Pindar and Anacreon/Pindar/Pythian Odes/12
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
As from the triple virgin's head,
By dragon locks encompass'd round,
She heard the voice, ere life had fled,
Elaborate a mournful sound;
When Perseus' valiant arm had slain15
The third part of the sister train;
And whelm'd beneath her people's grave,
Seriphus bosom'd in the wave;
Obscuring, by the foul disgrace,
Phorcys' imperishable race;20
When he to Polydectes brought
The festal gift with ruin fraught:
Who long his mother Danae held
Captive in wedlock's chain compell'd,
Bearing the head that show'd Medusa's beauteous face. 2925
He who is call'd in legends old
The offspring of self-fallen gold.
But when from each laborious deed
Her much-loved hero she had freed,
The virgin goddess made to sigh30
The flute's sonorous melody;
That soon as left the mournful note
Euryale's rapacious throat,
Her instrument's shrill sounds might flow
In tones of imitative wo.35
But when she deign'd the heavenly art
For mortal pleasure to impart,
She bade the high and glorious strain
The name of many heads retain,
Memorial of that stubborn fight40
Which roused the adverse people's might. 42
Such as with dulcet voice proceeds
From slender brass and vocal reeds;
Which near the Graces' temple spring,
Where festal choirs exult and sing, 45
To witness in Cephisus' grove [2]
The bands in measured cadence move.
What bliss soe'er to man is known,
Laborious efforts gain alone.
Such as the god will crown to-day, 50
Or brighten with to-morrow's ray.
Though fix'd th' irrevocable doom,
Yet soon or late the time shall come [3]
That either cheats th' expecting mind,
Or leaves its wishes far behind. 55
- ↑ 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 uttering its separate lamentation, which was imitated in a separate strain. - ↑ The river Cephisus empties itself into the lake Copais, here designated by Καφισις, a nymph sprung from that river.
- ↑ This moral conclusion arises naturally from the subject, as we are informed by the scholiast that Midas gained the victory against his expectations, since his pipe became broken in the contest.