Philosopher Pindar: The Complete Odes #1/71

Water is best,*

while gold gleams like blazing fire in the night,

brightest amid a rich man’s wealth;

but, my heart, if it is of games that you wish to sing,

look no further than the sun: as there is no star

that shines with more warmth by day from a clear sky,

so we can speak of no greater contest than Olympia.*

From here come fame-giving hymns,

which wrap themselves around the minds of poets*

who have come to the rich and blessed hearth of Hieron

to sing aloud of the son of Cronus.*

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Hieron holds the sceptre of justice in sheep-rich Sicily,

where he chooses for himself the finest fruits

of every kind of excellence.

His glory gleams in the best of poetry and music,

of the kind that we men often compose in play

at his hospitable table.

Come then, take down the Dorian*lyre from its peg,

if the splendour of Olympian Pisa*and of Pherenicus*

has caused the sweetest thoughts to steal into your mind,

as it sped along unwhipped in the race beside Alpheus,*

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and brought its master into victory’s embrace—

Hieron, Syracuse’s horse-delighting king.

His fame shines out over the land

of fine men*founded by Lydian Pelops,*

he whom Poseidon the mighty Earth-holder desired

after Clotho*had lifted him from the purifying cauldron,*

fitted with a shoulder of gleaming ivory.

There are indeed many wonders,

and it may be that in men’s talk

stories are embroidered beyond the truth,

and so deceive us with their elaborate lies,

since the beguiling charm of words,

the source of all sweet pleasures for men,

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adds lustre and veracity to the unbelievable.

The days to come will be the wisest judge of that,

but it is proper that a man should speak well of the gods;

thus he is less likely to incur blame.

Son of Tantalus, the tale I shall tell about you

runs counter to that told by former poets.

When your father invited the gods

to that well-ordered banquet in his beloved Sipylus,*

reciprocating the hospitality he had enjoyed,

then it was that the God of the Glorious Trident,*

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his heart overpowered by desire,

seized you and carried you off in a golden chariot

to the lofty palace of widely honoured Zeus,

where in later time Ganymede*also came,

to perform the same service, but for Zeus.

When you had disappeared from sight,

and, despite their frequent searches,

no one could bring you back to your mother,

immediately an ill-intentioned neighbour

secretly spread the tale abroad

that the guests had taken a knife and dismembered you,

and had thrown your limbs into water

as it boiled fiercely over the fire;

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and then at table, during the final course,

they shared out your flesh and ate it.

As for me, I cannot call any of the blessed gods a cannibal.

I stand aside;

the slanderous seldom win themselves profit.

If ever the watchers on Olympus*gave a mortal honour,

that man indeed was Tantalus.*

But no good came of it, for he could not digest his great prosperity,

and by his excesses brought overwhelming ruin on himself:

the Father poised a huge stone above him,

and in his constant struggle to thrust it from his head

he now wanders far from happiness.

This is the life of everlasting weariness he lives,

one labour following after another,

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because for his feast he stole from the gods

the nectar and ambrosia they gave to make him immortal

and served it to his drinking companions.

If a man hopes his deeds will escape the gods’ notice

he is mistaken.

So the immortals sent his son back to him,

to be a mortal again in the short-lived company of men.

And about the time of his handsome youthful bloom,

when downy hair began to cover his darkening jaw,

he turned his thoughts to an offer of marriage

that was offered to all: to win at Pisa

the famous Hippodameia*from her father Oenomaus.

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Alone, at night, he went down to the grey sea’s shore

and called out to the deep-roaring Lord of the Trident;*

and the god was there, close by him.

Pelops said to him:
‘If the delightful gifts of Cypris*can give rise to gratitude,

then come, shackle the bronze spear of Oenomaus,

send me on the swiftest of chariots to Elis,*

and bring me the power to be victorious.

Thirteen suitors has Oenomaus killed,

and in this way delays the marriage of his daughter.