Pythian
Pindar
Pindar. Arnson Svarlien, Diane, translator. Created for the Perseus Project, 1990.
- I may observe a certain harmony on every step of my way.
- Justice stands beside the sweet-singing victory procession. I pray that the gods may regard your fortunes without envy, Xenarces. For if anyone has noble achievements without long toil, to many he seems to be a skillful man among the foolish,
- arming his life with the resources of right counsel. But these things do not depend on men. It is a god who grants them; raising up one man and throwing down another. Enter the struggle with due measure. You have won a prize of honor at Megara, and in the valley of Marathon; and at the local contest of Hera
- you were dominant in action with three victories, Aristomenes.
- And you fell from above on the bodies of four opponents, with grim intent; to them no cheerful homecoming was allotted, as it was to you, at the Pythian festival;
- nor, when they returned to their mothers, did sweet laughter awaken joy. They slink along the back-streets, away from their enemies, bitten by misfortune.
- But he who has gained some fine new thing in his great opulence
- flies beyond hope on the wings of his manliness, with ambitions that are greater than wealth. But the delight of mortals grows in a short time, and then it falls to the ground, shaken by an adverse thought.
- Creatures of a day. What is someone? What is no one? Man is the dream of a shadow. But when the brilliance given by Zeus comes, a shining light is on man, and a gentle lifetime. Dear mother Aegina, convey this city on her voyage of freedom, with the blessing of Zeus, and the ruler Aeacus,
- and Peleus, and good Telamon, and Achilles.
- With the help of the deep-waisted Graces I want to shout aloud proclaiming the Pythian victory with the bronze shield of Telesicrates, a prosperous man, the crowning glory of chariot-driving Cyrene;
- the long-haired son of Leto once snatched her from the wind-echoing glens of Mt. Pelion, and carried the girl of the wilds in his golden chariot to a place where he made her mistress of a land rich in flocks and most rich in fruits, to live and flourish on the root of the third continent.
- Silver-footed Aphrodite welcomed
- the Delian guest from his chariot, touching him with a light hand, and she cast lovely modesty on their sweet union, joining together in a common bond of marriage the god and the daughter of wide-ruling Hypseus. He was at that time king of the proud Lapiths, a hero of the second generation from Oceanus;
- in the renowned glens of Mt. Pindus a Naiad bore him, Creusa the daughter of Gaia, delighting in the bed of the river-god Peneius.
- And Hypseus raised his lovely-armed daughter Cyrene. She did not care for pacing back and forth at the loom, nor for the delights of luncheons with her stay-at-home companions;
- instead, fighting with bronze javelins and with a sword, she killed wild beasts, providing great restful peace for her father’s cattle; but as for her sweet bed-fellow, sleep,
- she spent only a little of it on her eyelids as it fell on them towards dawn.
- Once the god of the broad quiver, Apollo who works from afar, came upon her wrestling alone and without spears with a terrible lion. Immediately he called Cheiron from out of his halls and spoke to him:
- “Leave your sacred cave, son of Philyra, and marvel at the spirit and great strength of this woman; look at what a struggle she is engaged in, with a fearless head, this young girl with a heart more than equal to any toil; her mind is not shaken with the cold wind of fear. From what mortal was she born? From what stock has this cutting been taken,