptores raeci (1881); see also L
.
Bornemann, in See also: Bursian's Jahresbericht,
graeci
1904), with special reference to chronological questions and Pythia, 1., 1i., iii
.
Some considerable fragments of the paeans were discovered in 1906 by B
.
P
.
Grenfell and A
.
S
.
See also: Hunt (see Oxyrhynchus papyri, pt. v. pp
.
24–81) ; some critical notes will be found in Classical Review, Feb
.
1908 (A
.
E . See also: Housman)
.
(R
.
C
.
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