Nemean

Pindar

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

  1. how many he would slay on land, and how many lawless monsters at sea. And he told of a certain one,
  2. most hateful, who walked with crooked insolence towards men, whom the boy would send to his doom. For he said that when the gods meet the giants in battle on the plain of Phlegra, the shining hair of the giants will be stained with dirt beneath the rushing arrows of that hero.
  3. But he himself
  4. will have allotted to him in peace, as an extraordinary reward for his great hardship, continuous peace for all time among the homes of the blessed. He will receive flourishing Hebe as his bride and celebrate the wedding-feast, and in the presence of Zeus the son of Cronus he will praise the sacred law. [*](Reading with Snell νόμον for δόμον. )
  1. Just as the Homeridae, the singers of woven verses, most often begin with Zeus as their prelude, so this man has received a first down-payment of victory in the sacred games by winning
  2. in the grove of Nemean Zeus, which is celebrated in many hymns.
  3. And if the life that guides him straight along the path of his fathers has given him as an adornment to great Athens, it must be that the son of Timonous will often reap the finest bloom of the Isthmian games, and be victorious in the Pythian contests.
  4. It is right
  5. for Orion to travel not far from the mountain Pleiades. And certainly Salamis can raise a warrior. In Troy Hector heard of Aias. And you, Timodemus, are exalted
  6. by your enduring spirit of valor in the pancratium.
  7. Acharnae has long been famous for fine men. And in everything that has to do with contests, the sons of Timodemus are proclaimed the most outstanding. Beside Parnassus, ruling on high, they carried off four victories in the games,
  8. while the men of Corinth
  9. have already given them eight garlands in the glades of noble Pelops; in the Nemean contest of Zeus they have won seven times, and at home their victories are countless. Citizens, praise Zeus in a victory procession for Timodemus’ glorious homecoming.
  10. Begin with a sweet-singing voice!
  1. Queenly Muse, our mother! I entreat you, come in the sacred month of Nemea to the much-visited Dorian island of Aegina. For beside the waters of the Asopus young men are waiting, craftsmen of honey-voiced
  2. victory-songs, seeking your voice. Various deeds thirst for various things; but victory in the games loves song most of all, the most auspicious attendant of garlands and of excellence.
  3. Send an abundance of it, from my wisdom;
  4. begin, divine daughter, an acceptable hymn to the ruler of the cloud-filled sky, and I will communicate it by the voices of those singers and by the lyre. The hymn will have a pleasant toil, to be the glory of the land where the ancient Myrmidons lived, whose marketplace, famous long ago,
  5. Aristocleides, through your ordinance, did not stain with dishonor by proving himself too weak in the strenuous
  6. course of the pancratium. But in the deep plain of Nemea, his triumph-song brings a healing cure for wearying blows. Still, if the son of Aristophanes, who is beautiful, and whose deeds match his looks,