According to the traditional interpretation of these celebrated lines, Pindar is saying here that while the wise can understand his poetry by themselves, the mass of his listeners need interpreters if they are to do so; he then goes on to contrast inferior poets, who can sing only ineffectually and only what they have learned, with the poet of natural genius, who surpasses them as the eagle surpasses the crows; and finally he returns to the subject at hand, the praise (...) of the victorious Theron of Acragas. Sandys' Loeb translation may be taken as a representative example:Full many a swift arrow have I beneath mine arm, within my quiver, many an arrow that is vocal to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters. The true poet is he who knoweth much by gift of nature, but they that have only learnt the lore of song, and are turbulent and intemperate of tongue, like a pair of crows, chatter in vain against the god—like bird of Zeus.Now, bend thy bow toward the mark! tell me, my soul, whom are we essaying to hit, while we now shoot forth our shafts of fame from the quiver of a friendly heart?Construed in this way, this passage has always been especially popular with scholars and with other readers — not surprisingly, for the former could find in it a justification for their activity as⋯ρμηνεῖς, while the latter could pride themselves on belonging to theσυνετοί. (shrink)

Just about every odd year in the early fifth century B.C. has been proposed as the date of the Nemean victory of Pytheas from Aegina, celebrated in Pindar's Fifth Nemean and Bacchylides' thirteenth ode. Scholars have attempted to date both odes with the help of Isthmian 6 and 5, which celebrate victories of a member of the same family and the latter of which at 48ff. refers to Salamis as a recent event. Various interpretations of the victory catalogues in I. (...) 6 and 5 have led to various dates for N. 5 and B. 13. The fullest analysis of the material is that by Severyns, who argues that N. 5 and B. 13 must be at least seven years earlier than I. 5. In his conclusion , however, he still suggests three possible dates for N. 5 and B. 13: 487, 489, and 485 B.C., in what he considers to be the order of likelihood. (shrink)

Just about every odd year in the early fifth century B.C. has been proposed as the date of the Nemean victory of Pytheas from Aegina, celebrated in Pindar's Fifth Nemean and Bacchylides' thirteenth ode. Scholars have attempted to date both odes with the help of Isthmian 6 and 5, which celebrate victories of a member of the same family and the latter of which at 48ff. refers to Salamis as a recent event. Various interpretations of the victory catalogues in I. (...) 6 and 5 have led to various dates for N. 5 and B. 13. The fullest analysis of the material is that by Severyns, who argues that N. 5 and B. 13 must be at least seven years earlier than I. 5. In his conclusion, however, he still suggests three possible dates for N. 5 and B. 13: 487, 489, and 485 B.C., in what he considers to be the order of likelihood. (shrink)

According to the traditional interpretation of these celebrated lines, Pindar is saying here that while the wise can understand his poetry by themselves, the mass of his listeners need interpreters if they are to do so; he then goes on to contrast inferior poets, who can sing only ineffectually and only what they have learned, with the poet of natural genius, who surpasses them as the eagle surpasses the crows; and finally he returns to the subject at hand, the praise (...) of the victorious Theron of Acragas. Sandys' Loeb translation may be taken as a representative example: Full many a swift arrow have I beneath mine arm, within my quiver, many an arrow that is vocal to the wise; but for the crowd they need interpreters. The true poet is he who knoweth much by gift of nature, but they that have only learnt the lore of song, and are turbulent and intemperate of tongue, like a pair of crows, chatter in vain against the god—like bird of Zeus. Now, bend thy bow toward the mark! tell me, my soul, whom are we essaying to hit, while we now shoot forth our shafts of fame from the quiver of a friendly heart? Construed in this way, this passage has always been especially popular with scholars and with other readers — not surprisingly, for the former could find in it a justification for their activity as ρμηνες, while the latter could pride themselves on belonging to the συνετοί. (shrink)

This article contributes to a discussion raised more than forty years ago in this journal by Richard Stoneman on how to interpret the unexpected image of an eagle at Pind. Nem. 3.80. Without excluding the possibility of a reference to the poet himself, this article argues, mainly based on a survey on the traditional elements used in that passage, that the eagle also refers—at least partially—to the victorious athlete Aristocleides. This is demonstrated by an internal investigation of the structure of (...) the ode and the use of signal words. Moreover, the image of the eagle stands in a series of other ancient and traditional motifs, such as the ‘song of milk and honey’ and ‘shining fame’, which can be also found in the Rigveda and therefore can be regarded as an inheritance of the Indo-European poetic tradition. Parallels from the Rigveda can be found for the avian imagery too, in which the eagle is compared to someone striving for fame in an athletic contest; this suggests that the image of the eagle is another traditional motif from IE times in Pindar, who uses it as a device to transition from a poetological to a laudatory part of the epinician, perhaps deliberately playing with the ambiguity of the image. (shrink)

The old proverb can still more accurately be applied to their biographers.‘ Even the more plausible and psycho logically tempting details in the lives of literary figures derive from these authors’ fictional works, poems, and dramas, and not from the kind of source material biographers use today, letters, documents, eyewitness testimony. Critics and readers eager to establish some historical correlation between any ancient poet's life and his work should expect to be disappointed. But even if the ancient lives are useless (...) to the historian or critic trying to explain what in Euripides’ experience compelled him to write about Medea, these stories are of interest to mythologists. If we stop being angry at the Lives for failing to be historical, and look at them rather as myths or fairy tales, some informative patterns begin to emerge. (shrink)

A problem in the text of Pindar, the interpretation of λαρετον, O. 2. 87, seems to be vanishing, swept away by a remarkable consensus of recent criticism, a consensus the more remarkable in that it accepts a false solution to a genuine difficulty. This article has two purposes, the first and more important of which is to argue that the currently prevailing answer is manifestly wrong, the second to offer evidence in support of a different approach. Simply read γαρυτων, recent (...) critics maintain, and all problems disappear. Since -ο- and -ω- were not yet distinguished in the orthography of Pindar's day, γαρυτων is as correct as the unanimous γαρύτον of the MSS, testimonia, and scholia. By this simple change, the argument proceeds, the troublesome dual of the MSS is purged and with it the ‘historicist hare’, as one critic has recently called it, which less enlightened Pindarists chased for so long. If there is no dual, there is no need to speculate as to the identity of the ‘pair’ likened to κρακς and contrasted with the ‘divine bird of Zeus’, the man who is wise φυ. We need no longer suppose that the μαθντς are Simonides and Bacchylides – the traditional answer – or any other specific rivals. Unfortunately for this view, there is no evidence to justify taking γαρυτων as a plural, which is of course precisely what critics have been doing. It is – if anything – a third dual imperative , and every bit as much a dual as the γαρύτον of the MSS. Mr Stoneman is not alone in his ready dismissal of the ‘historicist hare’. Here is the view of Professor Lloyd-Jones: ‘… the lightest possible alteration converts the dual to a plural imperative, so that the number two vanishes’. A year before, Professor C. A. P. Ruck had chided the scholiasts for ‘reading out of Pindar's ΓΑΡΥΕΤΟΝ the dual…rather than the plural’. Bowra had declared that γαρυτων ‘would be the plural of the imperative’. The belief is widespread and persistent; those who wish a full conspectus of earlier views on the matter may consult the massive compilation made by Dr J. van Leeuwen in 1964. Not all critics and editors have endorsed the change from the traditional reading. While it has been in the successive Teubner editions since Schröder adopted it in 1900, neither Turyn nor Bowra accepted it. But among those who have argued for γαρυτων, only one has expressed any doubt that it is a plural, and that one is Theodor Bergk, who first proposed it. Indeed Bergk expressed no doubt about its being a dual. (shrink)

A problem in the text of Pindar, the interpretation ofλαρ⋯ετον, O.2. 87, seems to be vanishing, swept away by a remarkable consensus of recent criticism, a consensus the more remarkable in that it accepts a false solution to a genuine difficulty. This article has two purposes, the first and more important of which is to argue that the currently prevailing answer is manifestly wrong, the second to offer evidence in support of a different approach.Simply readγαρυ⋯των, recent critics maintain, and all (...) problems disappear. Since -ο- and -ω- were not yet distinguished in the orthography of Pindar's day,γαρυ⋯τωνis as correct as the unanimousγαρύɛτονof the MSS,testimonia, and scholia. By this simple change, the argument proceeds, the troublesome dual of the MSS is purged and with it the ‘historicist hare’, as one critic has recently called it, which less enlightened Pindarists chased for so long. If there is no dual, there is no need to speculate as to the identity of the ‘pair’ likened toκ⋯ρακɛςand contrasted with the ‘divine bird of Zeus’, the man who is wiseφυᾷ. We need no longer suppose that theμαθ⋯ντɛςare Simonides and Bacchylides – the traditional answer – or any other specific rivals.Unfortunately for this view, there is no evidence to justify takingγαρυ⋯τωνas a plural, which is of course precisely what critics have been doing. It is – if anything – a third dual imperative (an extremely rare form), and every bit as much a dual as theγαρύɛτονof the MSS.Mr Stoneman is not alone in his ready dismissal of the ‘historicist hare’. Here is the view of Professor Lloyd-Jones: ‘… the lightest possible alteration converts the dual to a plural imperative, so that the number two vanishes’. A year before, Professor C. A. P. Ruck had chided the scholiasts for ‘reading out of Pindar'sΓΑΡΥΕΤΟΝthe dual…rather than the plural’. Bowra had declared thatγαρυ⋯των‘would be the plural of the imperative’. The belief is widespread and persistent; those who wish a full conspectus of earlier views on the matter may consult the massive compilation made by Dr J. van Leeuwen in 1964.Not all critics and editors have endorsed the change from the traditional reading. While it has been in the successive Teubner editions since Schröder adopted it in 1900, neither Turyn nor Bowra accepted it. But among those who have argued forγαρυ⋯των, only one has expressed any doubt that it is a plural, and that one is Theodor Bergk, who first proposed it. Indeed Bergk expressed no doubt about its being a dual. (shrink)