Odes by Pindar

First transcribed:Epinikia, 498-446 b.c.e. (English translation, 1656)

Type of work: Poetry

The Work:

By a stroke of luck, Pindar’s victory odes have survived almost in their entirety. This is not the case for the author’s other works—including hymns, dirges, songs of praise, and processional songs—which have either been lost or are known only from short fragments. Although the victory odes, known as the epinikia, were Pindar’s most famous and influential works, even in antiquity, they seem typical of their author’s general approach and style. Shifting frequently from subject to subject, Pindar’s poems have a dreamlike quality. Each line flows logically from what has preceded it but, by the end of the poem, the author often has made so many twists and turns that he sometimes seems to conclude on a radically different note from the one with which he began.

A second element that adds to Pindar’s complexity of style is his highly ornate language. Pindar avoids the language of everyday speech; his secular works are modeled on Greek hymns. The religious songs that honored the Olympian gods in the fifth century b.c.e. preserved a reverent tone and exalted style that provided Pindar with a model for his own poems celebrating the glories of human achievement. The complex nature of his poetry also appears to be due to a preference among the archaic Greek poets for elaborate metaphors and difficult allusions. The appreciation of a Pindaric poem often necessitates the reader’s knowing much about Greek mythology and athletics. Moreover, it requires the reader to accept each poem as simultaneously having several levels of meaning.

The epinikia were originally choral works, sung in celebration of athletic victories at the four Panhellenic games of antiquity: the Olympian games, held in honor of Zeus at the sacred city of Olympia; the Pythian games, held in honor of the god Apollo in his oracular city of Delphi; the Nemean games, held in honor of Zeus near the site where Heracles is said to have slain the Nemean lion; and the Isthmian games, held in honor of Poseidon near the Argive city of Corinth. The title epinikia suggests that these poems celebrate victory in an athletic event. The works were occasionally performed at the festival where the victory occurred; more frequently, however, they were commissioned for a later celebration in the victor’s home city. The athletic events for which Pindar composed victory odes include boxing, wrestling, the pankration (a combined form of boxing and wrestling in which no holds were barred), the pentathlon (a series of five events featuring running, jumping, throwing the discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling), running, and chariot racing. Pindar also wrote one ode, Pythian Ode 12, for the victor of a musical competition—Midas of Akragas in a flute contest.

The Panhellenic games were religious celebrations as well as athletic competitions; as a result, Pindar’s poetry tends to mingle religious and athletic imagery. One theme of these poems is that perfecting the human body and winning an athletic victory are supreme acts of worship. The idea behind this value is that, in seeking physical perfection, people honor the perfect gods by trying to imitate them. For this reason, the athletic victory may be viewed as the winner’s sacrifice to the gods. The poet’s song is also represented as a religious act in the poem’s celebrating the victory and making it immortal. Finally, Pindar thought that the euphoria felt after success in the Panhellenic games was as close as human beings would ever come to the bliss eternally enjoyed by the Olympian gods. Even if only for a moment, therefore, athletic victory elevates humanity to the divine level. Glorification of the victor in these poems aims at glorification of the gods.

These values were shared more frequently by the Greek aristocracy than by the common people. To a large extent, the aristocratic nature of Pindar’s poetry reflects the poet’s own upbringing. Pindar’s family claimed ties to the royal families of Sparta, Cyrene, and Thera. Pindar inherited a priesthood and had clear aristocratic sympathies. As a result of his family’s wealth, he was able to travel freely. He studied in Athens under the musicians and poets Apollodorus and Agathocles. When Pindar was a young man, the lyric poetry of Ionia was just beginning to be widely imitated in Athens. Pindar united this lyrical and highly polished style with the Doric taste in choral poems, producing a form of poetry that embodies the intricacy of lyric poetry and the majesty of the choral song. Pindar’s language, too, was a mixture of Doric elements (as was nearly all Greek choral poetry), epic forms found in the authors Homer and Hesiod (both eighth century b.c.e.), and his own native dialect.

The poems included in the epinikia are either written in strophic form (with the same meter for each verse) or composed of three-verse units. The latter structure is slightly more common and is similar to the choral songs of Greek tragedy. Each three-verse unit consists of a strophe (a “turning,” because, as these lines were being sung, the chorus would turn), an antistrophe (a “turning backwards” because the chorus would then reverse its direction), and an epode (an “end song” that brought the unit to a close and was sung by the chorus from its original position). Pindar’s epinician poems consist of any number of three-verse units, depending upon the importance of the victory and the nobility of the victor.

The forty-five poems of the epinikia vary somewhat in structure, but they have certain organizational similarities to one another. Usually, after a brief introduction on the theme of excellence or human achievement, Pindar quickly mentions the victor, the festival at which he has won his victory, and the event. Praise for the individual’s success frequently develops into praise for the victor’s family, city, or patron deities. If the victor’s family was particularly distinguished, Pindar may introduce legends connected with those gods whom the family claimed as ancestors. Rarely, however, does Pindar ever tell a myth in its entirety. In most cases, he makes only brief, sometimes obscure, allusions to a story that everyone in the audience could have been expected to know. There are a number of moral maxims, scattered through the typical ode; sometimes the maxims were only loosely connected to the subject at hand. On a few occasions, Pindar feels free to discuss his own life and the art of poetry that has produced his ode. In these cases, the patron’s triumph may be linked directly to the immortal nature of the poet’s song.

A number of themes appear repeatedly in the epinikia. Important is the theme dealing with the quality of human excellence. In keeping with the poet’s aristocratic values, Pindar regarded excellence as an innate quality that could never be learned. For example, in Olympian Ode 9, lines 100-104, he says,

That which is best by nature is best of all.Many men have been eager to win glorythrough skills that they have learned. But whatGod has not given is best passed over in silence.

In the Olympian Ode 10 (lines 20-21), Pindar speaks of the man who “is born to natural excellence” while, in Olympian Ode 13 (line 13), he says that “It is impossible to hide intrinsic character.” Inborn excellence, the poet says in Nemean Ode 3 (lines 40-42), matters most of all. One who has merely learned a skill is on uncertain ground and will never be sure of success.

To reinforce the theme of innate human excellence, Pindar introduces a variety of images associating humanity’s achievement with the gleaming light of the gods. Such images as the sheen of light on rippling water, the warm glow of gold, the flash of a thunderbolt, and the burst of a volcano are introduced by Pindar to provide a visual parallel to his notion of supreme athletic accomplishment. One of the most famous of these images appears at the beginning of Olympian Ode 1 (lines 1-6).

Best of all things is water. But gold, like a fireblazing at night, is prized among mortal wealth.And so, my heart, if you would sing of games,know that there is no star in the empty heavensmore vibrant than the sun, nor any contest more worthyof your song than Olympia.

In this passage, as occurs frequently in Pindar’s poetry, the subject seems to shift from line to line. However, one unifying theme—the glory of light—holds the poem together and serves to symbolize the human glory that the poet’s patron has won through his victory.

A second theme that appears repeatedly in the epinikia is Pindar’s effort to provide a true account of the gods’ deeds. This true account is often set in contrast to the many false and barbaric legends that Pindar has heard. Unlike many of the Greek poets, Pindar views the gods as morally superior to human beings and incapable of the crimes and injustices that others attribute to them. In Olympian Ode 1 (lines 41-58), for instance, he rejects the traditional forms of the myth of Pelops, in which that hero was said to have been slaughtered by his own father and his flesh served up in a banquet to the gods. “I cannot attribute such gluttony to the blessed gods,” Pindar concludes. “I am repelled.” In Olympian Ode 9 (lines 35-49), Pindar rejects the ancient myths that depict Heracles as doing battle with the Olympian gods and says,

Cast away, O lips, such stories from me! To insult the gods is mere sophistry—hateful to me!— and to boast beyond measure is akin to madness. Do not repeat such rumors. Let the gods be seen as free of all hostility and discord.

The central goal of a Pindaric poem is to present the true account both of the patron’s victory and of the glory of the Olympian gods.

Bibliography

Boeke, Hanna. The Value of Victory in Pindar’s Odes: Gnomai, Cosmology, and the Role of the Poet. Boston: Brill, 2007. Discusses ideas about the nature of the universe that are based on gnomai, or “wisdom sayings,” and how these cosmological concepts influence the presentation of praise in Pindar’s odes.

Burnett, Anne Pippin. Pindar. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2008. Focuses on the depiction of fragments of mythology in Pindar’s odes to Greek athletes. Argues that these fragments were a means by which dancers could bring an experience of another world to guests attending the athletes’ victory banquets.

Currie, Bruno. Pindar and the Cult of Heroes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Study of Greek culture and religion, focusing on the hero cult in the fifth century b.c.e. Provides a close reading of five of Pindar’s odes to demonstrate how they reflect the era’s religious ideas about heroes.

Hubbard, Thomas Kent. The Pindaric Mind: A Study of Logical Structure in Early Greek Poetry. New York: Brill, 1985. Provides criticism and interpretation of the epinicia; broadens the discussion to explore the issue of thought and structure in archaic Greek poetry as a whole. Includes a bibliography.

Lefkowitz, Mary R. First-Person Fictions: Pindar’s Poetic “I.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. A rhetorical analysis of the epinicia, focusing upon the poet’s image of self and how that image is conveyed. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Race, William H. Pindar. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997. A good starting place for a study of Pindar’s poetry. Contains a summary of all that is known about Pindar’s life. Discusses Greek athletics and the legacy of Pindar. Part of the Loeb Classic Library series.

Steiner, Deborah. The Crown of Song: Metaphor in Pindar. London: Duckworth, 1986. Studies the imagery in Pindar’s poetry. Includes an analysis of metaphors concerning plants and animals and a treatment of Pindar’s use of Greek legends. Discusses the athletic metaphor in the epinicia.