Isthmean

Pindar

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

  1. and of his ancestral land of Orchomenus, which received him from the boundless sea when he was hard-pressed by shipwreck, in chilly misfortune. But now once more his hereditary fortune has embarked him on
  2. the fair weather of the old days. And he who has suffered toils gains foresight in his mind.
  3. If a man has devoted his whole spirit to excellence, sparing neither expense nor toils, it is right to grant the boast of manliness to those who achieve excellence, with an ungrudging
  4. mind. For it is an easy gift for a skilled man to speak words of praise in recompense for labors of all kinds and thus to promote the common good.
  5. Different wages for different deeds are sweet to men, to the shepherd and the ploughman and the bird-trapper, and the man whom the sea nourishes. Every man is intent upon keeping persistent famine from his belly.
  6. But he who wins rich renown in the games or in war receives the highest gain: to be well spoken of by his fellow-citizens and by strangers, the choicest bloom of speech.
  7. For us it is right to celebrate the earth-shaking son of Cronus, returning a good deed to our beneficent neighbor, the lord of horse-racing and chariots;
  8. and to invoke your sons, Amphitryon, and the secluded valley of Minyas, and Eleusis, the famous precinct of Demeter, and Euboea, when we speak of curving race-courses.
  9. Protesilas, I add besides your sacred ground in Phylace, the home of Achaean men.
  10. But the brief limits of my song prevent me from telling of all the victories that Hermes, lord of games, granted to Herodotus and his horses. Truly, often that which is hushed in silence actually brings greater pleasure.
  11. May he, raised up on the splendid wings of the Pierian Muses with their lovely voices,
  12. also arm his hand with wreaths from Pytho, with exquisite wreaths from the Alpheus and the Olympian games, thus winning glory for seven-gated Thebes. But if someone hoards hidden wealth at home, and attacks others with mockery, he fails to consider that he is giving up his soul to Hades without glory.
  1. The men of old, Thrasybulus, who mounted the chariot of the Muses with their golden headbands, joining the glorious lyre, lightly shot forth their honey-voiced songs for young men, if one was handsome and had
  2. the sweetest ripeness that brings to mind Aphrodite on her lovely throne.
  3. For in those days the Muse was not yet a lover of gain, nor did she work for hire. And sweet gentle-voiced odes did not go for sale, with silvered faces, from honey-voiced Terpsichore. But as things are now, she bids us heed
  4. the saying of the Argive man, which comes closest to actual truth:
  5. “Money, money makes the man,” he said, when he lost his wealth and his friends at the same time. But enough, for you are wise. I sing the Isthmian victory with horses, not unrecognized, which Poseidon granted to Xenocrates,
  6. and sent him a garland of Dorian wild celery for his hair, to have himself crowned,
  7. thus honoring the man of the fine chariot, the light of the people of Acragas. And in Crisa widely powerful Apollo looked graciously on him, and gave him glory there as well. And joined with the renowned favors of the sons of Erechtheus
  8. in splendid Athens, he found no fault with the chariot-preserving hand of the man who drove his horses,