Pindar Pythian 11, for Thrasydaios Winner Boys’ Stadion

Pindar Pythian 11 for Thrasydaios of Thebes,

Winner of Boys’ Stadion

Translated by Steven J. Willett

This superb vase shows Aegisthus killing Agamemnon with Clytemnestra driving him from behind and Orestes gesturing against the murder.

Note 1: The central drama of this ode, sometimes called a “little Oresteia,” is a narrative of Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon. The story is recounted with almost Aeschylean power in ring composition that sharply contrasts with the renowned success of the victor and his family. This explains why Pindar in Antistrophe 3 questions his reasons for veering from the straight road of encomium into the Atreus family tragedy. The explanation, in the end, comes down to economics.

Note 2: I used the Alexandrian metrical scansion from Pindaro Le Pitiche, ed. Bruno Gentili (Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, 1998). This scans the strophe and antistrophe in 6 lines (opposed to 5 lines in the standard version) and the epode in 6 lines (with 6 lines in the standard version). The analysis of the metrical cola also differs from the standard analysis. Reading the first ring triad may be somewhat difficult because it runs continuously from beginning to the end without a full syntactical break. I’ve tried to make it as readable and fluid as possible.

Note 3: The stadion was a running event in the Ancient Olympic Games and the other Panhellenic Games. Its main event was gymnikos agon (γυμνικὸς ἀγών “nude competition”).

Name explanations by ring strophe: str. 1 Semele and Ino are the daughters of Kadmos and Harmonia; the mother of Herakles is Alkmene; Melia is the mother of Teneros and Ismenos by Apollo; Loxias is the cult name of Apollo in his prophetic guise. ant. 1 Ismenion is the temple of Apollo named for his son Ismenos, famous for prophesy; Themis occupied the Delphic throne before Apollo; the third garland is probably the third Pythian victory of his family; Pindar places Agamemnon’s palace at Amyklai in Laconia. str. 2 his father was slain = Agamemnon. ant. 2 Euripos is the strait between Attika and Euboia; an offense most hateful is adultery. str. 3 the prophetic maiden is Kassandra; Strophios is Pylades’ father, king of Phokis, and Pylades was a friend of Orestes. ep. 3 Puthonikos may be an epithet of a Pythian victor.

Daughters of Kadmos, Semele, neighbor of Olympians, Str. 1

and Ino Leukothea,

sharing the chamber of the Neread sea nymphs,

go with Herakles’ most nobly-born

mother to join Melia at the sanctuary of golden tripods,

the treasury that Loxias honored above all

and named the Ismenion, the true seat of prophets, Ant. 1

O daughters of Harmonia,

there even now he calls the native host

of heroines to gather together

so you may loudly sing holy Themis, Pytho and greatest

true-judging center of earth on the edge of evening

in honor of seven-gated Thebes Ep. 1

and the struggle at Kirrha,

where Thrasydaios enfamed the hearth

of his fathers casting on it the third garland,

having won in the bountiful fields of Pylades,

the guest-friend of Laconian Orestes.

Whom, indeed, as his father was slain by Klutaimestra’s Str. 2

mighty hands, nurse Arsinoa

carried away from her direful treachery 

when with hoary bronze she drove Kassandra,

Dardanian Priam’s daughter, along with Agamemnon’s

soul, to the shadowy bank of Acheron–

that ruthless woman. Was it then Iphigeneia’s Ant. 2

sacrifice at Euripos, far from homeland,

that grated her to incite her heavy-handed wrath?

Or overcome by another bed

nightly sleeping together debauched her? For young wives

an offense most hateful and impossible to hide

from others’ tongues; Ep. 2

citizens are scandalmongers.

For wealth sustains envy matching it;

he who breathes meekly rumbles unnoticed.

Atreus’ heroic son himself died

coming at last to famous Amyklai,

and slew the prophetic maiden, when for Helen’s sake Str. 3

Trojan houses, visited with fire, he ravaged

of their affluence. The young boy, though, reached

at distance his aged friend, Strophios, 

who dwelt at the foot of Parnassos; but at last with Ares

he slew his mother and laid Aigithos low in gore.

Was I, O friends, whirled offtrack by a forking road, Ant. 3

having travelled down a straight path

before then, or did some wind throw me

off my sailing course, like a skiff at sea?

Muse, it’s your task, if you agreed on payment to hire

your voice for silver, to stir it up this way or that,

either to his father Puthonikos Ep. 3

or now to Thrasydaios,

for their joyfulness and renown are ablaze.

They were victorious of old with their chariots

and from the famous contests at Olympia

captured swift radiance with their horses,

and at Pytho entering the foot race put to shame Str. 4

the Hellenic host

with their speed. May I long for blessings from god,

seeking what’s possible at my age.

For finding that in a city the middle estate has flourished

with longer prosperity, I censure the lot of tyrranies.

I strain for shared excellence; envious men are rebuffed. Ant. 4

But if a man winning the peak

and dwelling in peace has escaped

dreadful insolence, he would reach a shore

nobler than black death, to his sweetest offspring

giving best of possessions, the grace of a good name.

That grace makes Iphikles’ son Ep. 4

Iolaos known widely

for praise in hymns, and mighty Kastor,

and you, lord Polydeukes, sons of the gods:

one day dwelling at your homes in Therapna,

and the next day in Olympus.