"this, they say, is the sorest pain—that one who hath sense of noble things should perforce turn his feet away from them[1]." The Theban poet quotes this as a well-known saying. Thebes was the scene of that banquet in 479 B.C. at which, as Herodotus relates, the Persian exclaimed to his fellow-guest, "This is the most cruel pang that man can bear—to have much insight, but power over nothing[2]." May not Pindar have been thinking of the same story, which had become a proverb for his native city?
§ 9. Pindar could not be one of the self-effacing poets. The conditions of his art, in those lofty hymns which celebrate victories consecrated by religion, demanded that he should come forward as the inspired envoy of the gods. If he magnifies his office, it is because the part which he fills is not only that of the minstrel; it is also closely allied to the function of the priest and of the seer (μάντις). We are always on dangerous ground in seeking illustrations for Greek things from non-Hellenic sources; but, with due reservations, it would not be improper to suggest an analogy between the didactic element in Pindar and the same element in Hebrew Prophecy. The personal character of Pindar is more surely indicated by the spirit of his work than by particular sentiments which occur in
