Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/410

 378 HISTOHY OF GREECE. tite ; he pronounces the tale to have been originally fabricated by a slanderous neighbor. Nor can he bring himself to recount the quarrels between different gods. 1 The amours of Zeus and Apollo are no way displeasing to him ; but he occasionally sup- presses some of the simple details of the old mythe, as deficient in dignity : thus, according to the Hesiodic narrative, Apollo was informed by a raven of the infidelity of the nymph Koronis : but the mention of the raven did not appear to Pindar consistent with the majesty of the god, and he therefore wraps up the mode of detection in vague and mysterious language. 2 He feels con- siderable repugnance to the character of Odysseus, and intimates more than once that Homer has unduly exalted him, by force of poetical artifice. With the character of the JEakid Ajax, on the other hand, he has the deepest sympathy, as well as with his untimely and inglorious death, occasioned by the undeserved pre- ference of a less worthy rival. 3 He appeals for his authority usu- ally to the Muse, but sometimes to "ancient sayings of men," accompanied with a general allusion to story-tellers and bards, admitting, however, that these stories present great discrepancy, and sometimes that they are false. 4 Yet the marvellous and the supernatural afford no ground whatever for rejecting a story : Pindar makes an express declaration to this effect in re- ference to the romantic adventures of Perseus and the Gorgon's head. 5 He treats even those mythical characters, which con- flict the most palpably with positive experience, as connected by a real genealogical thread with the world before him. Not merely the heroes of Troy and Thebes, and the demigod seamen of Jas6n and the ship Argo, but also the Centaur Cheiron, the hundred-headed Typhos, the giant Alkyoneus, Antceus, Bellero- 1 Pindar, Olymp. i. 30-55 ; ix. 32-45. 2 Pyth. iii. 25. See the allusions to Semele, Alkmena, and Danae, Pyth. iii. 98; Nem. x. 10. Compare also supra, chap. ix. p. 245. a Pindar. Nem. vii. 20-30 ; viii. 23-31. Isthm. iii. 50-60. It seems to be sympathy for Ajax, in odes addressed to noble JEginetan victors, which induces him thus to depreciate Odysseus ; for he eulogizes Sisy- phus, specially on account of his cunning and resources ("Olymp. xiii. 50) in the ode addressed to Xenophon the Corinthian. 4 Olymp. i. 28 ; Nem. viii. 20 ; Pyth. i. 93 ; Olymp. vii. 55 ; Nem. vi. t3 +U.VTI <T av&puKtjv nahaiat {rqcnec, etc. Pyth. x. 49. Compare Pyth. xii. 1 1-22.