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TO THERON OF AGRIGENTUM, (IN GREEK ACRAGAS,) ON HIS VICTORY IN THE CHARIOT RACE, GAINED IN THE SEVENTY-SEVENTH OLYMPIAD.

ARGUMENT.

The poet congratulates Theron, sprung from ancestors who had experienced much adversity, though sometimes attended with better fortune—extols him for his skill in the contests, his unsparing expense in bringing them to a happy issue, and the right use to which he applies his great wealth, assuring him that the recompense of his virtuous dispositions will attend him after death: this leads to a most noble description of the infernal and Elysian abodes. Returning from this digression, which he defends from the carping malignity of his detractors, Pindar concludes with the praises of Theron.

Ye hymns that rule the vocal lyre,

What god, what hero shall we sing?

What mortal shall the strain inspire?

Jove is fair Pisa's guardian king;

And Hercules Olympia's glorious toil

Ordain'd the first fruits of the battle spoil.

Theron too demands my strain,

Whose four-yoked steeds in triumph sweep the plain.

The hospitable, just, and great,

Bulwark of Agrigentum's state,

Of his high stem the flower of fairest pride.

Who by their long afflictions toss'd,

Regain'd their sacred mansion lost,

Upon the kindred tide.1 Of every care they found at last A sweet and tranquil close, A balm for every danger past, A haven of repose. And hence to fair Sicilia springs Her long illustrious line of kings, Whose happy life and wealth their native virtues wait.

Oh Rhea's son, Saturnian Jove,

Lord of th' Olympic seats above,

Whose favouring power the victor gave

To triumph by Alpheus' wave,

Still to their latest offspring bear

These gifts of thy paternal care.

Not Time himself, the sire of all,

By mortal or immortal power

The deed perform'd can e'er recall:

But sweet oblivion of the gloomy hour

Succeeds when joy's enlivening train

Scatt'ring the melancholy gloom,

Bid the light heart its wonted ease resume,

And Heaven's o'erruling lord emits his bliss again.

Cadmus, thy daughters' wayward fate 2 This moral truth can prove, Who changed their suffering mortal state For happy thrones above. Fair Semele, of flowing tresses vain, By the loud blast of thunder slain, Her joyful recompense can boast, And lives among th' Olympic host. Now Pallas sooths the happy fair With everlasting love, The ivy-circled stripling's care, And fond delight of Jove.

Bless'd too, as ancient tales agree,

Is Ino's alter'd destiny.

Their forms where sister Nereids lave

With them at large to stray,

And sport amid the ocean wave

Her happy hours away.

Then let not vain presumptuous man

Seek with unhallow'd eye to scan

Th' irrevocable doom;

If clouds invest his final day,

Or Heaven shall gild with cheerful ray

The darkness of the tomb.

For bliss and sorrow with alternate flow,

Sway the uncertain tide of life below.

'Twas thus the fates' supreme command

Which bless'd old Laius' regal line

With power and happiness divine,

In after times decreed the blow

That plunged their hapless race in wo.

Impell'd the parricidal hand

Which struck the Theban monarch's breast,

Perfecting the decree in Pythian gloom express'd.

With sharpen'd eye's avenging speed

Erinnys view'd the murderous deed,

And soon by mutual slaughter gave

The warlike brothers to the grave.

Surviving Polynices' doom,

Thersander bade in times to come

Adrastus' house revive again,

First in each youthful sport, and in the strife of men.

Then justly, noble king, to thee,

Ænesidemus' progeny,3 Thy willing poet's lyre shall raise The tributary song of praise.

Alone in the Olympic sand

The victor's crown he wore;

But when upon the Pythian strand,

As on the Isthmian shore,

Twelve times his steeds the destined bound

The car triumphant whirl'd around,

The social Graces who decree

Each high reward of victory,

To his loved brother's head the wreath of conquest bore.

This honour'd guerdon to obtain

Has power to free from mental pain.

Such bliss the envied wealth of kings,

When crown'd by patient labour brings,

And emulation's flame.

True star of glory! given to cheer

The clouds that hang on life's career,

And gild the path to fame.

But let the proud oppressor know

What torments in the world below 4 The harden'd soul await. By Jove's command what judges there From stern necessity declare The fix'd decrees of fate.

Where beams of everlasting day 5 Through night's unclouded season play, Free from mortality's alloy, The good shall perfect bliss enjoy. They nor with daring hands molest Earth's torn and violated breast, Nor search the caverns of the main An empty being to sustain; But with the honour'd gods, whose ear The faithful vow delights to hear, Shall be their tearless age of rest; While pangs of aspect dire distract the impious train.

But they whose spirit thrice refined 6 Each arduous contest could endure, And keep the firm and perfect mind From all contagion pure; Along the stated path of Jove To Saturn's royal courts above Have trod their heavenly way, Where round the island of the bless'd The ocean breezes play; There golden flow'rets ever blow, Some springing from earth's verdant breast, These on the lonely branches glow, While those are nurtured by the waves below. From them the inmates of these seats divine Around their hands and hair the woven garlands twine.

Such Rhadamanthus' just decree,

Who sits by Father Saturn's side,

Where with his all-possessing bride

Rhea, supreme he holds his court.

In those high ranks Peleus and Cadmus shine,

And to the blissful seats above

The prayer of Thetis won the breast of Jove

To waft the scion of her line,

Achilles, whose resistless might

The pride and hope of Troy o'erthrew,

Hector, till then unconquer'd, slew;

Till then th' unshaken pillar of the fight.7 Cycnus the hero gave to death, Aurora's Æthiop son to him resign'd his breath.8

Full many a sharp and potent dart

That shows unspent the poet's art,

And to the wise sounds clear and shrill,

Rests in my well-stored quiver still.

But minds untaught some guide will need

Safe through the mystic paths to lead;

While witlings learn'd with empty sound

Like crows pursue their ceaseless round,

That through the airy plains above

Track the majestic bird of Jove.

Then take, my soul, thy fearless aim—

Drawn from the quiet storehouse say

To whom thine arrows wing their way

Along the path of fame?

Far as proud Agrigentum's height

Should they direct their devious flight,

If sworn to truth, I will declare

That in the hundred years whose course hath fled

O'er her imperial head,

No heart more friendly, no more liberal hand

Than Theron's, who now sways the subject land,

Hath held dominion there.

Yet Insolence her voice will raise

Unjust to thwart the monarch's praise,

And Envy's rancorous tongue invade,

Casting his merits into shade.

Howe'er the base malignant crew

His name with violence pursue,

If thou wouldst all his generous deeds explore,

As soon the sandy grains thy tongue shall number o'er.9

1 The river Acragas, on which the city of Agrigentum is situated. (See the opening of the twelfth Pythian ode.)

2 Cadmus was an ancestor of Theron, and therefore his daughters, Ino, who was married to Athamas, king of Thebes, and whose story is finely told by Ovid, in the fourth book of the Metamorphoses, and Semele, the concubine of Jove, are judiciously selected by the poet to illustrate the mutability of human fortune, while at the same time they show the antiquity and regal splendour of the monarch's descent.

3 Ænesidemus, the father of Theron, was the seventh in lineal descent from Thersander.

4 These are concisely enumerated by the learned Propertius: (l. III., v. 39, sqq.:)—

"Sub terris si jura Deum, et tormenta gigantum,

⁠Tisiphones atro si furit angue caput;

Aut Alcmæoniæ furiæ, aut jejunia Phinei;

⁠Num rota, num scopuli, num sitis inter aquas," &c.

Tibullus also (Eleg. I. iii. 58.) poetically contrasts the joys of Elysium with the pains of Tartarus:—

"Ipsa Venus campos ducet ad Elysios.

Hic choreæ cantusque vigent;—

At scelerata jacet sedes in nocte profunda

⁠Abdita, quam circum flumina nigra sonant.

Tisiphoneque impexa feros pro crinibus angues

⁠Sævit, et huc illuc impia turba fugit," &c.

5 One might almost imagine that Pindar had taken this sentiment from a passage in the book of Proverbs (iv. 18, 19)—

"The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

"The way of the wicked is as darkness."

6 According to the scholiast, Pindar in this passage follows the Pythagorean doctrine of the metempsychosis, and reserves the beautiful Elysium of the blessed islands to those who have passed with the divine approbation through the two conditions of mortality, on and beneath the earth. With this whole description of the Elysian and Tartarian abodes, compare Hesiod; (Op. et Dies. 225.;) where, however, the paradise of the just, as well as the opposite residence of those who delight in violence and wrong, is terrestrial.

7 So Catullus, addressing Peleus, says,

"Thessaliæ columen Peleu."—

De Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 26.

8 Memnon.

9 So Catullus: (ad Lesbiam;)—

"Quam magnus numerus Libyssæ arenæ

Laserpiciferis jacet Cyrenis,

Oraclum Jovis inter æstuosi,

Et Batti veteris sacrum sepulchrum:

⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

Quæ nec pernumerare curiosi

Possint."