Page:The Theatre of the Greeks, a Treatise on the History and Exhibition of the Greek Drama, with Various Supplements.djvu/62

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44 THE TRAGIC CHORUS. — ARION. "unenvying citizens V' who are represented as taking part in the song of victory, are of course the Arcadians, tacitly opposed to the envious Syracusans, who slew Agesias three years after his victory, and who are implied in tlie statement that "envy impends from others envying him 2." That Pindar could not have been present at the Arcadian festival is clear from his calling ^neas "a messen- ger" {dyy6o<^) and "a despatch-staff" {o-kutoXt)); and that ^neas was not the KQ)/xa>B6^, but merely the ')(opohiha(TKaXo<i, is proved from this address to him. From the words immediately preceding: " Tlieba whose delightful water I will drink when I weave a varied strain for warriors^," it appears that Pindar was at Thebes when he was meditating another hymn on the Olympic victory of Agesias, which was to be performed at Syracuse under the auspices of Hiero ; for the avSpe^ alxt^r^rai undoubtedly refer to Agesias, who is described as distinguished by his military excellences no less than by his connexion with the prophetic clan of the lamidge*. In the other case, where the 'xppohihaorKoXo^ is addressed, namely, at the end of the second Isthmian ode, although Thrasybulus, the son of the deceased victor Xenocrates, is accosted in the second person in the preceding stanzas^, the concluding epode is directed to the trainer of the choir, Nicasippus, and the poet speaks as though all that had gone before was a message to be delivered to Thrasybulus, when Nicasippus next saw him. He says^: "let him not be prevented by the envious hopes of others from speaking his father's praise and publishing these hymns" (the second Isth- mian and another composed for recitation at Agrigentum), "for I have not made them to tarry in one place (like a statue, as he says elsewhere^) but to pass to and fro among men. Communicate (or impart®) these injunctions, Nicasippus, when you shall have come to my respected friend." From these passages it appears that the KcofjuoiBo^; of the Epini- cian Ode sometimes directly represented the person of the poet. 1 V. 7 : eTTLKvpaais d((>66vuv dcrruv iv IfiepTah dotSats. 2 V. 74 : [xQifios e/c 5' BXKwv Kpefiarai (fydoveovrwv. 3 vv. 85 — 87 : Qrj^av, rds epareivhu vdojp TTLO/xai, dpdpdcriv alxp-araiaL irXiKWU ttolkVKov VflVOV. We have maintained, in our note on this passage, that iriop-ai must be future here : and have compared Isthni. v. 74 : irlcrw acpe AipKas dyvov ildojp.

  • vv. 17, 18. ^ vv, I, 31. ^ vv. 43 — 48. 7 Nem. v. i.

^ dirovupLOv. The scholiast says it means duayvudi, "read," as in Soph. Fragm. 150: <jv 8' iv dpouoLai ypap.p.dTis}v irrvxas 'ix^v dtroveipLOV.