IX.
FOR EPHARMOSTOS OF OPOUS,
WINNER IN THE WRESTLING-MATCH.
The date of this ode is uncertain. Its last line seems to imply that it was sung at a banquet at Opons, after crowning the altar of Aias Oïleus, tutelar hero of the Lokrians. From the beginning we gather that on the night of the victory at Olympia Epharmostos' friends had sung in his honour the conventional triple strain of Archilochos—
(ὦ καλλίνικε χαῖρ᾽ ἄναξ Ἡρακλέης
αὐτός τε κ᾽ Ἰολαὸς, αἰχμητὰ δύο.
τήνελλα καλλίνικε)
to which perhaps some slight additions had been made, but not by Pindar.
The strain of Archilochos sung without music at Olympia, the triple resonant psalm of victory, sufficed to lead to the hill of Kronos Epharmostos triumphing with his comrade friends: but now with darts of other sort, shot from the Muses' far-delivering bow, praise Zeus of the red lightning, and Elis' holy headland, which on a time Pelops the Lydian hero chose to be Hippodameia's goodly dower.
And shoot a feathered arrow of sweet song Pythowards, for thy words shall not fall to the ground when thou tunest the throbbing lyre to the praise of the wrestlings of a man from famous Opous, and celebratest her and her son. For Themis and her noble daughter Eunomia the Preserver have made her their own, and she flourisheth in excellent deeds both at Kastalia and beside Alpheos' stream: whence come the choicest of all crowns
