THE TWELFTH PYTHIAN ODE.
TO MIDAS OF ACRAGAS, ON HIS VICTORIES IN THE MUSICAL CONTEST, GAINED IN THE TWENTY-FOURTH AND TWENTY-FIFTH PYTHIAD.
ARGUMENT.
The poet in this beautiful ode first invokes the city of Agrigentum, personifying her under the character of a goddess.—Proceeds to describe the invention of the flute, which he attributes to Minerva, who by its shrill tones imitated the cry of the Gorgon slaughtered by Perseus.—He then expatiates on its various other uses, in exciting the combatants to the field, &c.—Concludes with a highly poetical reflection on the mutability of human fortune.
Thee, shining on the well-built mountain's head,
Fairest of mortal cities, I entreat,
Proserpina's imperial seat,
By Acragas' sheep-feeding banks outspread,
With gods' and men's propitious love, 5
Accept this crown from Pytho's plain,
Won by illustrious Midas' strain,
And him who conquers Greece approve,
In that high art Athena found of old,
Which mimick'd in their howl the Gorgon sisters bold. [1] 14 10
- ↑ The name Athena, ἡ διαπλεξαισα, the weaver, in its literal sense, may probably be deduced from אטו, filum texuit. The origin of the Gorgonian strain is here finely related. The triple monster surrounded by its dragon locks is described by Æschylus: (P. V. 796, seq.:)—
πελας δ᾽ αδελφαι τωνδε τρεις καταπτεροι,
δρακοντομαλλοι Γοργονες, βροτοστυγεις
The names of the three Gorgon sisters were Stheno, Euryale, Medusa: and each head is afterward described (v. 35, &c.) as
