forms of poetry which he cultivated may be described in his own words. It was—φόρμιγγά τε ποικιλόγαρυν καὶ βοὰν αὐλῶν ἐπέων τε θέσιν | συμμίξαι πρεπόντως: "meetly to blend the cithern's various voice, and the sounding flutes, and verses set thereto" (Ol. iii. 8). And so the teacher of the chorus, whose duty was to superintend the choral rehearsals of an ode, is called γλυκὺς κρατὴρ ἀγαφθέγκτων ἀοιδᾶν (Ol. vi. 91), one who "sweetly tempers resounding strains"; who sees that the flutes do not overpower the cithern, or either the words, but that the several elements are blended in a harmonious whole. Compare Ol. xiv. 17, Λυδίῳ γὰρ Ἀσώπιχον ἐν τρόπῳ | ἔν τε μελέταις ἀείδων ἔμολον: "I have come [to Orchomenus], hymning Asopichus in Lydian mood, by voices of ripe skill"; literally, "in the Lydian mood, and by aid of practisings": where ἐν Λυδίῳ τρόπῳ refers to the poet's composition, and ἐν μελέταις to the rehearsals of the chorus. This point is missed by translating μελέταις simply "strains"—a sense to which it surely cannot be reduced. We have some glimpses of the long technical development through which, before Pindar's day, Greek lyric poetry had passed; as in the reference to the improvement of the dithyramb (Ol. xiii. 18); to the πολυκέφαλος νόμος said to have been invented by Olympus or Crates (κεφαλᾶν πολλᾶν νόμον, Pyth. xii. 23); to the ὕμνου τεθμὸς Ὀλυμπιονίκας (Ol. vii. 88); and in the contrast between the καλλίνικος ὁ τριπλόος,—the so-called "song of Archilochus," with the
Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/79
