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Strophe 4

καλός: Child-like and lover-like repetition. The ape is said to have been introduced into Greek fable by Archilochos, and the mention of the ape here may have called up the image of the fox below without any inner nexus. An allusion to the Archilochian fable of “the Ape and the Fox” seems to be out of the question. “Show thyself thyself. Care naught for the judgment of those that be mere children in understanding. Thy judge is Rhadamanthys.”

εὖ πέπραγεν: Rhadamanthys owes his good fortune to his judicial temper. Compare O. 2.83: βουλαῖς ἐν ὀρθαῖσι Ῥαδαμάνθυος | ὃν πατὴρ ἔχει [Κρόνος] ἑτοῖμον αὐτῷ πάρεδρον. Of the three judges in Hades, Aiakos — usually the first met by the new-comer — is in P. only the great Aeginetan hero, except in I. 7 (8), 24, where he is represented as a judge over the δαίμονες. Minos does not appear.

φρενῶν . . . καρπόν: So N. 10.12. Famous in Aischylos' description of Amphiaraos is the line S. c. Th. 593: “βαθεῖαν ἄλοκα διὰ φρενὸς καρπούμενος” .


Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes. Basil L. Gildersleeve. Anne Mahoney. edited for Perseus. New York. Harper and Brothers. 1885.

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