Page:Pindar (Morice).djvu/146

132

Passing to the youth a gift,

Erst the crown of all his riches, destined now to other home,

For the honour of his banquet, pleased his new-made son to make

Envied of each friendly feaster for his happy wedlock's sake:

So to champions crowned at Pytho and Olympia I send

Draughts of Nectar sweet, the Muses' boon, the soul's delicious fruit,

Gladdening each victor-friend!"

Pindar had now (B.C. 464) reached the climax of his fame. Even to such a hero as Diagoras he could adopt the tone of an equal, almost of a superior. Nor did the haughty Rhodians resent the poet's boasts. They engraved this Ode in golden letters on their temple of the Lindian Athenè.

Three legends follow, all connected with the mythical history of Rhodes. First we hear how Tlepolemus, fleeing from his native Tiryns in expiation of a hasty homicide, was directed by the Delphian oracle to the beautiful isle of Rhodes, the birthplace of the goddess Athenè. Next follows the tale of the settlement founded by Tlepolemus. The oracle had enjoined the perpetual offering of burnt-sacrifices to the goddess who had been born there, and to her father Zeus. But "blind oblivion" obscured the memory of this ordinance, and the altars remained unkindled. Yet the neglected deities were not alienated. Zeus rained riches on the land, and Athenè made its inhabitants matchless in the arts. A curious description follows of "figures like to things that live and move" which