Olympian
Pindar
Pindar. Arnson Svarlien, Diane, translator. Created for the Perseus Project, 1990.
- Read me the name of the Olympic victor, the son of Archestratus, where it has been written in my mind. For I owed him a sweet song, and I have forgotten. But come, Muse, you and the daughter of Zeus, unforgetting Truth: with the hand that puts things right,
- keep from me the blame for lying, for wronging my friend.
- Approaching from far away, the future has arrived and made me ashamed of my deep debt. Still, payment with interest has a way of dissolving the bitter reproach of men.
- Now, just as the flowing wave overwhelms the rolling pebble, so shall I pay my account in full, in gratitude and friendship.
- For unswerving Exactitude rules the city of the Western Locrians, and Calliope is important to them, and bronze-armored Ares.
- Battle with Cycnus set back even Heracles, strong and violent; let Hagesidamus, victorious as a boxer at Olympia, offer thanks to Ilas, just as Patroclus did to Achilles.
- With the help of a god, one man can sharpen another who is born for excellence, and encourage him to tremendous achievement.
- Without toil only a few have attained joy, a light of life above all labors. The laws of Zeus urge me to sing of that extraordinary contest-place which Heracles founded by the ancient tomb of Pelops
- with its six altars, after he killed Cteatus, the flawless son of Poseidon
- and Eurytus too, with a will to exact from the unwilling Augeas, strong and violent, the wages for his menial labor.
- Heracles lay in wait in the thicket below Cleonae, and in his turn overcame those men by the roadside; for once before those arrogant Moliones had destroyed his Tirynthian army, when it was encamped in the valley of Elis,