Complete Works of Pindar

by Pindar

According to Pindar the lions seem to have been still more alarmed, being startled by Battos’ foreign accent.

our pilgrimage to the everlasting centre-stone of deep-murmuring2 earth.

bought his father’s flight by his own death.

The field of poesy.

What country, what house among all lands shall I name more glorious throughout Hellas?

Sounds like pindar is athenian

Peace, daughter of Righteousness,

Good point

great,

In times of peace a city can prosper as did egypt whise peace was guarded by the desert

sinkest Insolence in the sea.

A metaphor of hopelessly irrevocable loss as a ship lost at sea

precious

Perhaos a clearser translation could be rare which is easy to understand

the noble temper of thy sires shineth forth in thee.

Cf dr. Gail smiths lecture comparagtive politics regarding the Attic pressumption that virtue and ingnobility are hereditary. And the cited book by Lape

I went up to the earth’s centre-stone, renowned in song, and showed forth the gift of prophecy

Pindar claimed prophecy

these things lie not with men: it is God that ordereth them, who setteth up one and putteth down another,

Therefore it is fitting to serve god with apropriate rites like at the sacrificial altar

shrink

Awww

Things of a day — what are we, and what not? Man is a dream of shadows.

Men areshort livedvis a vis gods who have ever controled the world and what the world gives to men. So men ojught to i ngratiate the gods through reverence and service

The nymph, protectress of the island.

A very intseresting notion. Each city has a divine being connected to and interested in protecting it. Its also interesgting that its nkot called a god but only a nymph. What mighgt this mean? Maybe its less popular and universal in that its purview is a mere city vis a vis a god woukd effect some phenomenon over the entire world like the motion of the sun of falling of all rain. Maybe too this is why the nymph doesnt have a name independant of the city. i wonder if ift was thought that each nymph somehow begat the original inhabitants of their particular city. Like how athenians were thought to have arose from the onanism during a rape of one god against another. This seems likely by pindars appelation here of mother. This is a fun explanation of the origin of the species of men

Telesikrates bearing the shield of bronze,

Why did he bear bronze technology 500 years after steel was popular in greece

the third part2

Am i right in remembering the third part to be a phrase in Mikrah or Mishnah gto mean highest quality land

hero whose father’s father was the Ocean-god

Divine lineage of a hero

bronze javelins

Maybe this bronze item refers to an old story originating in the bronze age or at least a recent story given a flavor of an ancient one

How many leaves the earth sendeth forth in spring, how many grains of sand in sea and river are rolled by waves and the winds’ stress, what shall come to pass, and whence it shall be, thou discernest perfectly.

Omnicience in greek myth

old god

ample-bosomed Earth5

A reference to the femenine fecundity of earth in response to the masculine seminal rains?

they were fain to cull the fruit whereto her gold-crowned youth had bloomed.

joined

Officiated Marriage betwen them

He wrote it when he was twenty years old.

envious repentings

Maybe he means to warn against acting with hubris which would make the gods envious of his good fortune and then the gods will repent to wit the gods wil change tgeir mind and reverse his fortunes

brazen heaven,

Whats brazen heaven? Does it mean resolved of purpose? Maybe it means beautiful and illumi nated like a shiny metal surface. If so this might explain why pindar ascribes the quality of bronze to wdeapons used by victors who lived 500 years adter the spread of steel into greece; he means beautifully shiny it woukd be interestin g to research the original word in the greek version

wondrous way.

Wondrous way to the company of the gods

they were sacrificing ample hecatombs of asses to their god.

The bible speaks only of sacrificing to god animals which were normally eaten by the people. I assume tgat as today, donkeys werent eaten in greece. if so i wonder if greeks sacrificed nonfood animals. Mybe pindar alludes to thjis when he subsequently calls them strange beasts. Or maybe they ate donkeys. Or maybe asses is an innaccurate translation or else an imprecise word which can include beef or mutton

braying

Nemesis.

the Earth-navel

I think an earlier ode used this phrase

black death

the art which once on a time Pallas Athene devised, when she made music of the fierce Gorgon’s death-lament.

Aitnaian Zeus.

?

this teeming Sicily he would exalt to be the best land in the fruitful earth,

for the hopes of much-labouring men seem to me even as mine.

Cf. Sefer hachinuch in offering a reason for tge prohibition against seli g a countryman pn the block into slavery that it may happen to you to that you might become impoverished one day and sold into slavery and then you wouldnt want to bear the shame of standing for sale on the block. Also the talmud in explanation gthat the poor may bring their child to help collect extra portions of field margin gifts bec its fair bec likewise others could do the sme and bring their child to grner additkional portions

with his twin-brother,

Contemporary retsellings of hercules make no.mention of a brother

Teiresias

Is he the prophet in oedipus king?

lawless monsters

A curious epithet for monsters but essentially a very reasonable synonym for wild

Pankration see Dict. Ant. It was a combination of wrestling and boxing, probably with wide license of rules.

Nemeaian Zeus

?

divine Muse, our mother,

stranger-thronged,

Maybe an epithet of commercial success

hear thy call.

Through the inspiration which u give to me

but victory in the games above all loveth song,

So says the ode author. Although this text is meant for public consumptkion so it likely he wouldnt exaggerate his importance, riskimg dierect public dispproval

to the voices of singers and to the lyre.

In text in instuction of how the ode was performed

O my soul,

Soul in hebfrew is synonymous with an animating spirit ruakh which can simply mean intent or inspiration as was complained to the prophbet "ill bring the king here but the ruakh of gid will have carried you off to that which i wont know" in Kings. Likewise in the vision of the chariot the ruakh as the driving force of the chariot if i recall correctly if so oh my soul could be another invocation to tyhe muse mentioned above

By inborn worth doth one prevail mightily;

Cf susan lape on the Attic idea of heriditry virtue

Achilles of the yellow hair,