Olympian

Pindar

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

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. that are new. They tell, indeed,
  4. 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,
  5. 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,
  6. 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
  7. 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,
  8. a man beyond words in beauty and fine deeds. Locrus gave him a city and a people to govern,
  9. and strangers came to him from Argos and Thebes, from Arcadia and Pisa, But among the settlers he chiefly honored the son of Actor
  10. and Aegina, Menoetius, whose son went with the Atreidae to the plain of Teuthras, and stood alone beside Achilles, when Telephus turned to flight the mighty Danaans, and attacked their ships beside the sea, to reveal to a man of understanding
  11. the powerful mind of Patroclus. From that time forward, the son of Thetis exhorted him in deadly war
  12. never to post himself far from his own man-subduing spear.
  13. May I be a suitable finder of words as I move onward in the Muses’ chariot; may boldness and all-embracing power attend me. Because of his friendship with my people and his excellence, I went to honor the Isthmian crowning of Lampromachus, when both he and Epharmostus were victors
  14. on a single day. And then there were two other joyous victories at the gates of Corinth, and others won by Epharmostus in the vale of Nemea ; and at Argos he won glory in a contest of men, and as a boy at Athens, And at Marathon, when he was barred from competing with the beardless youths,
  15. how he endured the contest for silver cups among the older men! Having subdued those men by the trick of quickly shifting balance without falling, with what a roar of applause did he pass through the ring, in his prime, and handsome, and having accomplished the finest deeds.
  16. Again, among the Parrhasian people he was marvellous to look at, at the festival of Lycaean Zeus, and when at Pellana he carried off as his prize a warm remedy against chilly winds. The tomb of Iolaus bears witness for him, and also Eleusis by the sea, for his splendid achievements.
  17. That which is inborn is always the best; but many men strive to win glory with excellence that comes from training. Anything in which a god has no part is none the worse for being quelled in silence. For some roads
  18. lead farther than others, and a single occupation will not nourish us all. The paths to skill are steep; but, while offering this prize of song, boldly shout aloud
  19. that this man, by the blessing of the gods, was born with deftness of hand and litheness of limb, and with valor in his eyes; and at the banquet of Aias son of Oileus he laid his victorious garland on the altar.
  1. 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,