Hide browse bar
Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the
line to jump to another position:
Table of Contents:
Victory odes
A song of victory is as old as victory itself, and only younger than
strife, “the father of all things.” The
unrenowned ἐνδομάχας ἀλέκτωρ,
spoken of by
Pindar, chanted his own epinikion
before the flood. Old songs of victory are familiar to us from the
Bible — Miriam's song, Deborah's song, the chorals of
virgins that sang “Saul hath slain his thousands, but
David his ten thousands.” Pindar himself mentions the old
μέλος of Archilochos, a hymn on
the heroes of the games, Herakles and Iolaos, the τήνελλα καλλίνικος, the “See
the conquering hero comes,” which was chanted by the
victor's friends in default of any special epinikion. No one who has read the close of the
Acharnians of Aristophanes is likely to forget it (Ach. 1227-end).
There were singers of epinikia
before Simonides and Pindar, but we shall pass over the obscure
predecessors of these two princes of Hellenic song, to whom the full
artistic development of the lyric chorus was peculiarly due, pausing
only to point out to the beginner in Pindar, who is ordinarily more
familiar with the tragic chorus than with any other, the fundamental
difference between tragic and lyric. The tragic chorus has been
called the ideal spectator, the spectator who represents the people.
It is the conscience, the heart of the people. In the best days of
the drama the chorus follows every turn of the action, heightens every
effect of joy or sorrow by its sympathy, rebukes every violation of
the sacred law by indignant protest or earnest appeal to the powers
above. If the coryphaeus or head man speaks, he
speaks as the representative of the whole.
But in Pindar the chorus is the mouthpiece of the poet, and does not
represent the people except so far as Pindar, through the chorus,
expresses the thought of the Greeks and reflects their nationality.
In the tragic chorus old men and young maidens, hardy mariners and
captive women are introduced; but under all the dramatic proprieties
of expression, we see the beating of the Greek heart, we hear the
sound of the Greek voice. In Pindar's epinikion we never forget Pindar.
The victories in honor of which these epinikia were composed gave rise to general rejoicing in
the cantons of the victors, and a numerous chorus was trained to
celebrate duly the solemn festivity. This public character brought
with it a grander scale, a more ample sweep, and the
epinikion took a wider scope.
It is not limited to one narrow line of thought, one narrow channel
of feeling. There is festal joy in the epinikion, wise and thoughtful counsel, the uplifting
of the heart in prayer, the inspiration of a fervent patriotism; all
these, but none of them constitutes its character. That character is
to be sought in the name itself. The epinikion lifts the temporary victory to the high
level of the eternal prevalence of the beautiful and the good over
the foul and the base, the victor is transfigured into a glorious
personification of his race, and the present is reflected,
magnified, illuminated in the mirror of the mythic past. Pindar
rises to the height of his great argument. A Theban of the Thebans,
an Aigeid, a Kadmeian he is, and continues to be, but the games were
a pledge and a prophecy of unity, and in the epinikia Pindar is national, is Panhellenic. From the
summit of Parnassos he sweeps with impartial eye the horizon that
bounds Greek habitation. Far in the west lies Sicily, “the
Panhellenism of the
Epinikion. |
rich,” with Syracuse, “the
renowned, the mighty city,” “sacred pale of
warrior Ares,” “of heroes and of horses clad in
iron, foster-mother divine,” and “the fair-built
citadel of Akragas, abode of splendor, most beautiful
among the cities of men, abiding-place of Persephone,” and
Kamarina, watered by the Hipparis, with its “storied
forest of stedfast dwellings,” and Himera with its hot
springs, haunted by the nymphs, and Aitna, “all the year
long the nurse of biting snow.” He looks across the firth
to Italy, to the land of the Epizephyrian Lokrians, and from his
height “bedews the city of brave men with
honey.” Then, turning southward, he descries Libya,
“the lovely third stock of the mainland,” where
“Queen Kyrene” “unfolds her
bloom.” Eastward then to Rhodes, “child of
Aphrodite and bride of the sun,” to Tenedos,
“resonant with lute and song.” Now home to
Greece and Argos, “city of Danaos and the fifty maidens
with resplendent thrones,” “the dwelling of
Hera,” “meet residence for gods, all lighted up
with valorous deeds.” Long does his gaze linger on Aigina,
no eyesore to him, however it may be to the Peiraieus. One fourth of
the epinikia have for their heroes
residents of that famous island which Pindar loved with all the love
of kindred. “Nor far from the Charites fell her
lot,” “this city of justice,”
“this island that had reached unto the valorous deeds of
the Aiakidai,” “her fame perfect from the
beginning,” “the hospitable Doric island of
Aigina.” Yet he is not blind to the merits of Aigina's
foe. Every one knows by heart the words that earned him the great
reward. In the dithyramb Athens is Ἑλλάδος
ἔρεισμα, κλειναὶ Ἀθᾶναι: in the epinikia she is “the fairest
prelude for founding songs.” His glance takes in with
rapid sweep Lakedaimon and Thessaly. “If Lakedaimon is
prosperous, Thessaly is happy; the race of one, even Herakles,
ruleth both.” Nearer he comes, now to
“famed” Opus, now to Orchomenos by the waters of
Kephissos, land of steeds, dwelling-place of the Charites, and then
his eye rests in brooding love on Thebes, the theme of his earliest
song, “Thebes of the seven gates, mother mine, Thebes of
the golden shield.”
It is evident, then, that the theme was no narrow one, that all that
was best, highest, most consecrated, all the essential Hellenism in
Pindar had ample scope. And now, even to those who know
nothing of Pindar, except by the hearing of the ear, the great games
of Greece have been brought nearer by the recent excavations at
Olympia, and the brilliant scene of the Olympian festival is more vivid than
ever to the imagination. We see the troops of pilgrims and the hosts
of traffickers wending their way to the banks of the Alpheios, the
rhetorician conning his speech, the poet hugging his roll of verse,
the painter nursing his picture, all seeking gold or glory at the
festival. Few landscapes so familiar now as the plain of Pisa, with
its sacred river and his mischievous brother, Kladeos. The fancy can
clothe the Altis again with the olive, and raise sunny Kronion to
its pristine height, and crown it with the shrine to which it owes
its name. We see again temples and treasure-houses, the flashing
feet of the runners, the whirlwind rush of the chariots, the darting
of the race-horses, the resolute faces of the men who ran in armor,
the gleaming flight of the javelins, the tough persistence of the
wrestlers, each striving to put off on his antagonist the foulness
of defeat. The scene is lighted up by the midmonth moon, and the
revolving Horai seem to have brought back the music of the past to
which they danced more than two thousand years ago. Everything that
has been brought to light in Olympia has brought with it new light
for the scene, for the games. The Hermes of Praxiteles is henceforth
for us the
impersonation of the youthful athlete, whose physical prowess has
not made him forget tenderness and reverence. The Nike of Paionios
revives for us the resistless rush of victory; the breeze that fills
her robe quickens the blood in our veins. Stadion, the oldest of all
the games, most characteristic of all, as it symbolized Greek
nimbleness of wit, Greek simplicity of taste, pentathlon,
pancration, the chariot race, the race with horses, all these become
more real to us for statue and vase, disk and tablet. We mingle in
the eager crowds, we feel the tremulous excitement, we too become
passionate partisans, and swell the volume of cheers. Many masters
of style have pictured to us the Olympic games, but these things
belong to masters of style, and no futile rivalry will
be attempted here with what has helped so many to a clearer image of
the great scene. Yet, after all that has been said by word-painter
and by archaeologist, the poet must give the poet's meaning to the
whole. Reconstruct Greek life and we shall better understand Pindar.
With all my heart; but after the reconstruction we shall need the
poet's light as much as ever, if not more.
It is only in accordance with the principle of the organic unity of
Hellenism that the acme of Greek lyric art should have embodied the
acme of Greek festal life. The great games of Greece are as
thoroughly characteristic of her nationality as the choral poetry
which was the expression of them and the crown of them. Choruses we
find everywhere, games we find everywhere, but despite all recent
advance in athleticism, the Greek games were superior in plastic
beauty to their modern analogues, as superior as were the Greek
choruses to the rude dance and the ruder song of May-pole and
vintage. The point of departure may have been the same, but the
Greeks alone arrived.
The origin of the great games of Greece is to be sought in the religion
of Greece,1 and the influence of Delphi, — centre
of the religious life of the people, — was felt in every
regulation that controlled these famous contests. The times of the
performance were in the hands of the priests, the cycle was a
religious as well as an astronomical cycle. Eight years, the great
year of expiation, the great λυκάβας, the hecatomb of months, the period of the great
πομπή from Tempe to Delphi, was
subdivided into shorter periods for the performance of the games.
The contests themselves may have come over from Asia, as Thukydides
says, but a marked point of difference was the absence of intrinsically valuable
prizes, which so astonished the attendants of Xerxes. At other games
prizes of value were bestowed, and lists are given in Pindar, but at
the great games the prize was a simple wreath. It is
true that abundant honor awaited the victor at home, special seats
at festivals, free table in the prytaneion, and other immunities and
privileges, but the honor was the main thing, and though it was not
dearly bought, — for the two great historians, Herodotos
and Thukydides, unlike in so many things, never forget to mention
the agonistic achievements of the characters that cross their pages,
— though the honor was not dearly bought, it was bought
not only with toil, but with money, whether in training for the
contest, or in outlay for horse and chariot, or in the celebration
of the victory.
Early noted, early emphasized, was another difference between Greek
games and Oriental. The human form, as someGreek games and Oriental. |
thing sacred in its
perfection, was displayed in all its beauty and strength to the eye
of day, as to the eye of the god. The Oriental games bore the mark
of their bloody origin in self-mutilation. Under Dorian influence,
even the Ionian dropped his trailing robes and brought a living
sacrifice to his deity, the fresh bloom of young manhood, the rich
efflorescence of the gifts of fortune.
Of these festivals the greatest was the Olympian, “the sun
in the void ether,” that makes the lesser lights pale into
nothingness, the fire that shines in the blackness of
night, and makes night look blacker by its brilliancy. The
establishment of it, or the re-establishment of it, marks the union
of the Doric island of Pelops, and it speedily rose to national
importance. The first recorded victory is that of Koroibos (σταδίῳ νικήσας), 776 B.C. The Olympian
games were celebrated at the end of every four years, beginning,
according to the older view, with the first full moon following the
first new moon after the summer solstice, according to the recent
investigations of Unger, with the second full moon Pythian, Nemean,
Isthmian. |
after the same. The Pythian festival, celebrated in
the third year of each Olympiad, was revived and put on a firmer
footing in 586 B.C., and the establishment or revival of the Nemean
is assigned to 573 B.C., of the Isthmian to 582 B.C., and it is no
mere coincidence that the rise of this new life
belongs to the same century that witnessed the downfall of the
ambitious houses that had acquired despotic power in Corinth and
Sikyon.
There were games all over Greece — one sometimes wearies of
such lists as are unrolled in O. 13 — but these four were
of National significance of these
games. |
national significance, all of them Amphiktyonic,
all more or less under Delphic, under Apollinic influence. A sacred
truce was proclaimed to guarantee the safety of pilgrims to the
games, and a heavy fine was imposed on any armed body that should
cross the border of Elis in the sacred month. In this peace of God
the opposing elements of Greek nationality met and were reconciled.
The impulsive Ionian was attuned to the steadier rhythm of the
Dorian, and as Greek birth was required of all competitors, the
games prepared the way for a Panhellenism which was no sooner found
than lost. And yet, despite this Panhellenic character, the games
did not entirely lose the local stamp. The Pythian games, for
instance, were especially famous for their musical contests, the
Isthmian gave the most ample opportunity for commercial exchange.
Two moral elements, already indicated, enter into the games. They are called by homely names, toil and expense, πόνος δαπάνα τε.2 They are moral elements because they involve
self-sacrifice, submission to authority, devotion to the public
weal. “So run that ye may obtain” is not merely
an illustration, it is a lesson. Whether it be fleetness of foot or
swiftness of horse, it demands the renunciation of self-will, and
the glory is, after all, not the winner's, but the god's, for the
beauty that shone forth on the stadion, the wealth that glittered in
the festal display, came alike from God. The games themselves are held
in honor of the gods, the Olympian and Nemean of Zeus, the Pythian
of Apollo, the Isthmian of Poseidon. Their praise is often the
burden of the song, and the poems in which they are
not magnified may be counted on one hand.
The great national heroes of Greece share in the honor. Herakles is hardly
less vividly present to our mind at the Olympian games than Zeus
himself. Indeed the Herakles of Pindar might well claim a separate
chapter.3
And as the games are a part of the worship of the gods, so victory
is a token of their favor, and the epinikion becomes a hymn of thanksgiving to the god, an
exaltation of the deity or of some favorite hero. The god, the hero,
is often the centre of some myth that occupies the bulk of the poem,
and it may seem at the first glance, perhaps after repeated reading,
that mere caprice had dictated the choice of this or that myth
rather than another, but closer study seldom fails to reveal a
deeper meaning in the selection. The myth is often a parallel, often
a prototype. Then the scene of the victory is sacred. Its beauties
and its fortunes are unfailing sources of song. We learn how
Pelops of yore won the chariot-race against Oinomaos, we learn how
Herakles planted the Altis with trees, and brought the olive from
the distant land that lies behind the blast of shrill Boreas. Not
less favored is the land of the victor. Country and city are often
blended with goddess or heroine whose history of trial and
triumph prefigures the trial and triumph of the victor. Then the
history of the house often carried the poet up to the higher levels of
poetry, for the house was not unfrequently an old heroic line going
back into the mythic past. The epinikion is thus lifted up above the mere occasional
poem, and we can well understand how such a crown of glory as a
Pindaric ode would be carefully preserved and brought forth on each
recurrence of the festal day. Such a poem has often for its theme a
grand tradition, traditional hospitality, traditional freedom from
ὕβρις, that arch-crime against
the life of a Greek state, traditional victories. Even when the
fortunes of a house have been chequered, what is lost
in brilliancy is gained in human interest. The line disowned of
Fortune comes to its rights again. The glory of the grandsire is
revived in the third generation. Then there is the victory itself
with all the splendor that attends it — the sacrifices,
the processions, the banquets, the songs; and, not least, the songs,
for Pindar magnifies his calling, and large space is given to the
praise of poetry.
From this rapid enumeration of the elements of the epinikion, it will appear that the range
is not narrow. There is scope enough for the highest work, as high
as the brazen heaven not to be climbed of men, deep as the hell in
which “you people” bear toil and anguish not to
be looked at with mortal eye, broad as the family, the house, the
race, mankind. And yet the poetry of Pindar does not lose itself in
generalities. He compares his song to a bee that hastes from flower
to flower, but the bee has a hive. He compares his song to a ship,
but the ship has a freight and a port. His song does not fly on and
on like a bird of passage. Its flight is the flight of an eagle, to
which it has so often been likened, circling the heavens, it is
true, stirring the ether, but there is a point on which the eye is
bent, a mark, as he says, at which the arrow is aimed. The victory
is not forgotten. The epinikion is
what its name implies. Not a set piece of poetic fire-works, nor
yet, as many would make it out to be, a sermon in rhythm. It is a
song of praise. But all extravagance of eulogy is repressed by the
dread of Nemesis, by that law of The Epinikion a song of praise. |
balance which kept the
Greek in awe of presumption. The victor may see his image
transfigured into
the form of hero, or even god; only he is reminded that he is of the
earth. Μὴ μάτευε Ζεὺς
γενέσθαι. Sometimes the praise is veiled with the myth,
but when it is direct, it is delicate. The victor's garland, he
says, demands the song, but the song is not such a trumpet-blast as
would blow the garland off the victor's head, if not the victor's
head as well. That is modern eulogy. Of course it will be said that
Pindar's eulogy was eulogy to order, but it was not
falsehood with a cunning makeweight of good advice. The eulogy
spends itself where eulogy is earned. To whiten Hieron is easier
than to blacken Pindar. The excellence of the victors in the
athletic contest, of men like Diagoras, of boys like Agesidamos, the
liberality of Theron, of Hieron, of Arkesilas in the chariot-race,
are assuredly fit themes for praise. The prosperity of the victor
and his house, as a sign of God's favor, might well deserve the
commendation of the poet. But Pindar was too high a character to
make deliberate merchandise of falsehood, and while it runs counter
to commonsense to suppose that he availed himself of his commission
to read the high and mighty tyrants of Greece lectures on their
moral defects, he is too much a reflection of the Apollo, who is his
master, to meddle with lies. With all his faults, Hieron was a Doric
prince of whom Dorians needed not to be ashamed, but there is
reserve enough in Pindar's praise of a man like Hieron to make us
feel the contrast when he comes to Theron. Unfortunately, Pindar is
not expected to have humor, and the jest of “the hireling
Muse” and “the silvered countenance”
— be it “of Terpsichore” or
“of songs” (I. 2,
7) — has done him harm with critics of narrow
vision.
In all estimates of Pindar's poetry, it is important to rePindar's relations to the
victors. |
member that he belonged to the aristocracy of Greece,
that his poems were composed for the aristocracy, and that he spoke
of them and to them as their peer. No man of the people is praised
in his poems. It is the purest fancy that Thrasydaios (P. 11) was
other than a man of the highest birth. Now men of aristocratic
habits are scrupulously polite to persons of inferior position with
whom they may be brought into social contact. Among their own set
their manners are less reserved. And Pindar was in his own set when
he was among these Olympian and Pythian victors, and there was a
strain of familiar banter in his poems that would not have been
tolerated or tolerable in any ordinary man. It is not likely that he
made an allusion to Psaumis's gray hair (O. 4). If he did, it would
pass. It is undeniable that he made a harmless jest at the
insignificant appearance of his townsman Melissos
(I. 3). When he hints at envy and feud, he has the tone of one who
knows all the secrets of a coterie, and when he sorrows, he sorrows
as one who has carried the body of a friend to the tomb. If we had
mémoires pour servir,
Pindar's reserves, his enigmas, his aristocratic intimacies might be
forgiven. As it is, those who cannot amuse themselves by
reconstructing the scandalous chronicle of the fifth century, often
end by hating a poet whose personality for love or hate is stamped
deep on all his works.
