PROLOGUE TO THE PINDARIC EXCERPTS
α'. Every poet is concerned with singing, just as those before Homer are storied to have composed through the mediation of the Muses, and whatever other divine lineage is attuned to melody in accordance with them. And Homer himself, the chief among them, also brought forth that kind of singing—or rather, the harmonized word, which is also the definition of an ode—as a sort of prototype, for the rhapsodes, the stichodes, the aodes, the citharodes, and all others who revel in such titles. Now, how each of them sang, and according to what harmonies—of which these four stood out most: the Ionian, the Dorian, the Aeolian, and the Lydian (for the mixtures derived from them, the wanderings from the ancient path of the modes, and as many as were inscribed for the Greeks as if by inheritance from the Barbarians, are not what noble men much loved to sing)—is observed by many wise men among the ancients. If any should choose these men, let him set aside the goal of mere knowledge; for I think it would be no easy thing (I hesitate to say it is nearly impossible) for those who are unrhythmical in their very fingers toward melodious movement, and who are not even capable of mastering the musical art from its foundations, to recover that science with precision from that source, even if they were themselves stretched toward conceit or clamor, and were to boast that they could sing not only according to the laws of earthly music, but also according to a heavenly harmony—the kind which the ethereal Pythagoras, in his wisdom, prided himself on having brought down to earth from there, and on handling the plectra in accordance with it. Therefore, it is not possible in these times to recover the most ancient choral science; for it is the same thing, in these obscure matters, to hit the mark of the old masters of the ode as it is to discover some elegant new musical science for oneself. For the untrodden path—long left unexplained and silenced—of the methods from which the art sank down as if dead, has brought about in our own day the same result of discovering the ancient-style odes and understanding them, regarding which the ancients speak with profound technicality. But thus every lyric poet is according to a method, which, whether he himself discovered it or received it from elsewhere, he perfected.
β'. The lyric performance, in which Pindar shines forth—he who, according to those who speak of high matters, is the most resonant of all—possesses a certain unique choral variation compared to the ancients, not variegatedly coloring, as Homer and those after him might run, but choosing a simpler and less fractured path, and not adorned for a public festival, in the way that one goes forth wearing various colors and a long robe; rather, in some other more novel way, weaving and sewing more tightly for herself a modest veil, neither noticeably embroidered, nor spreading her own domain into rooms with many couches, nor, if there be a modest women’s apartment in her house, separating herself into chambers, which would not befit women of appearance in a distinguished manner. For the lyricists are hired to accompany the flute, and receiving [compensation for their] appearances, through which they are caught by gifts, they speak in a niggardly fashion—though, to be sure, for the sake of the gain—and having, as it were, bound the tongues of such subjects, they labor at those things and those alone. Hence they do not have the multiform, frequent rhetoric of the multiloquent Homer, but, like some hired men, they attend to one person for the most part, and singing it as if for water, they flow away quickly with their melodies, remaining far from the Homeric ocean, content if they might settle into noteworthy meadows.
γ'. Yet even in such things, those who aim at hitting the mark of the goal of such poetry promote much solemnity, foremost among whom is Pindar, who indeed carries, as he himself might say, many singing arrows under his arm, yet discharges none of these many arrows in vain. He is profound in his methods of rhetoric, resourceful in broadening what he says when appropriate, and again in narrowing it, paring down the body of the word where necessary; and this he does in many ways: at one time digressing, where the groves of the ancestors spread out a field for him to traverse the fruitful things there according to virtue; at another time speaking concisely, where he might find the opportunity to harvest the better things among the praised. They say that he does this and otherwise, the length of the word being for the sake of the heavy weight of the gift (for he himself did not lyre without being gifted), and the brevity for the sake of the slightness of the offering, as he organized the words with which he received [payment] and, so to speak, spoke to the hands that were gift-bearing, while balancing the body [of the poem] with them.
δ'. One must admire him both for his brevity and for his breadth, according to which, having found—
A that which is spoken to the profane regarding rural matters, he sings pleasant things to the sensible, who straighten out the labyrinthine nature of the phrasing in him, which is impassable to many, and who traverse the windings even unto the innermost part, then again unwind them, and return home according to a sensible mind; and how he cheers the hearing with what he speaks clearly and for sweetness, but then again strikes with amazement where he makes the phrasing difficult in another place through variety, and tosses in words from the crossroads, and interweaves somewhere also, what one who hears it for the first time is very much at a loss about. Furthermore, also how he is very varied in epithets, and whatever else exists that is his to attribute towards the excellence of poetry, the progress of the reading will reveal; of which one must take hold also very necessarily, both for greater clarity of what has just been declared, and for a more perfect theory, which one would not say is wanting for the lyrics.
ι'. The musician chosen for parsing, whose multiformity of mining appears, being many-minded in all things, in narratives and other not a few concepts he is disposed somewhat less clearly, and as he himself says somewhere, he needs interpreters for the whole. By saying "the whole" there, he does not mean "simply, in general," but rather "with the exception of the sensible," that is, those who understand, as being more learned, from whom, once they are removed from the totality of the listeners, the remainder—but even this is entirely plain, however, according to knowledge—needs interpreters because of that. And so then in other places C Pindar wishes to write clearly so as to need interpreters for the whole, as it has been said. But when it is necessary for him to compose maxims wondrously, and otherwise to say something charming, then indeed he forces himself quietly towards clarity in many ways, so that the beautiful might be more beautiful with him, and might not lie hidden, shrouded in deep obscurity, like light in some cloud.
ια'. The obscurity, which he intentionally brings upon himself in great measure, arises for him from unusual syntax according to a peculiarity of figure that is dear to him, as it is necessary to turn it towards the correctness of phrasing, and from using particulars instead of wholes. Which Lycophron also zealously imitates in later times. Examples of the Lycophronic zeal will appear in the following: ten thousand are Pindaric. Examples of placing words unusually according to the subordination of those that ought to be placed first: "they conquered who," that is, "those who conquered"; and "they suffered those having great [things]," that is, "those who suffered"; and "having labored those much," that is, "those who labored"; and "in as well as in sea"; and "as well as in end"; and "to fulfill not some"; and as many others such as these.
ιβ'. Moreover, it is unclear in him, along with other things, to omit one of the sentences in a collection, as being understood as common and itself spoken out from the following, for example: "unjust, nor overbearing hybris reaping," that is, "nor unjust hybris, nor overbearing." And again: "by ships, nor foot being you would find to Hyperboreans to go," that is, "neither by ships, nor on foot would you go to the Hyperboreans." And elsewhere
A most things are from reworkings and similes of the ancients. And the man appears even here not to wish to follow other poets openly; but if he is caught following one, he has certain departures through which he turns into another path, aside from the highways.
13. Pindar is also obscure because of his excessive periphrasis, which he crafts most skillfully, doing so both for himself and for the works of others.
14. For just as dense periphrasis causes obscurity in him, so too does brevity, by which he who is accustomed to be expansive in many things also deals in small talk.
15. And the novelty of the dialects, through which he is a creator of new terms and strange to the ear, the reading of the book will reveal.
16. The same man has shown himself to be a resourceful inventor of epithets, as when—apart from ten thousand others—he calls the noble "battle-conquering" B (*kratésimachos*), and a horse "conquering-footed" (*kratésipoda*) that won the race, in similarity to the "bronze-footed" (*chalkópodes*) horses and "strong-footed" (*krataípodes*) of Homer; and "bronze-hearted" (*chalkentea*) war, and "spear-wielding" (*hippaikmon*) people, as if for "chariot-marshaling" (*hippokorystēn*); and "man-subduing" (*androdámanta*) fear, as if one might say "people-subduing" (*laodámanta*); and Zeus "broad-yoked" (*eurýzygon*), otherwise, in contrast to "high-yoked" (*hypsízygon*); and the same one also "mountain-resounding" (*oresítypon*), "loud-thundering" (*erispháragon*), "cloud-rushing" (*orsinephē*), "shimmering-thunderbolt" (*aiolobróntēn*), and "red-lightninged" (*phoinikosterópan*). He also calls Athena "hand-ready" (*encheíromon*) by way of epithet, and a spear "man-taming" (*damasímbroton*), and Aegina "sea-defending" (*halierkéa*), as if he had said "sea-girt" (*amphíalon*); and "strength-conquering" (*kratēsidian*) by the hands, the robust man; and "arm-wielding-footed" (*harmasidópous*) those very well-versed in horsemanship; and "earth-shaking" (*elasíchthona*) Poseidon for "earth-shaking" (*enosígaia*); and "rolling-eyed" (*helikoblépharon*) Aphrodite; and "life-blooming" (*zōthálmion*) Grace, according to which anyone living blooms; and a contest "prize-remembering" (*mnēsistéphanon*), which he also calls elsewhere, according to the sense, a "keenest suitor of crowns," just as he called a musical mode a "suitor of contests," that is, leading the contests into memory; just as he says of the people "keen suitor of war," that is, one who remembers war, from the phrase: "remember (*mnēsasthe*) of spirited valor." Frequently he also writes "keenly" (*driméōs*), not refraining from any of the rhetorical ideas, as when he says the famous are "noble-named" (*euōnýmous*), and Dawn "suppliant" (*litēn*) the "much-prayed-for" (*euktaían*), and, as one might say in the Homeric manner, "often-prayed-to" (*polýliston*), or in another manner "thrice-prayed-to" (*tríliston*). Such, too, is saying the "man-opposing" (*antiáneiran*) faction, Homer having said "Amazonian" (*Amazónas*) "anti-man" (*antianeíras*). In short, the ambition for new-sounding epithets is also practiced by Pindar.
17. C Furthermore, the poet in hand is also allegorical in both types of allegory: both that according to the rhetoricians, which Hermogenes knows and those who follow Homer, and that which those who treat the mythical matters employ. And if he allegorizes most things harshly, yet he seems sweet even so, just as he is simply lyrical, and as Pindar maintaining the individuality that he himself chose, not falling unwillingly into frigidity, but proposing it as a goal and hitting correctly the inimitable individuality of writing; according to which, also being very fond of the trope—without which neither rhetorical speech nor any other conversation could consist—he extends the matters of the trope through allegory, which has also some harshness, placing this also as a mark for himself.
18. He also works carefully on descriptions, and explains the written matters rhetorically with insights.
19. He diverges also into ancient histories, being as he is a polymath, and furthermore also into myths in many ways, sometimes beyond what is moderate, using the digressions not according to any most manifest connection, but through demonstrative necessity to some, and to others for gnomic proof, and to most for the praises of ancestors or country or the victor.
20. D And he expresses himself in such a thorny way with thoughts according to multi-meaning, that it is a task in many places for the reader to hit upon some one stable thought, because it is understood thus and so according to the ambiguities in oracles. Many things of Pindar, while appearing to be said gnomically, are nevertheless drawn according to a different application into their own sense. He is also clever and is not only adept at extending things with paraphrases and periphrases and certain other methods, but also at condensing most things into something very brief. Homer therefore, saying "brazen heaven," and "secure seat of the gods," and "golden floor," he himself, pruning these, combined them into saying "bronze-footed seat of the gods the heaven." He is also successful with maxims and sublime, insofar as he is not only gifted by nature, but also magnificent by nature.
21. He "Aeolizes" for the most part, even if he does not go through the Aeolic dialect without friction, and in accordance with the Dorians he speaks, even if he avoids the harsher Doris, in accordance with which the Comic poet plays in other places, and in "Mōa paa," which is "Mousa pasa" (all Muse). Unless one might say such a thing in his work is "epitassas," which is "hitting the mark" (*epitychōn*), and "tossai kalōn," that is, to hit the mark, and "ameusai," which is to pass by and to win, as "to go past Naxian Tisandros"; whence he also calls the quickly inventive mind "non-musical thought" (*amousikē phron-eida*), and "past-dancing" (*ameusichoron*) triple-way, according to which the path is changed, so as to be brought to the same thing in his work: to change and
A to be at the same time a guest-friend to all, perhaps also desiring himself to tread in the footprints of others, not in the same tracks, as Callimachus might say.
24. He is sometimes ambitious to introduce the trainers of the athletes into his lyrics, contriving this also as a digression, when in all likelihood they too might be rewarded for the sake of remembrance by the lyricist, who loves gold, as will be shown; and perhaps also for the sake of an expansion of the song—which very expansion causes the melodist to stray into the praises of ancestral lands, as has been said, and of fatherlands in many passages, and into certain other things, of which it might seem highly superfluous for him to make mention by way of a side-issue to those who have not scrutinized him well; as also the fact that he deviates into heroic myths to no purpose, in which topic he also often has a new ambiguity, such as when he doubles the heroic figures, as is the case in the passage: "the such-and-such ornament of Cyrene, whom Apollo carried off." For here he mirrors in the crowned city of Cyrene the abducted heroic maiden, the mistress, after whom the city is named. In many places he creates such a dual image, having even itself something peculiar for a characterization.
25. Such being the nature of his poetry, that he should trace the man as dimly as possible (for to tint this shadow-painting into a complete form would be a very laborious task), it has been examined by the ancients down to the recording of his lineage according to Plutarch and others, among whom it is reported that the village of the Thebans is Cynoscephalae. From this village came the forebears of this wise man; his father, indeed, Pagondas by name in the Boeotian style, like Epaminondas, or Creondas; according to some, Daiphantus or the flute-player Scopelinus, and Myrtos. This Scopelinus, having taught the boy the art of the flute, since they say he saw him grown to a capacity greater than to be perfected under him, handed him over for training in melody to the celebrated Lasus of Hermione, under whom he was educated in the lyric art. Some said that the same man was called by two names, Scopelinus and Daiphantus. Others said that his father or paternal kinsman was Scopelinus. There are those who record not Myrtos, but Cleodice, or by contraction Cleidice, as the mother of Pindar, who was born under the archonship of Abion in the times of Aeschylus, with whom he also consorted, having conversed and having taken some part of his grandiloquence. He died when the Persian wars were flourishing, in the eighty-sixth Olympiad, having lived for sixty-six years, though according to some, eighty. He had, they say, two daughters, Protomache and Eumetis, and a son, Diophantus, having married Megacleia; of which daughters an old epigram makes mention, that one which runs:
"Truly Protomache and Eumetis, clear-voiced, Wept, wise daughters of Pindar, When they came from Argos, carrying within a vessel, Gathered remains from a foreign funeral pyre."
In which epigram, since it is not revealed how, in
A Argos he died and Pindar, and was then carried back thence to his fatherland; still, it is possible to surmise that having departed for some Peloponnesian contest, and having died at that very Argos, he was rendered back to his fatherland as a corpse. And it is said that the father wrote a *Daphnephoric* song for the aforementioned son Diophantus, who they say also heard Simonides, being younger than him, but older than Bacchylides.
26. To say this and otherwise according to the ancients, Pindar fell into the times of Simonides, either as younger than an elder. Both of them, at any rate, mention the same deeds. But also both of them visited Hiero the tyrant of Syracuse, having traveled—that is to say, as others have it—as wise men themselves to Sicily. And yet, this report seems to differ from the one that is currently circulating. For it is said that Pindar, when asked why Simonides traveled to Sicily to the tyrants while he himself does not want to, replied: "Because I wish to live for myself, not for another." B
Now the *chelys* (tortoise-shell), which is the lyre, has been inherited into speech from a very ancient designation. For there was a time when the shell of a *chelys*, that is to say a tortoise, served as the cavity of a lyre for Hermes (as is written after a few words), upon which gut-strings, when stretched, completed the lyre. And the *esmos* (swarm) indicates the hanging-together of bees in a cluster, of which there will be a broad mention below. For it is aspirated from *exō* (outside). For the word indicates a "sitting-place" of bees, and the rough breathing here is established by the definition in Aristotle’s *History of Animals*. And the "wax-bound honey" is in a way likened to the "wax-molded reed" in Aeschylus, which indicates the syrinx (panpipe). And Pan is called *Mainalios* as being Arcadian. For he was honored in Maenalus, a mountain of Arcadia. C The same is also called "horned," since he was fashioned as a traveler, on account of the very high projections of the mountains, which same are a part of the whole, into which even Pan is counted. And that the mountain heights are also called "horns," he who wrote "high-horned rock" indicates, which is both high and ends in a point.
27. It is also sung that, as he was pious, honoring Pan and Rhea and Apollo, and because he was in his prime during the crossing of Xerxes. But because he was beloved of God, he received and had a great abundance of honor among the Greeks. Thus, they say that Apollo so loved him that he would take a share of the things being sacrificed to him, and the priest would invite Pindar to the god’s banquet; or otherwise: Pindar would go to the god’s banquet. But according to others, the temple-warden in Delphi, being about to close the temple, announces every day: "Pindar the poet, come to the banquet for the god." For he was actually born on the festival of the Pythian games, as even he himself indicates. D
A five-year festival, a procession of oxen, in which I was first, beloved in my swaddling clothes, was born, which is: was told, as from *bazō* (to speak), or otherwise: was celebrated, was praised, as from *euazō* (to cry "Euoi"). It is said, moreover, that Pan was found between Cithaeron and Helicon, a beloved Pindaric paean. Therefore, he himself also composed a song in which he acknowledges his gratitude to him for the honor, the beginning of which is: "O Pan, Pan, ruler of Arcadia and guardian of the venerable shrines."
To this history also testifies that ancient epigram:
"As much as the trumpet rises above the fawn-born pipes, So much does your shell-lyre ring above all others. Nor in vain did the soft swarm about your lips, Pindar, Mold your wax-bound honey. Witness is the horned Mainalian god, when he sang Your hymn, and forgot his own reeds."
This epigram calls the pipes "fawn-born," as is likely, from the bones of a newborn deer. For it is evident that a *nefros* (fawn) is the newborn of the deer; and as they relate that they came from the bones. And that in the old epigram mention of this bees' honeycomb is clearly contained, has been shown above.
28. They say that the Athenians and Thebans were hostile to one another, since he wrote somewhere: "O gleaming and city-famed Athens," and according to some, because he called Athens the "bulwark of Greece," the Thebans fined him one thousand drachmas, which the Athenians paid on his behalf as being appreciative. It is said, moreover, that when the Spartans burned Thebes during the battle which Pausanias, the king of the Spartans, led, he…
spared the poet’s house, which was even later transformed into a Prytaneion. A
29. A story is also told that when certain observers were departing for the oracle of Ammon, they asked for what was best among men on Pindar’s behalf, as he was a friend; and he died within that same year. This is by all means a dignity accorded to death, as it curtails a life lived longer in misfortunes; and this is also recounted regarding those who built the temple at Pytho, who, having completed the work, which was worthy of wonder, and having asked God for a great good for themselves, were thereupon no more by the next morning, having departed by way of death. B Cleobis and Biton also enjoyed similar results from their prayer for a good, when, having pulled their mother on a wagon through the middle of the marketplace to the customary public sacrifice (for the sacred oxen were not present), they obtained from their mother a prayer for what was better; they themselves, however, summoned death, which immediately took them. But let these things be cast aside now, for they were not in vain either.
30. Since Pindar’s lineage has thus been brought forward in prose, there is also carried regarding him these things in ancient lines, in which are contained also some details beyond those previously mentioned: C
Cleodice, having lain with Daiphantus during the war, Bore Pindar, the high-speaking, in Cadmeian Thebes, Dwellers beside the land of Cynoscephalae, Not alone; together with him, Eretimus, knowing the hunt, Knowing pugilism and mastering the wrestling art. When his mother once set him down upon the ground to sleep, While he was still an infant, a bee, as if upon a... Hovered, buzzing upon his baby lips. And to him, of the sweet-voiced words and melodies, Divine Corinna became the guide, and she provided the foundations of myths For the first time; after her, he shared in the radiance of Agathocles, Who gave him the path and the measure of song. And when, by the intent of Alexander the son of Philip, The Macedonians came to sack the cities of the Cadmeians, The divine fire touched not the house of Pindar. But that is a matter for later. While the bard was still living, Lord Phoebus commanded him, from the gold-rich Pytho, To bring hither and ever carry to Thebes a sweet draught. And the melody, as they tell, even in the mountains, the fawn-like Pan ever sang, and he did not begrudge him in his singing. Whenever Persians, with Datis of the savage voice, were present At Marathon and at Salamis, he was yet living, When Aeschylus was in Athens. And Timoxena laid down beside him, among women, She who bore the great-hearted Eumetis and Daiphantus, And Protomachus after them. And he sang of the glory Of the four contests, having accepted the choruses of the blessed, And the melody of the dance, and the glorious hymns of the gods, And the heart-cares of the sweet-voiced maidens. Being such, and having suffered so much and accomplished so much, He died, as eighty years were being completed.
31. Thus, then, even those things being heard in the C of the Pindaric book containing gnomical apophthegms are narrated, and also these: Pindar, being asked what is sharper than a saw, said, "Slander." And being asked at Delphi what he was about to sacrifice, he said, "A Paean," meaning to say that the sacrifice of high-minded men consists of words to the Higher Power. And he who wrote that "poets sacrifice without smoke" converses with this. And to the one who asked why he does not provide "the door" to the one doing well, he said that it is not only the one doing well who has need, but also the one who has acted well. And to the one inquiring why, writing melodies, he does not know how to sing, he said, "For shipbuilders, too, while making rudders, do not know how to steer." This somehow resembles the fact that a certain sophist was once asked why, while teaching others to speak before a crowd, he himself is not able to do so; and he replied aptly, that just as a whetstone, while sharpening iron for cutting, is not itself able to cut, so it is. D
32. That Pindar himself was not skilled at singing, but had another, an understudy as it were, for such work, will be shown in those verses where one recalls Aeneas as chorus-leader, whom he also seems to love as one adorning with his own art the Pindaric odes, as the best leader of the chorus.
33. If Pindar said, according to the ancients, that those who philosophize reap a fruit of wisdom that is incomplete, but this would happen to fall into censure, just as it has been directed at the Comic poet, since he mocks philosophers for being "relaxed" and lazy.
34. Pindar is said to have written many poems, of which not a few are extant, though not all have been commented upon. There are paeans, dithyrambs, prosodia, parthenia, which were also mentioned a little while ago, hyporchemata, encomia, dirges, and epinikia, about four thousand according to the history, which they also call "epinikia" (four-syllable word), and which are especially effective because they are more human and have fewer stories, and do not have, at least compared to the rest, things that are entirely obscure. But if these same are also called hymns, this is a form of catachresis, according to which even the term "to be hymned" was somehow used antonymastically for blame, as is also indicated by the passage: "to be hymned by citizens in loud-roaring prooemia." It is clear, moreover, that the epinician odes of Pindar are called *eide*, that is to say *ideai* (forms), for the sake of dignity, which, being a diminutive, has become the title "idylls" for the poems of Theocritus. Pindar, being a melodist in general, is named as a secondary title by part of a musical instrument, being called "lyric," just as some other is a "citharode" (kithara-singer), and another from a psaltery is a "psalter-singer" (psalmodist). Yet it is not of necessity that he practiced melodic composition to the lyre alone, but this was chosen for the poet for the sake of some pre-eminent nomenclature. For the lyre is honored by many and in many ways. But he also used other instruments while singing, as is declared also by "anaxiphorminges" (lord-of-the-lyre-strings) hymns, and what follows. If by chance the phorminx and the lyre are the same thing, not even so has the usage of the lyre been exclusively assigned to him alone for some particular thing. And as the lyre
has been said to be so named because it "looses" (lyein) the "curses" (aras)—for those whom justice at once delights, this fits sweetly for each of the Olympiads—or because it was mythically discovered as a ransom for reconciliation by Hermes, who was a tortoise, that is, a lyre consisting of a tortoise shell, and who gave it to Phoebus in return for the theft of the cattle, and thus appeased for himself the anger over the theft, the ancients themselves also say this.
§ 35. It must be known also that, as there are four renowned Greek games, which were also called sacred, those who were victorious in them were deemed worthy of mention by the lyric poets; and the friends of Pindar were the first to set forth the Olympian victors for reading, because of the great fame of the Olympian game, the foundation of which some of the ancients, speaking solemnly, refer back to the events concerning Pelops and Oenomaus, as if the time B of the Olympian games began from there. Those who are displeased with this say that since the foundation is thus shameful in its cause, the ancients would not have preserved it, nor would the game called sacred have remained for so long a time, seeing that it is not of such a kind because of the shameful event, in which it is situated, which is the love for Hippodameia and the curious murder of Oenomaus. Others trace the establishment of the Olympian game to Heracles, just as Pindar also adorns it more gloriously. For since he had cleansed the dung of Augeias and did not receive what was promised, they say that he gathered an army, took Augeias away from life, and seized Elis, or rather plundered it. And having acquired much spoil, he set up a game for those who had fought with him. And the custom remained from then on. But those who are not satisfied even with this say that neither would this arrangement have remained, since it was a reminder of a practical difficulty; but rather, they say, Iphitus and Eurylochus, having defeated the Cirrhaean robbers who were holding the coastal region of Phocis, and having brought back much spoil from them, Iphitus established the Olympics and Eurylochus the Pythian games. And this standing remained, as having its beginning from an honorable cause.
§ 36. That the Olympics were held every five years because many of the athletes were gathered from very far away; and how such five-year periods were also called Olympiads from the festival of the Olympics, which they held for Olympian Zeus, the abode of C Heracles; and that which later five ancients and as many struggles as used to complete the Olympian game, the ancients indeed declare clearly, and the present excursive treatise will disclose everything of such a kind worthy of knowledge.
§ 35 [bis]. Now it must be said that the so-called pentathlon is described thus in iambic meter: Leap, wrestling, disc-hurling, pole-vaulting, and the race. And differently in heroic meter: A leap of the foot, and the throw of the discus and the dart’s rush, And the race, and the wrestling; one was the end for all.
§ 38. It must be known also that the Pindaric meter in the epinikia was called a triad. And it is a kind of poem consisting of such a triad, in which, as is also indicated in those of the Comic poets, there is a strophe, an antistrophe, and an epode; regarding which the commentators on the art of rhetoric D discuss most clearly. And it is clear where these three are—that is, the strophe, or antistrophe, and the epode—there too are choruses, turning and counter-turning, and singing in between, and the stationary song; whether these are circular, which the singers are mocked by the Comic poet as "song-benders," or others; of which Pindar is lord of all, and no less than him also Aeneas, who arranges the chorus for him, of whom mention was made a little before. That the Pindaric epinikia are performed in alternation according to the triad just indicated, with an orderly and harmonious succession, which cannot be transgressed, and with what feet and meters such a triad is fashioned in each case, is most clearly set forth by those who have provided commentaries; and to those who have investigated the metric manuel of Hephaestion inquisitively, it is easy to follow. But that was for a different work; here, the task at hand is to collect from the Pindaric epinikia what is useful for knowledge for those who wish both to write and to understand in some other way, and this not by way of a commentary, but insofar as to gather flowers from a most broad meadow, which would not be trodden upon or otherwise harvested by those who are lovers of beauty and who know the garlands of the Muses.