Olympian

Pindar

Pindar. Arnson Svarlien, Diane, translator. Created for the Perseus Project, 1990.

  1. over the number of your honors; for, truly, I would not know how to give a clear account of the number of pebbles in the sea.
  2. Each thing has its limit; knowing it is the best and most timely way. And I, sailing on my own course for the common good,
  3. and singing of the wisdom and the battles of ancient men in their heroic excellence, shall not falsify the story of Corinth; I shall tell of Sisyphus, who, like a god, was very shrewd in his devising, and of Medea, who resolved on her own marriage against her father’s will, and thus saved the ship Argo and its seamen.
  4. And again, in the fight long ago before the walls of Dardanus, Corinthians seemed to decide the issue of battles on either side: some of them attempting, with the dear race of Atreus, to recover Helen, and others doing everything they could
  5. to oppose the attempt. And the Danaans trembled before Glaucus, when he came from Lycia ; he boasted to them that in the city of Peirene lay the rule and rich estate and hall of his ancestor, Bellerophon,
  6. who once suffered greatly when beside the spring he wanted to harness Pegasus, the son of the snake-entwined Gorgon;
  7. until the maiden Pallas brought to him a bridle with golden cheek-pieces. The dream suddenly became waking reality, and she spoke: “Are you sleeping, king, son of Aeolus? Come, take this charm for the horse; and, sacrificing a white bull, show it to your ancestor, Poseidon the Horse-Tamer.”
  8. The goddess of the dark aegis seemed to say such words to him as he slumbered in the darkness, and he leapt straight up to his feet. He seized the marvellous thing that lay beside him, and gladly went to the seer of the land,
  9. and he told the son of Coeranus the whole story: how, at the seer’s bidding, he had gone to sleep for the night on the altar of the goddess, and how the daughter herself of Zeus whose spear is the thunderbolt had given him
  10. the spirit-subduing gold. The seer told him to obey the dream with all speed;
  11. and, when he sacrificed a strong-footed bull to the widely powerful holder of the earth, straightaway to dedicate an altar to Athena, goddess of horses. The power of the gods accomplishes as a light achievement what is contrary to oaths and expectations. And so mighty Bellerophon eagerly
  12. stretched the gentle charmed bridle around its jaws and caught
  13. the winged horse. Mounted on its back and armored in bronze, at once he began to play with weapons. And with Pegasus, from the chilly bosom of the lonely air, [*](Reading with Snell and MSS ψυχρῶν and ἐρήμου for ψυχρᾶς and ἐρηήμων, ) he once attacked the Amazons, the female army of archers,