Olympian

Pindar

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

  1. piously gave many gifts, with prayers and sacrifices, to the herald of the gods, Hermes, who rules over games and the dispensation of contests,
  2. and honors Arcadia, the home of fine men, it is that god, son of Sostratus, who with his loud-thundering father fulfills your good fortune. I think I have on my tongue a shrill whetstone, which steals over me (and I am willing) with fair-flowing breaths. My mother’s mother was the nymph of Stymphalus, blossoming Metopa,
  3. who bore horse-driving Thebe, whose delicious water I drink, while I weave my embroidered song for heroic spearmen. Now rouse your companions, Aeneas, first to shout the praises of Hera Parthenia, and then to know whether we have truly escaped the ancient reproach
  4. of men’s speech, “Boeotian pig.” For you are a faithful herald, a message-stick of the lovely-haired Muses, a sweet mixing-bowl of loud-sounding songs.
  5. Tell them to remember Syracuse and Ortygia, which Hieron rules with his pure scepter and with good counsels,
  6. while he attends on the worship of Demeter of the red feet, and on the festival of her daughter with her white horses, and on the might of Aetnaean Zeus. The sweet-voiced lyres and music are familiar with Hieron. May time not creep up and disturb his prosperity, but may he with loving friendliness welcome the victory-procession of Hagesias
  7. as it comes to one home from his other home within the walls of Stymphalus,
  8. leaving his motherland, Arcadia of the fine flocks. On a stormy night it is good to have two anchors to throw down from a swift ship. May a god lovingly bestow a glorious lot on the men of both cities. Master, ruler of the sea, husband of Amphitrite of the golden distaff, grant straight sailing free from troubles,
  9. and give new growth to the delightful flower of my songs.
  1. As when someone takes a goblet, all golden, the most prized of his possessions, foaming with the dew of the vine from a generous hand, and makes a gift of it to his young son-in-law, welcoming him with a toast from one home to another,
  2. honoring the grace of the symposium and the new [*](Reading with Snell νέος for ἑόν, ) marriage-bond, and thereby, in the presence of his friends, makes him enviable for his harmonious marriage-bed;
  3. I too, sending to victorious men poured nectar, the gift of the Muses, the sweet fruit of my mind, I try to win the gods’ favor
  4. for those men who were victors at Olympia and at Pytho, That man is prosperous, who is encompassed by good reports. Grace, which causes life to flourish, looks with favor now on one man, now on another, with both the sweet-singing lyre and the full-voiced notes of flutes.
  5. And now, with the music of flute and lyre alike I have come to land with Diagoras, singing the sea-child of Aphrodite and bride of Helios, Rhodes,
  6. so that I may praise this straight-fighting, tremendous man who had himself crowned beside the Alpheus and near Castalia, as a recompense for his boxing, and also his father Damagetus, a man pleasing to Justice, living on the island of three cities near the foreland of spacious Asia, among Argive spearmen.
  7. I shall want to proclaim my message for them, the widely powerful race of Heracles, and tell correctly from the beginning, from Tlepolemus, the story that concerns all. For, on the father’s side, they boast descent from Zeus, while, on the mother’s, they are descendants of Amyntor, through Astydameia. But around the minds of men
  8. countless errors loom; and this is impossible to discover:
  9. what is best to happen to a man, now and in the end. For indeed, striking Licymnius, the bastard brother of Alcmena, with a staff of hard olive-wood as he came out of the chamber of Midea,
  10. the founder of this land once killed that man, in anger. Disturbances of the mind lead astray even a wise man. Tlepolemus went and sought the god’s oracle.
  11. To him the golden-haired god spoke, from his fragrant sanctuary, of a voyage by ship from the shore of Lerna straight to the pasture land with sea all around it, where once the great king of the gods showered the city with golden snow,