Pindar's Victory Odes

"If I were permitted
to utter the prayer
in everyone's mind,
I would wish that Chiron,
son of Philyra and sovereign Kronos,
a friend of mankind,
now dead and gone,
were living still
and that he ranged
the ridges of Pelion,
even as he was
when he raised Asklepios,
the gentle hero, craftsman
in remedies for the limbs of men
tormented by disease.


Before his mother,
daughter of Phlegyas the rider,
could bring him to birth,
before Eleithyia could ease her pangs,
she sank to the house of Death,
stricken in her chamber
by the gold arrows of Artemis
at the urging of Apollo:
the wrath of gods
finds fulfillment.
In her folly.
she had slighted him, consenting--
without her father's knowledge--
to another union
though she had lain before with Apollo
and bore the god's pure seed within her.


She did not wait for her marriage feast,
the high cries of Hymen! Hymen!
such as girls of her age, maiden companions,
echo in song, bantering the bride
with girlhood names on her wedding night.
No: like many another, she hungered
for things remote.
There are some, utterly
shiftless, who always look ahead,
scorning the present,
hunting the wind of doomed hopes.


Eager Koronis, fond of gay clothing,
was wholly taken
with this infatuation--she lay
in the arms of a stranger
who came from Arkadia,
but she did not escape her watcher:
Loxias [Apollo] the king,
in his temple at Delphi,
heard what had happened,
informed by his surest confidant,
echo in song, bantering the bride
his all-knowing mind
impervious to lies,
beyond the reach of mortal
or immortal deception,
of fraud planned or perpetrated.


He saw her then,
lying in bed with Ischys,
son of Elatos--
he saw her blasphemous deceit
and sent down Artemis
raging with anger
to Lakereia, for the maiden dwelled
on the banks of Lake Boibias.
An evil power
possessed and destroyed her
and many others
were involved in her ruin.
Though but a spark of fire
fall on the mountain,
the thick trees blaze and are gone.


Only when her kinsmen had placed the girl
on a wooden mound and the grim glare of flame
ran crackling around her
did Apollo relent:
"I cannot kill my own child, trapped
in the doom of its ruined mother,"
he said, and strode into the blaze.
The fire hid nothing from him:
in one step
he found the corpse, tore the infant from it,
and carried it to Chiron in Thessaly
to be taught the art of medicine.


And those who came to him
with flesh-devouring sores,
with limbs gored by gray bronze
or crushed beneath flung stones,
all those with bodies broken,
sun-struck or frost-bitten,
he freed of their misery,
each from his ailment,
and led them forth--
some to the lull of soft spells,
others by potions,
still others with bandages
steeped in medications
culled from all quarters,
and some he set right through surgery.


But even wisdom feels
the lure of gain--
gold glittered in his hand,
and he was hired
to retrieve from death
a man already forfeit:
the son of Kronos [Zeus] hurled
and drove the breath,
smoking from both their chests--
savior and saved alike
speared by the lightning flash.
From the gods we must expect
things that suit our mortal minds,
aware of the here and now,
aware of our allotment.


Do not yearn, O my soul, for immortal life!
Use to the utmost
the skill that is yours.
Yet if wise Chiron still haunted his cave,
if my singing had worked upon his mood
like a soothing drug, I would have moved him
to rear another healer, a son of Leto
or of Zeus, a hero to relieve good men
of the blaze of fever.
And I would have come,
cleaving the Ionian sea on ship,
to Arethusa's fountain and my Aitnaian host




who holds the throne of Syracuse,
a king gentle to his citizens
and generous to his nobles,
a father to arriving strangers.
If I had stepped from ship
bringing this double grace to him,
golden health and a revel-song
to brighten his triumphs,
the Pythian garlands
Pherenikos took at Kirrha once,
beating all contenders:
I say I would have crossed
the deep sea
like a radiance reaching
farther than a heavenly star


But I wish to make my prayer
to the sacred Mother Goddess
whom Theban maidens celebrate
all the night through,
singing of her and of Pan
not far from where I dwell.
If, Hieron, you understand,
recall the proverb now:
the deathless gods
dole out to death-bound men
two pains for every good.
Fools make nothing of either.
The noble turn both to advantage,
folding pain within,
and showing beauty without.


You have a share of happiness--on you,
if on any man, great destiny has smiled,
for you are master of a people.
Still,
no life was ever safe from falling:
not even Peleus,
the son of Aiakos, or Kadmos, the gods' double,
knew perfect bliss, though men account them
blest with the highest joy--
they heard the Muses singing
on the mountain and in seven-gated Thebes,
when Kadmos married dark-eyed Harmonia
and Peleus married Thetis, the glorious daughter of Nereus,


and the gods feasted
in their company,
the children of Kronos,
kings on golden thrones:
they beheld them
and received their wedding gifts.
So Zeus blessed them with a change
from former troubles,
and their hearts were high.
But in time again
Kadmos lost his share of bliss:
three of his daughters destroyed it
and yet the fourth,
white-armed lovely Thyona,
welcomed Zeus to her bed.


And the only child [Achilles]
of Peleus and immortal Thetis,
felled by an arrow in war
and leaving life behind,
stirred the lament of the Danaans [Greeks]
as he burned on the pyre.
It is proper that a mortal man,
knowing the way of truth,
prosper from the gods
when he has the chance.
Winds soar on high--
one is a blessing, another is not.
Happiness that wafts a man
in full sail
will not sustain him long.


I will be small among the small,
great among the great.
The spirit embracing me
from moment to moment I will cultivate,
as I can and as I ought.
And if the gods bestow
abundant wealth on me, then I will hope
to find high glory in days to come.
We know of Nestor and Lykian Sarpedon
from resonant words, such as skilled craftsmen of songs
have welded together.
It is radiant poetry
that makes virtue long-lived,
but for few is the making easy."

-Pindar