No More Learning

But thee the lot of good fortune follows,
or surely great Destiny
Looks down upon a king ruling the people,
If on any man. But a secure life
Was not to Peleus, son of AEacus,
Nor to godlike Cadmus,
Who yet are said to have had
The greatest happiness
Of mortals, and who heard
The song of the golden-filleted Muses,
On the mountain, and in seven-gated Thebes,
When the one married fair-eyed Harmonia,
And the other Thetis, the illustrious daughter of wise-counseling
Nereus.
And the gods feasted with both;
And they saw the royal children of Kronos
On golden seats, and received
Marriage gifts; and having exchanged
Former toils for the favor of Zeus,
They made erect the heart.
But in course of time
His three daughters robbed the one
Of some of his serenity by acute
Sufferings; when Father Zeus, forsooth, came
To the lovely couch of white-armed Thyone.
And the other's child, whom only the immortal
Thetis bore in Phthia, losing
His life in war by arrows,
Being consumed by fire excited
The lamentation of the Danaans.
But if any mortal has in his
Mind the way of truth,
It is necessary to make the best
Of what befalls from the blessed.
For various are the blasts
Of high-flying winds.
The happiness of men stays not a long time,
Though fast it follows rushing on.

Humble in humble estate, lofty in lofty,
I will be; and the attending daemon
I will always reverence in my mind,
Serving according to my means.
But if Heaven extend to me kind wealth,
I have hope to find lofty fame hereafter.
Nestor and Lycian Sarpedon--
They are the fame of men--
From resounding words which skillful artists
Sung, we know.
For virtue through renowned
Song is lasting.
But for few is it easy to obtain.


APOLLO

PYTHIA V, 87-90

He bestowed the lyre,
And he gives the muse to whom he wishes,
Bringing peaceful serenity to the breast.


MAN

PYTHIA VIII, 136

The phantom of a shadow are men.
HYPSEUS' DAUGHTER CYRENE

PYTHIA IX, 31-44

He reared the white-armed child Cyrene,
Who loved neither the alternating motion of the loom,
Nor the superintendence of feasts,
With the pleasures of companions;
But, with javelins of steel
And the sword contending,
To slay wild beasts;
Affording surely much
And tranquil peace to her father's herds;
Spending little sleep
Upon her eyelids,
As her sweet bedfellow, creeping on at dawn.


THE HEIGHT OF GLORY

PYTHIA X, 33-48

Fortunate and celebrated
By the wise is that man
Who, conquering by his hands or virtue
Of his feet, takes the highest prizes
Through daring and strength,
And living still sees his youthful son
Deservedly obtaining Pythian crowns.
The brazen heaven is not yet accessible to him.
But whatever glory we
Of mortal race may reach,
He goes beyond, even to the boundaries
Of navigation. But neither in ships, nor going on foot,
Couldst thou find the wonderful way to the contests of the
Hyperboreans.


TO ARISTOCLIDES, VICTOR AT THE NEMEAN GAMES

NEMEA III, 32-37

If, being beautiful,
And doing things like to his form,
The child of Aristophanes
Went to the height of manliness, no further
Is it easy to go over the untraveled sea,
Beyond the Pillars of Hercules.


THE YOUTH OF ACHILLES

NEMEA III, 69-90

One with native virtues
Greatly prevails; but he who
Possesses acquired talents, an obscure man,
Aspiring to various things, never with fearless
Foot advances, but tries
A myriad virtues with inefficient mind.
Yellow-haired Achilles, meanwhile, remaining in the house of
Philyra,
Being a boy played
Great deeds; often brandishing
Iron-pointed javelins in his hands,
Swift as the winds, in fight he wrought death to savage lions;
And he slew boars, and brought their bodies
Palpitating to Kronian Centaurus,
As soon as six years old. And all the while
Artemis and bold Athene admired him,
Slaying stags without dogs or treacherous nets;
For he conquered them on foot.

NEMEA IV, 66-70

Whatever virtues sovereign destiny has given me,
I well know that time, creeping on,
Will fulfill what was fated.

NEMEA V, 1-8

The kindred of Pytheas, a victor in the Nemean games, had wished to
procure an ode from Pindar for less than three drachmae, asserting that
they could purchase a statue for that sum. In the following lines he
nobly reproves their meanness, and asserts the value of his labors,
which, unlike those of the statuary, will bear the fame of the hero to
the ends of the earth.

No image-maker am I, who being still make statues
Standing on the same base. But on every
Merchant-ship and in every boat, sweet song,
Go from AEgina to announce that Lampo's son,
Mighty Pytheas,
Has conquered the pancratian crown at the Nemean games.


THE DIVINE IN MAN

NEMEA VI, 1-13

One the race of men and of gods;
And from one mother
We all breathe.
But quite different power
Divides us, so that the one is nothing,
But the brazen heaven remains always
A secure abode.