No More Learning

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.
Yet in some respect we are related,
Either in mighty mind or form, to the Immortals;
Although not knowing
To what resting-place,
By day or night, Fate has written that we shall run.


THE TREATMENT OF AJAX

NEMEA VIII, 44-51

In secret votes the Danaans aided Ulysses;
And Ajax, deprived of golden arms, struggled with death.
Surely, wounds of another kind they wrought
In the warm flesh of their foes, waging war
With the man-defending spear.


THE VALUE OF FRIENDS

NEMEA VIII, 68-75

Virtue increases, being sustained by wise men and just,
As when a tree shoots up with gentle dews into the liquid air.
There are various uses of friendly men;
But chiefest in labors; and even pleasure
Requires to place some pledge before the eyes.


DEATH OF AMPHIARAUS

NEMEA IX, 41-66

Once they led to seven-gated Thebes an army of men, not according
To the lucky flight of birds. Nor did the Kronian,
Brandishing his lightning, impel to march
From home insane, but to abstain from the way.
But to apparent destruction
The host made haste to go, with brazen arms
And horse equipments, and on the banks
Of Ismenus, defending sweet return,
Their white-flowered bodies fattened fire.
For seven pyres devoured young-limbed
Men. But to Amphiaraus
Zeus rent the deep-bosomed earth
With his mighty thunderbolt,
And buried him with his horses,
Ere, being struck in the back
By the spear of Periclymenus, his warlike
Spirit was disgraced.
For in daemonic fears
Flee even the sons of gods.


CASTOR AND POLLUX

NEMEA X, 153-171

Pollux, son of Zeus, shared his immortality with his brother Castor,
son of Tyndarus, and while one was in heaven, the other remained in
the infernal regions, and they alternately lived and died every day,
or, as some say, every six months. While Castor lies mortally wounded
by Idas, Pollux prays to Zeus, either to restore his brother to life,
or permit him to die with him, to which the god answers,--

Nevertheless, I give thee
Thy choice of these: if, indeed, fleeing
Death and odious age,
You wish to dwell on Olympus,
With Athene and black-speared Mars,
Thou hast this lot;
But if thou thinkest to fight
For thy brother, and share
All things with him,
Half the time thou mayest breathe, being beneath the earth,
And half in the golden halls of heaven.
The god thus having spoken, he did not
Entertain a double wish in his mind.
And he released first the eye, and then the voice,
Of brazen-mitred Castor.


TOIL

ISTHMIA I, 65-71

One reward of labors is sweet to one man, one to another,--
To the shepherd, and the plower, and the bird-catcher,
And whom the sea nourishes.