The Extant Odes of Pindar | Page 9

so that they celebrate the son[1] of Kronos, when to the
rich and happy hearth of Hieron they are come; for he wieldeth the
sceptre of justice in Sicily of many flocks, culling the choice fruits of
all kinds of excellence: and with the flower of music is he made
splendid, even such strains as we sing blithely at the table of a friend.
Take from the peg the Dorian lute, if in any wise the glory of
Pherenikos[2] at Pisa hath swayed thy soul unto glad thoughts, when by
the banks of Alpheos he ran, and gave his body ungoaded in the course,
and brought victory to his master, the Syracusans' king, who delighteth

in horses.
Bright is his fame in Lydian Pelops' colony[3], inhabited of a goodly
race, whose founder mighty earth-enfolding Poseidon loved, what time
from the vessel of purifying[4] Klotho took him with the bright ivory
furnishment of his shoulder.
Verily many things are wondrous, and haply tales decked out with
cunning fables beyond the truth make false men's speech concerning
them. For Charis[5], who maketh all sweet things for mortal men, by
lending honour unto such maketh oft the unbelievable thing to be
believed; but the days that follow after are the wisest witnesses.
Meet is it for a man that concerning gods he speak honourably; for the
reproach is less. Of thee, son of Tantalos, I will speak contrariwise to
them who have gone before me, and I will tell how when thy father had
bidden thee to that most seemly feast at his beloved Sipylos, repaying
to the gods their banquet, then did he of the Bright Trident[6], his heart
vanquished by love, snatch thee and bear thee behind his golden steeds
to the house of august Zeus in the highest, whither again on a like
errand came Ganymede in the after time.
But when thou hadst vanished, and the men who sought thee long
brought thee not to thy mother, some one of the envious neighbours
said secretly that over water heated to boiling they had hewn asunder
with a knife thy limbs, and at the tables had shared among them and
eaten sodden fragments of thy flesh. But to me it is impossible to call
one of the blessed gods cannibal; I keep aloof; in telling ill tales is often
little gain.
Now if any man ever had honour of the guardians of Olympus,
Tantalos was that man; but his high fortune he could not digest, and by
excess thereof won him an overwhelming woe, in that the Father hath
hung above him a mighty stone that he would fain ward from his head,
and therewithal he is fallen from joy.
This hopeless life of endless misery he endureth with other three[7], for
that he stole from the immortals and gave to his fellows at a feast the

nectar and ambrosia, whereby the gods had made him incorruptible.
But if a man thinketh that in doing aught he shall be hidden from God,
he erreth.
Therefore also the immortals sent back again his son to be once more
counted with the short-lived race of men. And he when toward the
bloom of his sweet youth the down began to shade his darkening cheek,
took counsel with himself speedily to take to him for his wife the noble
Hippodameia from her Pisan father's hand.
And he came and stood upon the margin of the hoary sea, alone in the
darkness of the night, and called aloud on the deep-voiced Wielder of
the Trident; and he appeared unto him nigh at his foot.
Then he said unto him: 'Lo now, O Poseidon, if the kind gifts of the
Cyprian goddess are anywise pleasant in thine eyes, restrain Oinomaos'
bronze spear, and send me unto Elis upon a chariot exceeding swift,
and give the victory to my hands. Thirteen lovers already hath
Oinomaos slain, and still delayeth to give his daughter in marriage.
Now a great peril alloweth not of a coward: and forasmuch as men
must die, wherefore should one sit vainly in the dark through a dull and
nameless age, and without lot in noble deeds? Not so, but I will dare
this strife: do thou give the issue I desire.'
Thus spake he, nor were his words in vain: for the god made him a
glorious gift of a golden car and winged untiring steeds: so he
overcame Oinomaos and won the maiden for his bride.
And he begat six sons, chieftains, whose thoughts were ever of brave
deeds: and now hath he part in honour of blood-offerings in his grave
beside Alpheos' stream, and hath a frequented tomb, whereto many
strangers resort: and from afar off he beholdeth the glory of the
Olympian games in the courses called of Pelops, where is