And keep the firm and perfect mind
From all contagion pure;

Along the stated path of Jove

To Saturn's royal courts above

Have trod their heavenly way,

Where round the island of the blest

The ocean breezes play;

120

125

There golden flowerets ever blow,

Some springing from earth's verdant breast,
These on the lonely branches glow,

While those are nurtured by the waves below. From them the inmates of these seats divine

130

Around their hands and hair the woven garlands twine. 136

Such Rhadamanthus' just decree,
Who sits by Father Saturn's side,
Where with his all-possessing bride
Rhea, supreme he holds his court.

135

In those high ranks Peleus and Cadmus shine,
And to the blissful seats above

The prayer of Thetis won the breast of Jove
To waft the scion of her line,

Achilles, whose resistless might

The pride and hope of Troy o'erthrew,
Hector, till then unconquer'd, slew ;

Till then th' unshaken pillar of the fight.

140

lows the Pythagorean doctrine of the metempsychosis, and reserves the beautiful Elysium of the blessed islands to those who have passed with the divine approbation through the two conditions of mortality, on and beneath the earth. With this whole description of the Elysian and Tartarian abodes, compare Hesiod (Op. et Dies, 225.); where however the paradise of the just, as well as the opposite residence of those who delight in violence and wrong, is terrestrial. 143 So Catullus, addressing Peleus, says:

Thessaliæ columen Peleu.-De Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 26.

Cycnus the hero gave to death,

Aurora's Æthiop son to him resign'd his breath. 149.

Full many a sharp and potent dart

146

That shows unspent the poet's art,

And to the wise sounds clear and shrill,
Rests in my well-stored quiver still.

But minds untaught some guide will need
Safe thro' the mystic paths to lead;
While witlings learn'd with empty sound

150

Like crows pursue their ceaseless round,
That thro' the airy plains above

Track the majestic bird of Jove. 158

155

Then take, my soul, thy fearless aim―
Drawn from the quiet storehouse say
To whom thine arrows wing their way
Along the path of fame?

Far as proud Agrigentum's height
Should they direct their devious flight,
If sworn to truth, I will declare

That in the hundred years whose course hath fled

O'er her imperial head,

No heart more friendly, no more liberal hand
Than Theron's, who now sways the subject land,
Hath held dominion there. 173

Yet Insolence her voice will raise
Unjust to thwart the monarch's praise,
And Envy's rancorous tongue invade,
Casting his merits into shade.
Howe'er the base malignant crew
His name with violence pursue,

145 Memnon.

PIND.

B

160

165

170

If thou wouldst all his generous deeds explore,

As soon the sandy grains thy tongue shall number o'er. 180

175 So Catullus (ad Lesbiam):

Quam magnus numerus Libyssæ arenæ
Laserpiciferis jacet Cyrenis,

Oraclum Jovis inter æstuosi,

Et Batti veteris sacrum sepulchrum :

*

Quæ nec pernumerare curiosi
Possint.

175

THE THIRD OLYMPIC ODE.

TO THE SAME THERON, ON OCCASION OF A VICTORY OBTAINED BY HIM IN THE CHARIOT RACE THE DATE IS NOT RECORDED.

ARGUMENT.

THIS ode was addressed to the king of Agrigentum, to whom the victory was announced as he was celebrating the Theoxenia (a festival in honor of all the gods, instituted by the inhabitants of Pallene, or, according to the mythological story, by Castor and Pollux). Pindar therefore begins by invoking the aid and approbation of the Dioscuræ and their sister Helen-Thence on the mention of the olive wreath, he digresses to the fable of Hercules transplanting the wild olive tree from the Hyperborean regions to Olympia-He concludes by congratulating Theron, who had attained the highest point of human glory, and attributes his success to the favor of the twin deities, influenced by his piety and the regularity with which he celebrated the festival of the gods: the attempt to proceed farther would be as vain as the endeavor to sail beyond the Pillars of Hercules, the supposed boundary of the old world.

To please the hospitable pair
From godlike Tyndarus who spring,
And Helen, nymph of lovely hair,
I would awake th' Olympic string,
And raise the lyric song, to crown
Bright Agrigentum with renown,
And Theron's glories sing,

5

Whose steeds' unwearied feet achieve the guerdon fair.

Then may the muse her bard inspire,
Who first upon the Dorian lyre

10

Raised the melodious strain on high
To swell the pomp of victory. 10

The verdant wreaths that proudly glow
Round the triumphant courser's mane,
Call on the shrill-toned flute to flow,
The varied lyre and well-connected strain.
Which may a due encomium raise
Enesidamus' son to praise. 16

And Pisa joins the general claim

From her proceeds the song of fame,

15

20

1 This epithet, as West observes, is very appropriately bestowed on the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, on account of the establishment, by them, of the Theoxenia, a feast to which the gods were invited. With the opening of this ode compare Euripides, Orestes, sub fin.

Ελενην Ζηνος μελάθροις πελασω, κ. τ. λ.

We may observe that the praises of Agrigentum are a favorite theme of Pindar's grateful muse.

18 Thomson, in his Castle of Indolence (ii. 13.) says of his Knight of Arts and Industry, that

-with varied fire

He roused the trumpet and the martial fife,

Or bade the lute sweet tenderness inspire,

Or verses framed that well might wake Apollo's lyre.

To whom the umpire's just decree
Awards the meed of victory.

Prompt to fulfil Alcides' high command,
Who bade the verdant olive glow
Twined by th' Ætolian judge's hand

Around the conqueror's brow.
Which erst Amphitryo's godlike son

22

From Ister's shady fountains bore,
The fairest mark of triumph won

By victor on Olympia's shore.
Gift of the Hyperborean race,
Who worship in Apollo's fane,

The plant which shades that hallow'd place
His voice persuasive could obtain ;

25

30

35

Where Jupiter's tall grove a shelter gave Common to all mankind, and chaplets to the brave. 32

For now to his great father's name
Perform'd was every sacred rite;

31 It would be tedious and not very edifying to the reader to detail the various opinions of the ancients respecting the geographical position of the Hyperboreans: some placing them in Europe and others in Asia; nay, they have been said to dwell within the polar circle, in a fruitful and temperate clime, free from all skyey influences of an adverse and malignant nature. In Olymp. viii. 70, Pindar says that the Ister flows through the land of Scythia. Hence this northern El Dorado would be situated in a latitude above the equator, as high as that of the modern Siberia. But nothing can be more vague and undefined than the notions of antiquity respecting the limits of the Ister and the territories of the Scythians. In the sixth Isthmian ode, v. 36, Pindar appears to consider the Nile and the Hyperborean regions as the northern and southern extremities of the habitable globe. It appears that the sacred olive which the Theban Hercules is fabled to have transplanted from their regions grew somewhere above the fountains of the Ister or Danube. The tenth Pythian ode contains a poetical description of the fertility and blessedness of these Utopian regions.