Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/111

Rh PINDAR 101 study (SioaKTol apfTaL, 01. ix. 10U) are of relatively small scope the sentiment, we may remark, of one whose thoughts were habitually conversant with the native quali ties of a poet on the one hand and of an athlete on the other. The elements of vyt eis 6 A/3os &quot; sane happiness,&quot; such as has least reason to dread the jealousy of the gods, are substance sufficing for daily wants and good repute (oJAoyia). He who has these should not &quot; seek to be a god. &quot; &quot; Wealth set with virtues &quot; (TTOVTO&amp;lt;; dpercus SeSaiSaA/AeVos), as gold with precious gems, is the most fortunate lot, because it affords the amplest opportunities for honourable activity. Pindar does not rise above the ethical standard of an age which said, &quot; love thy friend and hate thy foe &quot; (cp. Pyth. ii. 83 ; Isthm. iii. 65). But in one sense he has a moral elevation which is distinctively his own ; he is the glowing prophet of generous emulation and of reverent self-control, ilitical. (c) The political sentiments of the Theban poet are suggested by Pytli. xi. 53 ; &quot; In polities I find the middle state crowned with more enduring good ; there fore praise I not the despot s portion ; those virtues move my zeal which serve the folk.&quot; If in Pyth. ii. 86 a democracy is described as 6 Aa/3pos o-rparos, &quot; the raging crowd,&quot; it is to be noted that the ode is for Hiero of Syracuse, and that the phrase clearly refers to the violence of those democratic revolutions which, in the early part of the 5th century B.C., more than once convulsed Sicilian cities. At Thebes, after the Persian wars, a &quot; constitu tional oligarchy&quot; (oAtyap^ta uroVo/xo?, Thuc. iii. 62) had replaced the narrower and less temperate oligarchy of former days (Swao-reia ov yuera VOJJLWV} ; and in this we may probably recognize the phase of Greek political life most congenial to Pindar. He speaks of a king s lot as unique in its opportunities (01. i. 113) ; he sketches the character of an ideal king (Pyth. iii. 71) ; but nothing in his poetry implies liking for the rvpavvk as a form of government. Towards the Greek princes of Sicily and Gyrene his tone is ever one of manly independence ; he speaks as a Greek citizen whose lineage places him on a level with the proudest of the Dorian race, and whose office invests him with an almost sacred dignity. In regard to the politics of Hellas at large, Pindar makes us feel the new sense of leisure for quiet pursuits and civilizing arts which came after the Persian wars. He honours &quot;Tranquillity, the friend of cities&quot; ( Acri^m e/uAoTroAis, 01. iv. 16). The epic poet sang of wars; Pindar celebrates the &quot;rivalries of peace.&quot; elation 4. Pindar s genius was boldly original ; at the same time con - he was an exquisite artist. &quot; Mine be it to invent new po &quot; strains, mine the skill to hold my course in the chariot of ample grasp &quot; (roA/m Se /cat d/Ac^iAa^s Swa/xis e crTrorro, 01. ix. 80). Here we see the exulting sense of inborn strength; in many other places we perceive the feeling of conscious art as in the phrase ScuSaAAeii/, so apt for his method of in laying an ode with mythical subjects, or when he compares the opening of a song to the front of a stately building (01. vi. 3). Pindar s sympathy with external nature was deeper and keener than is often discernible in the poetry of his age. It appears, for example, in hi welcome of the season when &quot; the chamber of the Hours is opened, and delicate plants perceive the fragrant spring &quot; (fr. 75) ; in the passage where Jason invokes &quot; the rushing strength of waves and winds, and the nights, and the paths of the deep&quot; (Pyth. iv. 194); in the lines on the eclipse of the ! sun (fr. 107); and in the picture of the eruption, when Etna, &quot; pillar of the sky, nurse of keen snow all the year,&quot; sends forth &quot; pure springs of fire unapproachable &quot; (Pyth. i. 20). The poet s feeling for colour is often noticeable, as in the beautiful story of the birth of lamus when | Evadne lays aside her silver pitcher and her girdle of scarlet web ; the babe is found, &quot; its delicate body steeped in the golden and deep purple rays of pansies &quot; (01. vi. 55). The spirit of art, in every form, is represented for Pindar by xapts &quot; the source of all delights to mortals &quot; (01. i. 30) or by the personified Charites (Graces). The Charites were often represented as young maidens, decking themselves with early flowers the rose, in particular, being sacred to them as well as to Aphrodite. In Pindar s mind, as in the old Greek conception from which the worship of the Charites sprang, the instinct of beautiful art was inseparable from the sense of natural beauty. The Sculp- period from 500 to 460 B.C., to which most of Pindar s ture - extant odes belong, marked a stage in the development of Greek sculpture. The schools of Argos, Sicyon, and ^Egina were effecting a transition from archaic types to the art which was afterwards matured in the age of Phidias. Olympia forms the central link between Pindar s poetry and Greek sculpture. From about 560 B.C. onwards, sculpture had been applied to the commemoration of athletes, chiefly at Olympia. In a striking passage (Nem. v. ad init.) Pindar recognizes sculpture and poetry as sister arts employed in the commemoration of the athlete, and contrasts the merely local effect of the statue with the wide diffusion of the poem. &quot; No sculptor I, to fashion images that shall stand idly on one pedestal for aye ; no, go thou forth from yEgina, sweet song of mine, on every freighted ship, on each light bark.&quot; Many particular subjects were common to Pindar and contemporary sculp ture. Thus (1) the sculptures on the east pediment of the temple at J^gina represented Heracles coming to seek the aid of Telamon against Troy a theme brilliantly treated by Pindar in the fifth Isthmian ; (2) Hiero s victory in the chariot-race was commemorated at Olympia by the joint work of the sculptors Onatas and Calamis ; (3) the Gigan- tomachia, (4) the wedding of Heracles and Hebe, (5) the war of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, and (6) a contest between Heracles and Apollo are instances of mythical material treated alike by the poet and by sculptors of his day. The contemporary improvements in town architecture, introducing spacious and well-paved streets, such as the o-KvpwT-rj 6Sos at Gyrene (Pyth. v. 87), suggest his frequent comparison of the paths of song to broad and stately causeways (TrAaretat TrpocroSot e/caTO/XTreSoi KfXevOoi, Nem. vi. 47, v. 22). A song is likened to cunning work which blends gold, ivory, and coral (Nem. vii. 78). Pindar s feel ing that poetry, though essentially a divine gift, has a technical side (cro^m), and that on this side it has had an historical development like that of other arts, is forcibly illustrated by his reference to the inventions (cro&amp;lt;^tcr/Aara) for which Corinth had early been famous. He instances (1) the development of the dithyramb, (2) certain im provements in the harnessing and driving of horses, and (3) the addition of the pediment to temples (01. xiii.). In the development of Greek lyric poetry two periods are Pindar s broadly distinguished. During the first, from about 600 P lace in to 500 B.C., lyric poetry is local or tribal as Alcseus and. ree r Sappho write for Lesbians, Alcman and Stesichorus for ture _ l Dorians. During the second period, which takes its rise in the sense of Hellenic unity created by the Persian wars, the lyric poet addresses all Greece. Pindar and Simonides are the great representatives of this second period, to which Bacchylides, the nephew of Simonides, also belongs. These, with a few minor poets, are classed by German writers as die universalen Meliker. The Greeks usually spoke, not of &quot;lyric,&quot; but of &quot;melic&quot; poetry (i.e., meant to be sung, and not, like the epic, recited) ; and &quot; uni versal melic &quot; is lyric poetry addressed to all Greece. But Pindar is more than the chief extant lyrist. Epic, lyric, and dramatic poetry succeeded each other in Greek litera-
 * t 3 _ the Muses ; and may courage go with me, and power of