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THE ELEVENTH PYTHIAN ODE.


TO THRASYDÆUS, THE THEBAN, ON HIS VICTORY IN THE STADIC COURSE, GAINED WHEN A BOY, IN THE TWENTY-EIGHTH PYTHIAD.


ARGUMENT.

The poet begins this ode with an invocation to the deities of his country—Semele, Ino, and Alcmena—entreating their presence when the pomp of triumph is to be brought to the temple of Ismenian Apollo, and naming the field of conquest the rich plain of Pylades, he digresses to the story of his friend Orestes, and the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra.—Returns to his subject, commending the victor and his father on account of his numerous triumphs.—Declares his preference of the moderate but secure fortune which they enjoy to the unstable pomp by which tyrants are surrounded.—Concludes by citing the examples of Iolaus, son of Iphiclus, Castor, and Pollux.




Daughters of Cadmus! Semele the fair, [1]
Companion of th' Olympic train,
And Ino, now Leucothea, given to share
The couch of Nereids in the main;
Go with the mother of Alcides brave
To Melia's dark and sacred cave, [2]
Where lies the golden tripod's store,
To which unerring Loxias bore

  1. The opening of this ode affords another proof of the fondness with which Pindar alludes to the story of the daughters of Cadmus and Harmonia; Semele, now an assessor or companion of the gods, and Ino, deified as Leucothea, or Matuta, goddess of the morning, whose rites were only approached by freeborn matrons. (See [[../../Olympic Odes/2|Ol., ii.]]; Pyth., iii. and xi.)
  2. Melia was an ocean nymph, who became the mother of Ismenus and Tenerus by Apollo.