United States or Venezuela ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then shall he tell how fair a fountain of immortal verse he made to flow for Arkesilas, when of late he was the guest of Thebes. This ode celebrates the same victory as the foregoing.
It was written B.C. 466, when Pindar was fifty-six years of age, and is unsurpassed in his extant works, or indeed by anything of this kind in all poetry. This day O Muse must thou tarry in a friend's house, the house of the king of Kyrene of goodly horses, that with Arkesilas at his triumph thou mayst swell the favourable gale of song, the due of Leto's children, and of Pytho.
And verily even now long afterward, as in the bloom of rosy-blossomed spring, in the eighth descent from Battos the leaf of Arkesilas is green.
By songs of glory hath virtue lasting life, but to achieve them is easy to but few. Pindar has made this victory of Arkesilas, King of the Hellenic colony of Kyrene in Africa, an occasion for telling the story of Jason's expedition with the Argonauts.
He wished to suggest an analogy between the relation of the Iolkian king Pelias to Jason and the relation of Arkesilas to his exiled kinsman Demophilos. Demophilos had been staying at Thebes, where Pindar wrote this ode, to be afterwards recited at Kyrene.
The glaring speckled dragon, O Arkesilas, he slew by subtlety, and by her own aid he stole away Medea, the murderess of Pelias. And they went down into the deep of Ocean and into the Red Sea, and to the Lemnian race of husbandslaying wives; there also they had games and wrestled for a prize of vesture, and lay with the women of the land.
Arkesilas, thou favourite of the gods, thou verily seekest after it with good report from the first steps of thy glorious life, with aid of Kastor of the golden car, who after the wintry storm hath shed bright calm about thy happy hearth . Now the wise bear better the power that is given of God.
It would seem that the chariot had been consecrated to Apollo and left in the temple at Delphi, but the horses were brought home to Kyrene and led in procession through the sacred street of Apollo, with their charioteer Karrhotos, brother of Arkesilas' wife.
And apart from him before their palace lie other sacred kings that have their lot with Hades; and even now perchance they hear, with such heed as remaineth to the dead, of this great deed sprinkled with kindly dew of outpoured song triumphal, whence have they bliss in common with their son Arkesilas unto whom it falleth due.
So with fair fame and unvexed heart may Aristagoras fulfil his twelve-month term. Blessed among men I count his father Arkesilas, and himself for his splendid body and his heritage of a dauntless heart.
Word Of The Day