The Extant Odes of Pindar | Page 5

others, does Pindar remind us, even more
than might have been expected in a contemporary, of Aeschylus. The
latter by virtue of his Athenian nurture as well as of his own greater
natural gifts reveals to us a greater number of thoughts, and those more
advanced and more interesting than we find in Pindar, but the similarity
in moral temper and tone is very striking, as also is the way in which
we see this temper acting on their beliefs. Both hold strongly, as is the
wont of powerful minds in an age of stability as opposed to an age of
transition, to the traditions and beliefs on which the society around
them rests, but both modify these traditions and beliefs according to the
light which arises in them, and which is as much moral as intellectual
light. In so doing they are indeed in harmony with the best instincts of
the society around them, but they lead and guide such instincts and give
them shape and definiteness. In the Oresteän trilogy of Aeschylus we
have an ever-memorable assertion of the supreme claims of human
morality to human allegiance, of the eternal truth that humanity can
know no object of reverence and worship except itself idealised, its
own virtues victorious over its own vices, and existing in the greatest
perfection which it can at any given time conceive. Somewhat the same
lesson as that of the Oresteia is taught later, with more of sweetness and
harmony, but not with more force, in the Oedipus Coloneus of
Sophokles. And in Pindar we see the same tendencies inchoate. Like
Aeschylus he does by implication subordinate to morality both politics
and religion. He ignores or flatly denies tales that bring discredit on the
gods; he will only bow down to them when they have the virtues he
respects in man. Yet he, like Aeschylus and Sophokles, does so bow
down, sincerely and without hesitation, and that poets of their temper
could do so was well indeed for poetry. By rare and happy fortune they
were inspired at once by the rich and varied presences of mythology,
'the fair humanities of old religion,' and also by the highest aspirations
of an age of moral and
intellectual advance. We do not of course
always, or even often, find the moral principles clearly and consciously
expressed or consistently supported, but we cannot but feel that they
are present in the shape of instincts, and those instincts pervading and
architectonic.
And if we allow so much of ethical enlightenment to these great

spokesmen of the Hellenic people, we cannot deny something of like
honour to the race among whom they were reared. Let us apportion our
debt of gratitude to our forerunners as it is justly due. There would
seem to be much of fallacy and of the injustice of a shallow judgment
in the contrast as popularly drawn between 'Hellenism' and 'Hebraism,'
according to which the former is spoken of as exclusively proclaiming
to the world the value of Beauty, the latter the value of
Righteousness.
In this there is surely much injustice done to Hellas. Because she taught
the one, she did not therefore leave the other untaught. It may have
been for a short time, as her other greatness was for a short time,
though its effects are eternal, but for that short time the national life, of
Athens at any rate, is at least as full of high moral feeling as that of any
other people in the world. Will not the names of Solon, of Aristeides, of
Kallikratidas, of Epameinondas, of Timoleon and many more, remind
us that life could be to the Hellene something of deeper moral import
than a brilliant game, or a garden of vivid and sweet sights and sounds
where Beauty and Knowledge entered, but Goodness was forgotten and
shut out? For it is not merely that these men, and very many more
endowed with ample portion of their spirit, were produced and reared
among the race; they were honoured and valued in a way that surely
postulated the existence of high ethical feeling in their countrymen.
And even when the days of unselfish statesmen and magnanimous
cities were over, there were philosophers whose schools were not the
less filled because they claimed a high place for righteousness in
human life. To Solon and Aristeides succeeded Socrates and Plato, to
Epameinondas and Timoleon succeeded Zeno and Epictetus. That the
morality of the Hellenes was complete on all sides, it would of course
be irrational to maintain. They had not, for instance, any more than the
Hebrews, or any other nation of antiquity, learnt to abhor slavery,
though probably it existed in a milder form at Athens than anywhere
else in the old or new world: they were more implacable in revenge