Page:A History of Ancient Greek Literature.djvu/139

 poet was paid extra for the references to Melesias the 'professional,' and to the various uncles and grandfathers of his victors, he introduces them with a great semblance of spontaneous interest. It looks as if he was one of those un-self-conscious natures who do not much differentiate their emotions: he feels a thrill at the sight of Hiero's full-dress banquet board, of a wrestling bout, or of a horse-race, just as he does at the thought of the labour and glory of Heracles; and every thrill makes him sing.

Pindar was really three years younger than Aeschylus; yet he seems a generation older than Simonides. His character and habits of thought are all archaic; so is his style. Like most other divisions of Greek literature, the lyric had been working from obscure force to lucidity. It had reached it in Simonides and Bacchylides. Pindar throws us back to Alcman, almost. He is hard even to read; can any one have understood him, sung? He tells us how his sweet song will "sail off from Aegina in the big ships and the little fishing-boats" as they separate homewards after the festival (Nem. v.). Yet one can scarcely believe that the Dorian fishermen could catch at one hearing much of so difficult a song. Perhaps it was only the tune they took, and the news of the victory. He was proud of his music; and Aristoxenus, the best judge we have, cannot praise it too highly. Even now, though every wreck of the music is lost-the Messina musical fragment (of Pyth. i.) being spurious-one feels that the words need singing to make them intelligible. The mere meaning and emotion of Pythian iv. or Olympian ii.-to take two opposite types-compel the words into a chant, varying between slow and fast, loud and low. The clause-endings ring like music: παλίγκοτον [116] δαμασθέν (Olymp.