Olympian

Pindar

Pindar, creator; Arnson Svarlien, Diane, 1960-, translator

  1. and the third leapt up with a cry. Pondering this adverse omen, Apollo said right away: “ Pergamos is taken, hero, through the works of your hands—so says a vision sent to me from the son of Cronus, loud-thundering Zeus—
  2. not without your sons: the city will be destroyed [*]( Reading with Gildersleeve r(a/zetai for a)/rzetai . ) with the first generation, and with the third.” [*]( Reading with the MSS terta/tois . See GRBS 1987 . ) The god spoke clearly, and then hurried on his way, driving to Xanthus , and to the Amazons with their fine horses, and to the Danube . And the wielder of the trident drove his swift chariot to the sea-washed Isthmus,
  3. bringing Aeacus here on his golden horses,
  4. and going to see the ridge of Corinth , famous for its feasts. But nothing can be equally delightful to all men. If I have, in my song, exalted the glory of Melesias for his training of beardless youths,
  5. let envy not strike me with a rough stone. For I will tell how he himself won the same grace at Nemea , and later, among men, in the battle
  6. of the pancratium. To teach
  7. is easier for one who has knowledge himself. And it is foolish not to learn in advance; for the minds of those with no experience are insubstantial. Melesias, beyond all others, could speak of those deeds: what manner of training will advance a man who is going to win the most longed-for glory from the sacred games.
  8. Now it is his honor that his thirtieth victory has been won for him by Alcimedon,
  9. who, with divine good fortune, yet without falling short in his own manliness, thrust off from himself and onto the four limbs of other boys a hateful homecoming with contemptuous talk and a secret way back,
  10. and breathed into his father's father the force that wrestles off old age. Hades is forgotten by a man with good accomplishments.
  11. But I must awaken memory and tell