PREFACE.
The translations of Pindar's Epinicia now published have been made at different times, and for the most part have been long lying by, through want of leisure on my part to revise them finally for the press. In the course of reading Pindar for many years past with pupils, I have often been compelled to complain of the unsatisfactory renderings which are given in commentaries; and so, with at least a strong desire to do better, I have been in the habit of attempting occasionally the careful and close translation of an entire ode. By such experiments from time to time repeated the work has grown up, as it were, from small beginnings. I think an accurate translation of an author so very difficult as Pindar will be of use to students; and I do not know that, under the circumstances mentioned above, it is necessary to add a word on the question how far translations are or are not serviceable to the cause of sound scholarship. Pindar may be called in some
