a touch of Euhemerism, it is introduced, however, not to eliminate the marvellous, but merely to help the substitution of one marvel for another. On the other hand, the poet is not concerned for the moral effect of the myth on those who hear it; in this respect his own version is no improvement; it is the dignity and decorum of the gods—as he conceives these—which he is anxious to vindicate. In other words, his rejection of scandalising myths springs from an instinct of religious reverence; it is not based on moral grounds; it is an earnest expression of the Greek repugnance to δυσφημία, or, in his own phrase, of the ἀδινον δάκος κακαγοριᾶν, in regard to the highest beings whom he can imagine. "It is seemly (ἐοικός) to speak fair things of deities." "To revile the gods is a hateful work of poet's skill[1]."
§ 7. I referred above to certain further elements which are blended in Pindar with the popular form of the Hellenic faith. The chief of these is a mystic doctrine of the soul's destiny after it has left the body. After death, the guilty soul pays penalty for all sins committed "in this realm of Zeus"; there is a judge who tries them, "pronouncing sentence ἐχθρᾷ ἀνάγκᾳ, by a dread necessity," under a law which puts inexorable constraint upon his compassion[2]. "Those who have had the courage to be steadfast thrice in this world, and thrice in the world of spirits, and to keep their souls utterly from wrong, ascend by the path of Zeus to the tower of
