“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“When things are done
Justly or otherwise
Not even time, the father of everything,
Can render their results undone.
Yet with a lucky fate,
They may yet be forgotten.
Even pain dies
once the churn of feelings is subdued
Under the influence of noble joys.
Whenever the god’s Fate sends
Happiness reaching on high.
This claim fits well
The fair-throned daughters of Cadmus
Who suffered calamities–
But now their heavy grief fades
In the face of greater goods.”
There’s a time when man’s greatest need is wind,
and there’s a time when it’s waters from the sky,
the rainy offspring of clouds.
But when an individual toils and prevails
dulcet hymns are where his future fame begins
and testify to his great achievements.
Lavish is the praise offered up
for Olympic victors. My tongue would lead the way,
but here too, it’s only because of god
a man’s art blossoms.
Now then, son of Archestratus, know this:
Hagesidamus, because of your boxing,
as an adornment of your golden-olives crown
I will shout a sweet song
which recognizes your Western Lokrian tribe.
Go join the revels there, O muses!
I promise you will not encounter a host
unwelcoming and unschooled in beauty,
but one quite wise, and spear-fighting at that.
I can promise, for neither flame-colored fox
nor loud-roaring lions change their natural ways.
In Pindar’s cosmos, contingency reigns. Neither wind nor rain, whatever the need, can be counted on. The athlete isn’t assured success (it depends on the god), and if he attains it, his greatest need (an enduring and relied-upon hymn) may go unmet (it too depends on the god). That seems to be the point of the priamel: the athlete, like those who rely on specific weather, might be frustrated in their greatest need.
It’s against this backdrop that we should interpret the singer’s promise to the Muses. It’s not irrelevant that the promise is couched in the language of oaths (ἐγγυάσομαι: I promise, I pledge); after all, the ambitious claims for the hymn were too (πιστὸν ὅρκιον: literally “a reliable oath”). Those claims were of course undermined by the singer’s reminder about contingency.
And so we should read the gnomic statement about fox and lion as also unreliable. Fox and lion are constant, just as the character of Western Lokrians is constant. What the ode has not done is identify a constant in an inconstant world. Rather, claims of predictability should have been sufficiently undermined by now that we hear irony in the lines, or perhaps a test of whether we have absorbed the ode’s lesson.
I ask where’s the praise in the ode, precisely because the singer who questions his ability to hymn the Olympic victor, by extension undermines his praise of the athletes tribe as well.
Black figure amphora. Athens, 550-500 BCE. British Museum.
“If someone focuses every urge on excellence,
Paying both the costs and the pains,
Then those who find deserve a confident shout
Without worry of jealous talk–
It is a light gift for a wise person
To keep the common good straight
By saying a fine word for all kinds of labors.
People find different payment sweet for different work–
For the shepherd, the plowman, the falconer
And one the sea feeds,
Everyone is trying keep their stomach from aching hunger;
But whoever earns glorious victory in games or at war
Receives the highest profit when they are praised:
A kind word from fellow citizens and strangers.”
Men and gods are kin–we draw breath
From one mother, men and gods.
Yet, a critical property separates us:
Men are nothing, but gods have bronze heaven
As their ever-secure seat.
Still, we do somewhat resemble immortals,
Whether in our vast mind or our form,
Although neither by day nor by night
Do we know what course
Destiny has set down for us to run.
In Pindar’s Greek, it is δύναμις, a word most commonly translated as “power,” which separates gods and men. I was unsure what “power” he had in mind, but the scholia’s interpretation was clarifying.
The scholia points out that “unchangeability” (ἀμετάβλητος) is the gods’ defining characteristic. It then goes on to state:
“The critical δύναμις of the gods separates us from one another . . . The consequence is that the race of men is easily destroyed, but the race of gods is inalterable, secure, and immortal.”
In light of the scholia, I think a better translation of δύναμις, in this instance, is “property.” Hence my translation, “a critical property separates us . . .”
Pindar, Paean, fr. 8a [=52i(A) P. Oxy. 841 (5, 1908)]
[She felt him] hurrying and her divine heart
Wailed with horrible groans
And she explained the reason
With words like this: So wholly…
Wide-browed son of Kronos–
You are bringing about the fated
Pain from when Hekabe [informed]
The Dardanian women when she
Was carrying this man in her body,
She believed that she would give birth
To a fire-breathing hundred-hander
One who would drag all Ilion
To the ground with his wicked [ways]
And she spoke [of him] [confessing]
The sign that came into her dreams
[shuddering in fear] at her foreknowledge.”
“Drinking toasts that stretch beyond reason bring
Pleasure for the moment but pain for all time.
The Spartan style is one of moderation:
To eat and drink with limits so people can still
Work and think. They don’t set apart a day
To soak the body with excessive drinking.”
