“The god authorizes every outcome on his own expectations–
the god who races the winged eagle,
Outdoes the sea-dwelling dolphin and
Brings the arrogant mortals to their knees,
And then grants unaging glory to other people.
I need to escape the gnawing bite of bad gossip–
I have watched from afar while Archilochus,
That shit-talker, is pressed to helplessness
Thanks to hateful words.
Getting rich with luck
Is the best allotment of wisdom.”
“There’s no city so foreign
Nor so tongue-tied that
It has not heard the fame of the Hero Peleus,
Blessed son-in-law to the gods,
Nor Ajax, the son of Telamon,
And his father–Alkmene’s son took him in ships
To the bronze-delighting war,
When he went as a willing ally
From Tiryns to Troy, that labor for heroes,
Because of Laomedon’s duplicity.”
“Valor comes to people from the gods.
Indeed, only two things nurture a lifetime’s sweetness
With healthy happiness.
When someone succeeds and hears a good report too.
Don’t try to become Zeus.
You have everything,
If a share of good comes to you.
Mortal things are proper for mortal beings.”
“If some person has been lucky
Either with glorifying contests or
By dint of wealth and still subdues wretched excess in their thoughts,
Then they are worthy to receive their fellow citizens’ praise.
Zeus, great kinds of excellence come to mortals from you!
And happiness lives longer when people revere the gods.
But it does not bloom for nearly as long
When it is mixed with crooked thoughts.
It’s my job to sing of a noble person
In exchange for well-famed deeds–
But it is also my task to praise them with kind verses,
While they revel through the street.
Melissos has the good luck of twin prizes
To turn his heart to sweet joy–
He received crowns in the Isthmian groves
And in the deep valley of the barrel-chested lion
He had Thebes announced as eminent,
By mastering the chariot race.
He brings no shame to his ancestors,
Surely, you must have heart of the ancient fame
If Kleonymos for his chariots,
And his cousins on his mothers side among the Labdakids,
They applied their wealth to the work of the four-horsed races.
Life turns one way and another as the days roll by–
But the gods’ children stay unharmed.”
This poem moves from praising the victory of Hiero’s horses at Olympos to the tale of Croesus’ reaction to the sacking of Sardis. In this version of the tale, he prepares to sacrifice his family on a pyre. The story is, well, a bit horrifying.
Bacchylides, Victory Odes 3.1-60
“Kleio, sweetness-giver, sing of Demeter
Who rules rich-grained Sicily, and also
Her purple-crowned daughter, and the swift
Olympic-racing horses of Hiero.
For they rushed with overwhelming Victory
And Glory alongside the broad-eddying
Alpheos where they made the blessed son of Deinomenes
A master of the crowns.
And the people shouted out:
“Oh, thrice-blessed man
Who obtained from Zeus
The widest-ruling power of all the Greeks
And knows not to hide his towered health
With black-cloaked shadow.
The temples overflow with sacrificial feasts
And the streets overflow with hospitality.
And god shines too in glancing light
From the tall-wrought tripods which were set up
In front of the temple where the Delphians
Take care of the greatest grove of Apollo
Alongside the waters of Kastalia—let someone
Glory in god, in god—this is the best of the blessings.
For once there was a time when
Even though the Sardians were sacked by the Persian army
Because Zeus had brought to an end
The judgment which was fated,
The leader of the horse-taming
Lydians, Kroisos, golden-sworded
Apollo protected. For Kroisos,
When he had come to that lamentable, unhoped for day
Was not about to wait for slavery any more. But he
Had a pyre built up in front of his bronze-walled yard.
There he climbed up with his dear wife
And his well-tressed daughters who were
Mourning uncontrollably. Then he raised his hands
Up to the high sky above
And he shouted: “Powerful god
Where is divine gratitude now?
Where is Leto’s son the lord?
Alyattes’ halls are falling down.
[what of the] myriad [gifts I gave you?]
[What trust can mortals give to gods?]
[Look now, the enemy has sacked my] city,
And the gold-eddying Paktôlos runs red
With blood and women are shamefully dragged away
From the well-built halls.
What was hated before is now dear. Dying is the sweetest thing.”
So much he said, and he ordered his light-stepping attendant
To Set fire to the wooden home. Then the girls were crying out
And they were throwing their hands to their
Mother. For mortals most hateful death
Is the one we see coming.
But as the shining strength
Of the terrible fire was leaping forth
Zeus sent over a dark-covering cloud
To extinguish the yellow flame.
Nothing is unbelievable when divine care
Makes it. Then Delian-born Apollo
Carried the old man to the Hyperboreans
And settled him there with his thin-ankled daughters
Because of his piety, because he sent to sacred Pytho
Gifts greatest of all the mortals.
“I am fighting with many others over
The sheer number of noble things,
How your family has excelled at Delphi and
In the fields of the lion. I just couldn’t imagine how
To speak a true number of all the sand in the sea.
Still, a measure exists for each thing-
And it is best to recognize what is timely.
Because I as a private person went ahead on a common mission,
Praising aloud the wit of their forebears
And their war in heroic endeavors,
I will not lie about Corinth, mentioning Sisyphus
As clever as a god, or Medea
Who set up her own marriage,
Against her father’s wishes,
To be the savior of the Argo and its men.”
Museo archeologico nazionale di Napoli, (inv. nr. 8977). Da Pompei, Casa dei Dioscuri. Medea medita di uccidere i suoi figli intenti a giocare con gli astragali, guardati con mestizia dal pedagogo.
“I am begging you, child of Zeus-who-Frees,
Savior Chance, safeguard mighty Himera.
For you direct swift ships on the sea,
And fast wars on land,
And counsel-bringing assemblies too.
Human hopes rise up and then back down
As they turn, traversing pointless lies.
No mortal has yet discovered a trustworthy sign,
From the gods about deeds still to come.
Plans for the future remain in the dark.
Humans experience many things against their expectations–
Sometimes, it’s the opposite of pleasure, but in others
Those who have faced great storms receive profound good for their pain
In a short time.”
“Read me aloud the name of the Olympian victor,
The child of Arkhestratos, from the place where
It is entered in my thoughts since
He’s owed a sweet song and
It has been forgotten.
Muse, you and Truth, Zeus’ daughter,
Keep me from harming a friend with lies.
For the coming future approached from far away
And shamed me for my debt.
Yet interest paid can has the power to release us
From sharp critique.
Let him see now how, just as a wave
Washes over a pebble as it rolls through the sea,
So too do I pay back shared speech
As a dear favor.”
“He speaks allegorically comparing his own power to the flow of the sea. For, just as a wave washes over a stone whirled up, expelled on the shore, so in the same way, he claims, I wash away blame circulated like that stone.”
παραβάλλει δὲ ἀλληγορῶν τῷ τῆς θαλάσσης ῥεύματι τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δύναμιν. ὡς
“But when I set that dear city ablaze
With my burning songs,
Faster than a proud horse
Or a flying ship in every direction,
I will send my message–
If with some fate-allotted talent,
I tend the select garden of the Graces,
Because they are the ones who grant pleasure.
Men become good or wise by divine lot.
Is there any other way that Herakles
Could have swung the club in his hands
Against the trident when Poseidon faced him
Before Pylos and backed him down,
Or when Apollo pushed him back with
His silver bow, or could he have held Hades’ staff unmoved,
The one he uses to lead the bodies of those who die
Along a shallow passage?
Ah! Banish that tale from my mouth!
Mocking the gods is hateful wisdom–
Boasting at the wrong time sounds like insanity:
Don’t gossip about such things now,
But keep war and all battle away from the gods.”
“And couldn’t have held Hades’ staff unmoved.” He used his staff just as a tool, applying no force, as with a trident or sword or spear, but he relied on its power to bewitch and ensnare the mind. For this reason people say that he also guides spirits downward. Hades was able to do nothing with the staff against Herakles thanks to its power being blunted by Zeus.
And this [goes with] the common saying, that men become good through god, ‘[since?] not even Hades could hold his staff while fighting Herakles feebly and without moving, with the very same staff he makes the bodies of men weak in the same way and leads them down into the hollow place then they’re dead.”
“A man who has done proper things,
Certainly forgets about Hades.”
Ἀίδα τοι λάθεται
ἄρμενα πράξαις ἀνήρ.
Schol. ad Pin. Ol. 8.72
“He certainly forgets about Hades.” For every man who has accomplished fitting things obtains forgetfulness of Hades by his own choice, and this in fact means death. For, I guess, this is naturally just the thought of those who are troubled: for this sort of thing is the fine action of a fantasy for those who do well.”
