“Someone born to glory grows super strong,
But one who has only learned is a shady figure,
Inspired about different things at different times and
Never putting down a sure foot– someone who tries to taste
Countless accomplishments without thinking things through.
So, fiery Achilles when he was staying in the home of Philyra,
Even though he was a child, would play out great deeds.
He shook the short, iron-edged javelins in his hands like the winds
And designed murder for wild lions and he slaughtered boars.
He used to carry their bodies still breathing to Kronos’ son, the Centaur,
From when he was six years old and forever after.
“the meaning of this: who ever achieves noble things from practice and learning is shadowed and not similarly brilliant, because they are not always focusing on the same things, but they are changing their ways easily because of the weakness of their preparation from one set of goals to others.”
“Just as the Homeridae in fact,
Those singers who stitch songs together,
Begin with a prayer to Zeus
So too has this man welcomed the first of his victories
In the holy contests in the much-sung grove of Nemean Zeus.”
Just as the Homeridae”: They used to say in ancient times that the Homeridae were the descendants of Homer who used to sing his poetry in turns. But later on, the rhapsodes no longer attributed their lineage to Homer. But once the performers around Kynaithos became well-known—those ones who people claim composed many verses and inserted them into Homer’s poetry. Kynaithos’ was from Khios and he is said to have composed the Hymn to Apollo among those poems attributed to Homer. This Kynaithos was the first to sing the poems of Homer as a rhapsode among the Syracusians during the sixty-ninth Olympiad, as Hippostratus claims.
“In addition: The rhapsodes etymologize “rhapsodes” because they proceed through Homeric poetry with the rhabdos . Callimachus writes, “I am forever singing the story woven on a rhabdos as a received it…”
Other people claim that Homeric poetry was not brought together into one corpus, but that it was spread around and separated into pieces. When they would act as rhapsodes, they would make something like a series or a stitch as they brought it together into the same composition.
This is what Pindar means too. Some people claim that previously each of the competitors sang whatever part of the separated poem he wanted and that the prize for the victors was a lamb which is why the performers was called “lamb-singers” but that once each of the poems was introduced, the competitors would listen to one another’s parts and go through the whole poem, they were called rhapsodes. Dionysios the Argive claims these things. But Philokhoros says that they were called this from the collocation and stitching of song. Hesiod clearly writes: “Homer and I were then the first singers / who performed at Delos, stitching together song among the new hymns / for Phoibos Apollo, of the golden sword whom Leto bore”. Nikokles says that Hesiod was the first to rhapsodize. Menaikhmos records that rhapsodes were called stikhodes because rhabdoi are called stikhoi by some.
“Another version is this: the Homeridai were once the children of Homer and then later on the rhapsodes around Kunaithos. These are the people who remembered the Homeric poetry that had been scattered around and they performed it. But they totally ruined it. They always begin their poems by making a proem to Zeus. And sometimes the Muses.
“Oh, my heart, to what foreign shore
Are you turning my ship?
I want you to bring the Muse to Aiakos and his kin.
The heart of justice follows the principle “praise the good”–
Yet, lusts for different tales are not better for a man to endure.
Look for these at home.
You have earned the proper place
Of singing something sweet.”
“Strength works through deed
But thought works through the plans
Of those who have the innate skill to anticipate what will be.
Child of Hagesidamos, thanks to your nature
There are uses for both domains.
I don’t lust to keep
Great wealth hidden in my home
But rather to do well as things are and
To be praised for helping friends.
The hopes of hard-working people
Roll on in common.”
“Strength works through deed”: bravery ix exhibited and demonstrates itself through deeds, while thoughts do the same through counsels. This riffs on the Homeric line “war’s goal comes through the hands, words end in counsel”.
“Friends, did I really get turned around
At the fork in the road and lose my way
When I had just been following a straight path?
Or did some wind knock me aside as if
I were a boat on the sea?
Muse! It’s your job to keep things moving here and there,
since you agreed to sell your voice for silver
“Stranger passing by the humble grave of Anakreon,
If my books were of any use to you,
Pour some wine on my ashes, pour it out in drops
So that my bones can smile, refreshed a bit by wine,
so I, who loved the shouting raves of Dionysus,
so I, who was a partner of music matched to drink,
may not lie dead apart from Bacchus in this place below,
the land which all the race of mortals one day must know.”
“I don’t love the man who while drinking next to a full cup
Talks about conflicts and lamentable war.
But whoever mixes the shining gifts of Aphrodite and the Muses
Let him keep in mind loving, good cheer.”
“People who know praise that man.
I will tell you what is said.
He wields a mind
Stronger than his age
And his tongue too. His courage is like
A fine-winged eagle among the other birds
He flies among the Muses thanks to his dear mother
And has proved to be a wise charioteer.
He has dared to travel
Every approach their is
To his homeland’s excellence.”
“Now recognize the wisdom of Oedipus:
If someone could cleave the branches from
A giant oak tree with a sharp-edged axe
And wreck its eye-catching beauty,
It would still weigh in about itself even though
It could no longer bear fruit
If it came face to face with a winter’s fire in the end
Or if set upon columns for some master,
It provides the labor for someone else’s walls,
Leaving its place deserted.
But you are the most timely healer and Paian
Honors your light.
You need a soft touch to work on
An open wound.
It is easy for cowards to shake up a state,
But it is hard indeed to make it stable again,
Unless the leaders suddenly have a god
For a pilot.”
“Now recognize the wisdom of Oedipus”: Pindar encourages Arkesilaos to examine his own riddle. For he wants him to consider the wisdom of Oedipus because he solved the riddle of the Sphinx. And he is riddling here, and he means this kind of thing. Some people were in revolt in Kyrene during Arkesilaos’ reign because they wanted to expel him from power. But because he was stronger than them, he sent them into exile from the country. Demophilos was among the rebels because he was an insurrectionist himself. He also went as exile into Thebes. Some people thought—since others claim that he gave money to Pindar for the victory ode—that Pindar was using the poem to reconcile him to Arkesilaos
“I’ll be small for minor matters but big for big ones
and I will cultivate in my thoughts
The fate that comes to me, serving it by my own design.
So if god allows me wealth’s luxury
I have hope of finding fame’s height as well.
We know about Nestor and Lykian Sarpedon–
People’s legends, from famous songs which
The wise craftsmen assembled. And excellence blooms
In famous songs for all time. But it is easy for only a few to earn.”
Hypnos and Thanatos carrying the body of Sarpedon from the battlefield of Troy. Detail from an Attic white-ground lekythos, ca. 440 BC. British Museum D56
“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.”
