Kindle Notes & Highlights
the ode was sung at a family festival; but it commemorates the glories of the island generally. The Rhodians caused it to be engraved in letters of gold in the temple of Athene at Lindos.
Shows the importance of pindar
set him free on the spot.
Why
I, my liquid nectar sending, the Muses’ gift, the sweet fruit of my soul, to men that are winners in the games at Pytho or Olympia make holy offering. Happy is he whom good report encompasseth; now on one man, now on another
on the father’s side they claim from Zeus,
bronze-wrought
Bronze Age reference
Zeus brought a yellow cloud into the sky and rained much gold upon the land;
Does this mean a sun shower near the time of sunset or sunrise when the water appears golden or is this how he thought gold originated, similar to metal of meteor origin, so not a bad hypothesis
beneath the hoary sea he saw a certain land waxing from its root in earth,
Land rising from the sea. Maybe they understood this from seeing volcanic activity
the isle sent up to the light of heaven
there sprang up from the watery main an island,
fire-breathing steeds.
Horses which blow fire?
these men call their dwelling-places.
Maybe call is a mistranslation and should have been lent their name to the land as eponyms
savoury burnt-offering,
עולה ריח ניחוח
And at Argos the bronze shield knoweth him,
Was bronze still in use by pindars time? Was he speculating about a game which happened long before modern steel technology which was contemporaneous to him
having learnt well the lessons his true soul hath taught him,
He learned what he already knew?
Darken not thou the light
Which light does this mean? Perhaps from the perspective of the platonic hypothesis of optics he refers to the light of his eyes. Then again even Aristotle could use such an expression to distinguish the sighted from the blind.
Why pray here for his sight? Maybe Pindar saw the game and saw that he was hit in the eye
Great name
speed each upon their various ways.
The breeze will speed the sailboats
Now shall there never among men be aught that pleaseth all alike.
Man is the measure of all things maybe protagorus ?
let not envy cast at me her cruel stone.
by God’s grace,
This phrase has appeared twice just in this ode alone and seems to be a motif in all of them such as urging to serve gods altar to show gratitude for god delivering victory to a man
the altar of Aias Oileus, tutelar hero of the Lokrians.
Sounds like an intermediate stage of deification
red lightning,
?
the Graces; for they give all pleasant things to men.
Again the theme of divine grace, indeed a divine personification thereof.
By fate divine receive men also valour and wisdom:
to speak evil of gods is a hateful wisdom,
Of such things talk thou not; leave war of immortals and all strife aside;
Truly men say that once a mighty water swept over the dark earth, but by the craft of Zeus an ebb suddenly drew off the flood.
The agrarian myth of diluent calamity as in Noah and Gilgamesh
ancestors of the brazen shields,
the Olympian Lord caught up the daughter3 of Opöeis from the land of the Epeians, and lay with her
Divine heritage
the wife bare within her the seed of the Mightiest, and the hero saw the bastard born and rejoiced,
Lykaian Zeus,
The thing done without God is better kept in silence.
by fate divine this man at least was born deft-handed, nimble-limbed,
valour, as has just been said, comes from a divine source,
only by the help of God is wisdom1
Golden here means supremely excellent,
Truth, daughter of Zeus,
If one be born with excellent gifts, then may another who sharpeneth his natural edge speed him, God helping, to an exceeding weight of glory.
If you took in order to hone your skill, you can defeat one who has natural excellence bec few without toil triumph
Kleatos, Poseidon’s goodly son,
the mighty son of Zeus having gathered together all his host at Pisa, and all the booty, measured a sacred grove for his sovereign Father; and having fenced round the Altis he marked the bounds thereof in a clear space, and the plain encompassing it he ordained for rest and feasting, and paid honour to the river Alpheos together with the twelve greatest gods. And he named it by the name of the Hill of Kronos; for theretofore it was without name, when Oinomaos was king, and it was sprinkled with much snow6.
Earlier in describing like heaven, the hill of Kronos was mentioned. This seems a detailed a account of the same place
this first-born rite
he ordained the fifth-year feast with the victories of that first Olympiad.
and all the precinct sounded with songs of festal glee, after the manner which is to this day for triumph. So following the first beginning of old time, we likewise in a song named of proud victory will celebrate the thunder and the flaming bolt of loud-pealing Zeus, the fiery lightning that goeth with all victory7.
a father who hath now travelled to the other side of youth,
Nice turn of phrase
when a man who hath done honourable deeds goeth unsung to the house of Hades, this man hath spent vain breath, and won but brief gladness for his toil.
This seems like an effort to convince us that valor in life helps you in death, but it doesn’t quite cross the problematic gulf of how.
Pierian daughters
Perhaps this implies a tradition of a colder climate anciently prevailing in Peloponnesos:
naturalized as a citizen of Himera.
sung in a temple either of Zeus or of Fortune.
O saviour Fortune.
