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78 whom they had long been proud, and whose achievements it would be needless for the poet to narrate. And this very knowledge of his audience is made by Pindar a ground for complimenting them. He has an endless store of such glorious allusions, he tells them, —the wise grasp their sense at once, but to the uninitiated they remain a blank perplexity.

Oh mine are keen shafts many a one

Within the quiver stored:

Of meaning to the wise, but to the horde

Dark riddles!"

To some extent Pindar has paid the penalty for his imperious scorn of the uninitiated "horde," and has sacrificed, for the applauses of his immediate audience, the chance of a wider popularity.

Sometimes, in passing from the occasion of an Ode to his favourite legends, Pindar seems to scorn the employment of any bridge whatever. Of this a good instance will be found in the First Nemean, addressed to Chromius of Ætna. Chromius, he says, is at once strong and wise, and on such a patron he would fain lavish all the best stores of his poetry. He is no miser to hoard its treasures for himself; no! let him pour them on Chromius, and win his gratitude in return.

But, when I fain would wake

Some old heroic lay,

Whose but Herakles' noble name

Should deck the exulting verse for thy dear sake?"—(S).