Olympian

Pindar

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

  1. The resounding strain of Archilochus, the swelling thrice-repeated song of triumph, sufficed to lead Epharmostus to the hill of Cronus, in victory-procession with his dear companions.
  2. But now, from the bow of the Muses who, shooting from afar, send a shower of such arrows of song as these on Zeus of the red lightning-bolt and on the sacred height of Elis, which once the Lydian hero Pelops
  3. won as the very fine dowry of Hippodameia.
  4. And shoot a winged sweet arrow to Pytho ; for your words will not fall to the ground, short of the mark, when you trill the lyre in honor of the wrestling of the man from renowned Opus. Praise Opus and her son;
  5. praise her whom Themis and her glorious daughter, the savior Eunomia, have received under their protection; she flourishes with excellence beside your stream, Castalia, and beside the Alpheus. From there the choicest garlands
  6. glorify the famous mother-city of the Locrians with her splendid trees.
  7. I am lighting up that dear city with fiery songs, and more swiftly than a spirited horse or a winged ship
  8. I will send that message everywhere, so surely as I, by some destined skill, am cultivating the exquisite garden of the Graces; for they are the givers of delight, but men become brave and skillful by divine will.
  9. For
  10. how could Heracles have wielded his club against the trident, when Poseidon took his stand to guard Pylos, and pressed him hard, and Phoebus pressed him hard, attacking with his silver bow; nor did Hades keep his staff unmoved, with which he leads mortal bodies down to the hollow path
  11. of the dead. My mouth, fling this story away from me! Since to speak evil of the gods is a hateful skill, and untimely boasting
  12. is in harmony with madness.
  13. Do not babble of such things now. Keep war and all battles apart from the immortals. But lend your tongue to the city of Protogeneia, where, by the ordinance of Zeus with the flashing thunderbolt, Pyrrha and Deucalion came down from Parnassus and made their first home, and without the marriage-bed
  14. they founded a unified race of stone offspring, and the stones gave the people their name [*](Pun on λαὸ’δψλαοὶ δ᾽, “people”, and λήθοι, “stones.” ), Arouse for them a clear-sounding path [*](Reading with Snell and MSS οἶμον for οὖρον, ) of song; praise wine that is old, but praise the flowers of songs
  15. that are new. They tell, indeed,
  16. how the strength of the waters overwhelmed the dark earth; but by the skills of Zeus the ebbing tide suddenly drained off the flood. From these were descended your ancestors with their bronze shields,
  17. young men sprung from the beginning from the stock of the daughters of Iapetus and from the powerful sons of Cronus, always a native line of kings,
  18. until the ruler of Olympus carried off the daughter of Opus from the land of the Epeians, and lay with her peacefully in the glens of Mount Maenalus, and brought her
  19. to Locrus, so that age would not overtake him and lay the burden of childlessness on him. His bride was carrying in her womb the seed of the greatest god, and the hero rejoiced to see his adopted son, and gave him the same name as his mother’s father, Opus,
  20. a man beyond words in beauty and fine deeds. Locrus gave him a city and a people to govern,