Page:Odes of Pindar (Myers).djvu/115



This victory was won B.C. 494, when Pindar was twenty-eight years old, and the ode was probably written to be sung at Delphi immediately on the event. Thus, next to the tenth Pythian, written eight years before, this is the earliest of Pindar's poems that remains to us.

Xenokrates was a son of Ainesidamos and brother of Theron, The second Isthmian is also in his honour.

for once more we plough the field of Aphrodite of the glancing eyes, or of the Graces call it if you will, in this our pilgrimage to the everlasting centre-stone of deep-murmuring earth.

For there for the blissful Emmenidai, and for Akragas by the riverside, and chiefliest for Xenokrates, is builded a ready treasure of song within the valley of Apollo rich in golden gifts.

That treasure of his shall neither wind nor wintry rain-storm coming from strange lands, as a fierce host born of the thunderous cloud, carry into the hiding places of the sea, to be beaten by the all-sweeping drift: