Pindar (Morice)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
Great as was the contemporary success of Pindar's poetry, unanimously as the ancient and modern world alike have admitted his claim to rank among the most famous names of literary history, it may be doubted whether his works were ever really popular in any age but his own. It would be easy to prove by a long list of extracts from Greek and Roman writers, especially the latter, that his was a great name in the classical world: but it is surprising how seldom these laudations imply any real familiarity with the writings which are their subject, or even prove that their authors had ever read a single poem of the Theban bard. "The thunderous utterance of Pindar," "the Theban trumpet-blast," "the swan of Dirce," and so forth, were to them simply convenient periphrases for Lyric poetry in general, and their praises of his genius are expressed chiefly in a lavish employment of such epithets as "divine" or "sublime" or "inimitable." One or two Pindaric saws did indeed find their way into the commonplaces of ancient literature, and are quoted again and again by learned and unlearned writers of every period. And certain obvious merits and characteristics of his poetry were pointed out by every professor of literature in the schools of Greece or Rome, and furnished a supply of materials for a panegyric, which any writer who chose could work up and expand at pleasure. But we find nothing to make us believe that Pindar was widely read among men of average culture among the ancients. When a poet is really popular in any age, the general literature of the age is certain to supply proofs of his popularity. Quotations, intended or unintended, from his works abound in the pages not only of rhetoricians and poets, but of philosophers and sober historians. The general interest in him is shown by unprofessional criticisms on particular details—often original and sometimes permanently valuable—which meet us from time to time in the most unexpected quarters. Nothing of this kind happens in the case of Pindar. Minute students like Dionysius of Halicarnassus[1] compile elaborate lists of the merits which a close and painful analysis has revealed to them in his writings. Rhetorical men of letters like Quintilian[2] favour the general public with a select edition of these catalogues, removing a portion of their technicalities, and presenting the residuum in a lively and striking form. Put this is nearly all. Even the oft-quoted panegyric of Horace[3] upon Pindar, with its famous images of the "mountain-torrent swollen by winter rains," and the "swan borne aloft by shifting breezes to the cloud-fields beyond," proves only that Horace had grasped the current idea of Pindar's merits, and was acquainted with the Alexandrian classification of his poems. Horace's own poetry owes much to Greek lyrists of another school—to Alcæus, and Sappho, and Archilochus—but little or nothing to Pindar. And the rare occurrence and universal failure of any attempt to revive the forms of Pindaric poetry in Latin literature needs more explanation than is supplied by Horace's parallel between the imitator of Pindar and the rash Icarus "soaring on wings of wax." No risk of failure would have deterred the poets of Rome from imitating a really popular Greek classic. Homer's name stood higher with them than even Pindar's; but Homer was popular, and therefore he was imitated.
We need not wonder that then, as now, the fame of Pindar should have exceeded the popularity of his poetry. Whatever elements of permanent value that poetry may contain, it contains also, beyond question, much which could have little value for any but its original audience. In so far as it appealed to sentiments which were peculiar to its own age, and which succeeding ages were neither able nor desirous to revive, it diminished its power of interesting and attracting future readers. That kind of genius which consists in an intense perception of the spirit of its age, and in responding promptly to its demands, tends often actually to disqualify its possessor for posthumous popularity. And having found that Pindar possessed this kind of genius in an extraordinary degree, that he was able and willing to throw his whole soul into the expression of thoughts and the satisfaction of aspirations which were the very life and breath of his own generation, but of his own generation only, we see precisely in this fact the explanation at once of his success and of his failure. Over the minds of his contemporaries his influence was unequalled; but the very qualities which attracted them, repelled—and still repel—the men of other ages.
Still more does Pindar surrender his prospects of an abiding popularity, when—as sometimes happens—he addresses himself deliberately, not merely to the peculiar spirit of his times, but to developments of it which were limited to a select few in even a contemporary audience. How could poetry remain popular which its author designed to be
"Of meaning to the wise, but to the horde
Dark riddles"?[4]
Yet we find, amid all our poet's obscurities, passages which seem to demand immortality,—thoughts into which all minds can enter, passion which all hearts can feel, beauties which all eyes can see. Soon, it is true, the spirit of his age reasserts its influence: and the theme which was inspiring him with poetry that should have been "a joy for ever," is abandoned in favour of some topic of absorbing interest to himself and to his audience, but of none to "them that come after." Yet an impression remains of amazement at the powers which have for a moment been revealed: and as we realise what Pindar's poetry might have been, we scarcely venture a criticism on what he has chosen that it should be.
The quality in that poetry which seems to have most impressed the ancients, is one of which a modern reader and a foreigner can scarcely judge. Nor, probably, should we be inclined to accept their estimate of its importance. They praised him chiefly as "the most sonorous of poets." [5] Such a quality was no doubt all-important as long as his poetry retained its original connection with Music and the Dance, but hardly longer; and as it must necessarily disappear in the process of translation, it cannot be a recommendation of the Odes to an English reader. Some idea, however, of Pindar's mastery over the mere form of poetry can be derived even from translations. His extraordinary rapidity in conveying his conceptions to his audience, the ingenuity with which he finds—if we may borrow an expression of his own—the shortest cut from one thought to another;—these, though they may begin by perplexing us, will assuredly end in pleasing us. Nor can we fail, in the end, to admire his fearless grasp of details from which an ordinary poet would shrink, the calm confidence with which he sets himself to present the most prosaic and unpromising facts in new and striking lights, so assured of his power to be sublime, that he has no fear of a lapse into the grotesque. We cannot but smile to hear a cloak described as "a warm specific against cold winds," [6] or a pot of oil as "the olive's produce pent in fire-scorched earth;" [7] but where we see incongruity, Pindar's audience saw sublimity, and there is something heroic in the poet's confidence that so it would be. The same may be said of many another daring phrase in his Odes, as where he speaks of smoke that "kicks" [8] against the sky, or personifies an apology as "Excuse, the child of Afterthought," [9] or bids Hiero "forge his tongue on the anvil of truth," [10] or describes the remembrance of his own ancestry as a "whetstone shrilling at his tongue." [11] A poet who dares to speak thus, shows a confidence of his power to make language produce a desired effect on his audience which must command admiration, if the result proves that such confidence was well founded. And in the case of Pindar, his contemporary reputation supplies this proof.
Pindar's rapidity is not an unmixed advantage. Often, before his readers have grasped one thought, he hurries them to another and yet another, so that—like travellers whirled in an express train through fine scenery—they receive impressions which are neither clear nor permanent. But sometimes he presents an idea so vividly that it cannot fail to arrest attention; and in such cases, the rapidity with which he produces his effect is a distinct element in our enjoyment of it. Thus, in the Fifth Olympian, in his picture of the new settlement at Camarina, he makes a few brief phrases serve for pages of description, and the rapidity with which the details are suggested only makes the impression more distinct. And sometimes the effect of a particular scene is heightened by contrast with the hurry of surrounding passages, as, in the Sixth Olympian, the beautiful details in the picture of the deserted babe Iamus are set off by the rapid hints of the confusion in the palace, the hurried departure of Æpytus for the Delphian oracle, and the scene of triumph and congratulation at his return. Further, in the moral and didactic portions of his Odes, Pindar's power of expressing ideas rapidly appears in the form of a sententious terseness, well calculated to arrest the attention and to impress the imagination of his readers. Thoughts which are fine in themselves appear yet more imposing when embodied in language concise and pregnant as the utterances of an oracle. And even where his thought is trivial, it is often expressed with a felicitous point and brevity that present truisms as epigrams, and fallacies as at worst ingenious paradoxes.
The accounts of particular Odes in our previous chapters will, it is to be hoped, have convinced the reader that mere command of style is not the only merit of our author's poetry. His conception of the character of Jason[12] is surely at once original and noble, and it is developed through a succession of scenes with a consistency and dexterity which imply no small dramatic talent. Pindar has been charged with exhibiting in his poetry a certain coldness, and want of human tenderness,—not indeed peculiar to him among ancient poets, and to some extent a consequence of the nature of his subjects, but still certain, more or less, to repel a modern reader. Yet the author of 'The Christian Year'—no mean judge, surely, on such a point—in devoting no less than three of his Oxford "Prælectiones" to prove that Pindar's is in the highest sense a genuine poetic nature, dwells with emphasis on the poet's sympathy with human life in its successive phases, his sense of the charm of infancy, the grace of youth, the vigour of manhood, the serenity of age. Nor certainly is Pindar blind to the more pathetic aspects of humanity—its transitoriness, its sorrows, its ignorance, its moral frailty—and he is ever eager to discover a reflection which may console the sufferer.
"What are we, great or lowly? Creatures of a day!
Man's but a phantom dream. Yet in the gracious ray
Poured from on high, his life puts joy and glory on." [13]
"Hiero, thou know'st—for known to thee is all tradition's lore—
How, for each blessing gods bestow, they add a double share of woe:
Fools may not brook its weight, but wise men find
The threatening cloud is silver-lined." [14]
"What is gone
(Came it of right, or maugre right) is none,
No! not Time's self that brought it, can reverse!
Yet all may be forgot in happier hours;
For blessings new destroy the primal curse." [15]
He loves to exhibit the compassion and forgiveness of gods for sins of oblivion or heedless rashness.[16] Filial and family love is elevated above the sphere of physical instinct, and becomes a divine inspiration, which can triumph over the fear of death, and even over death itself.[17] With a grief too great for consolation, the poet will at least express a sympathy—
Ah me! the speechless woe I felt." [18]—(S.)
Yet no doubt the usual tone of these Odes is jubilant rather than pathetic, and occasionally the poet's exultation indulges itself in a sort of grim humour at the expense of a defeated rival, which might expose him to a charge of heartlessness. We do not quite like to think of Pindar's audience laughing over his picture of the baffled competitor, slinking home by back lanes to avoid the jeering of his comrades;[19] and prefer the morality which he elsewhere inculcates, the lesson of the Ancient Prophet of the Sea—
"Who bade mankind full praise bestow
E'en on the prowess of a noble foe." [20]
A similar tone of sarcasm may perhaps be detected in a passage of the Seventh Isthmian, which tells how Memnon and Hector and many another champion were "directed to the house of Persephone,"—i. e., in plain terms, slain—"by Achilles." But we cannot be quite sure how the phrase would strike a Greek audience. The sense of the ludicrous varies from age to age, and one generation is amused where another is impressed.
The profusion of metaphor in Pindar's poetry is remarkable, and his analogies are often happy in the extreme. Sometimes, however, they strike us as strained, and not unfrequently (it must be owned) as commonplace. Some notion of his resources in this respect might be conveyed by a list of the objects to which from time to time he compares his own poetry. Among them are flowers, dew, honey, wine, gold, ivory, coral, palaces, merchandise, winds, paths, sandals, chains, and so forth ad libitum. He speaks of himself, in figures drawn from the sports which he describes, as wrestling with his theme, as hurling his dart beyond those of all competitors, as launching his quoit fairly without overstepping the "touch-line." Now he is shooting arrows that strike but never wound, now he is rearing a storehouse filled with costly treasures, now he is outdoing the statuary's art by the creation of images that move and breathe, now he is ploughing the fields of the Muses, now he is preparing medicine for the athlete's hurts or a bath to refresh his weary limbs. Much of all this, no doubt, is trite now, and was not new then. Pindar is fond of asserting his originality, but probably his claim refers rather to the employment of his materials than to the selection of them. Still, if the quality of his metaphors does not always impress us, we cannot but be struck by their mere profusion, and the boldness with which he handles them.
The rapidity of language, which is so marked a feature in Pindar's poetry, by no means proves a corresponding rapidity in its production. Pindar has sometimes been represented as a sort of improvisatore, dashing off his Odes at lightning pace, with much natural and acquired skill, but little or no reflection. Such a view, however, though it has been maintained by competent critics, seems at once unsupported by evidence, and improbable in itself.
It cannot be proved by appealing to the amount of poetry produced by our author, and inferring from this the rapidity of its production. Much as he undoubtedly produced, it may be calculated with some probability that the extant Odes amount to at least a sixth of all his published poetry.[21] But let us suppose the total mass far greater than this, and allow that, for every poem catalogued by the industrious librarians of Alexandria, another may have existed of which all their research had failed to discover a trace. Still the probable amount will fall far short of that which many Greek authors, and notably the great Athenian dramatists, are estimated to have produced. Yet it has never been suggested that these authors sacrificed finish to rapidity of production. A long life, devoted solely to his art, would have surely afforded to a poet of Pindar's talents ample space for the composition, without undue pressure, of a very large number of Odes and Hymns and Dithyrambs. The mere extent of his poetry, then, proves nothing.
Again, if we consider the nature of a Choral Ode, and the manner of its production, it is a priori improbable that such works could have been composed on the spur of the moment. The mere necessity of writing with a view to the musical and spectacular effects of the composition would demand care and reflection,—unless, indeed, the poem was to be a mere libretto, which—as has been pointed out in the first chapter—was certainly not the case.
Or if we examine such occasional evidence as is contained in Pindar's actual Odes, there is little to support the theory of rapid production. The Odes were generally composed for celebrations held long after the victories which they commemorated. Sometimes the poet speaks, in one Ode, of another which he has temporarily laid aside, or which he has begun to plan, but which will not for some time be ready; and we gather, on the whole, that it was his practice to ponder over a theme, and to wait for inspiration, rather than to force it. One Ode was apparently produced on very short notice, and Pindar makes a merit of this, which he would hardly have done had it been his practice. Once at least, also, we find him designing and promising a particular Ode; and then, long after, sending the Ode promised with an apology for the delay. True, his apology at first sight bears out the view which is here questioned. "I forgot," he says; and it may doubtless be urged that a poet who spent much previous thought upon his poems would hardly forget in such a case. But it is not impossible that the excuse was a mere poetical artifice, designed to introduce certain protestations of friendship which are ingeniously attached to it. We can hardly imagine that a patron, whose commission had been really neglected, would be appeased by hearing that the poet had forgotten all about him. And on the whole it seems quite conceivable that the offence and the apology are equally mythical; that the Ode was never expected to follow immediately on its predecessor, but was commissioned for some later celebration of the victory; and that, in short, Pindar's protestations merely come to this,—"How could I leave such a triumph a single day unsung? To think that I should have gone on with my Pæans and my Dithyrambs, and only now be framing an 'Epinicium' for Agesidamus!" [22]
As to the admitted rapidity of Pindar's style, this seems to be absolutely without bearing on the question. That which reads quickly need not have been quickly written. On the contrary, where many ideas are conveyed in few words, the presumption is that the compression results from additional labour. Abruptness may be studied. A daring phrase may be the last result of a careful deliberation, and be introduced after anxious and repeated weighing of its probable effect. The unexpected desertion of a theme does not prove that the poet's fancy is really wandering free from the restraint of his judgment; it may result from that last refinement of art—the concealment of its presence.
The more we examine the apparent carelessness and freedom of Pindar's fancy, the more the certainty grows upon us that here are not the vagaries of improvisation, but the studied artlessness of a consummate artist. If he quits a topic abruptly, we find, on reflection, that he has not quitted it prematurely—not till it has served the purpose of its introduction. If in a chain of argument or narrative he seems to let drop an occasional link, the links in question are just those which the audience can spare; and their omission is sometimes an actual gain in point of vigour and suggestiveness. If he seems to ramble heedlessly into an alien topic, it appears in the end that the supposed digression has led him to the very point at which he has from the first been aiming. There are in most of these Odes passages whose obscurity, or abruptness, or extravagance, or. slightness of detail, might well seem the result of haste. But we find on examination that these are no unconscious lapses of a rhapsodist whose tongue outruns his thought. Not only is Pindar aware of the qualities of these passages, but he calls attention to them with an eagerness which is the only trace of naïveté displayed by him in the whole matter. He boasts that he is obscure—his poetry is meant to baffle "the general;" that he is abrupt—he cannot waste time in following "the beaten track." And if at times he makes an apology which is almost a boast for the vagaries of his genius, and protests that he has lost his way among the winding cross-roads of poesy, or has been swept from his theme like a vessel reeling amid the shifting gusts of a storm-wind, these professions of negligence will hardly impose upon a reader who observes that the poet sees his own irregularity, proclaims it, and profits by it—that the traveller is aware of his deviation from the path, and reaches home the sooner—that the vessel sets her sails to catch the side-winds, and is all the earlier in port.
One point, however, Pindar has in common with the Improvisatore. Each starts with, as it were, a ready-made assortment of thoughts, images, phrases, derived from early education in his profession, which supply the crude material of his poetry. Neither, if we may be allowed the figure, creates the threads of which he spins his web. But the Improvisatore cannot even pause to select his materials, or to ponder on their arrangement; he must take them as he can get them, and dispose them in such order as the impression of the moment suggests. This is inevitable when the work is really being produced against time. Pindar, on the contrary, however he may affect to work without a plan, is master of his work from first to last; he exults in this mastery, and exercises it with all his might, grudging no labour and no thought which he can expend on its exercise. He may say, like Shakespeare's Antony, "I only speak right on;" but we can see that it is not so. His selection of his themes is deliberate; the form which he gives to them is all his own; and its originality is the result of conscious and even anxious self-criticism. Poetry which has been evolved with little thought, whatever the skill or genius of its author, gains little from a microscopic criticism. If its thoughts and its language are beautiful, its structure coherent and complete, these merits will reveal themselves to the full in its first impression upon the reader; and any defect in these points will be made, by a minute analysis, yet more apparent. Precisely the reverse is the case with Pindar's poetry. His finest thoughts and most felicitous phrases will not produce their maximum of possible effect till the reader has studied them in a variety of lights, till he has pondered on their immediate context, their relation to the leading ideas of the poem in which they occur, their appropriateness to particular circumstances of the occasion on which that poem was produced, the special memories and associations which they would suggest to an audience of Sicilians or Æginetans or Thebans. At first sight, again, an Ode of Pindar's exhibits but little trace of that astonishing internal structure which is revealed on a closer scrutiny—elements apparently the most incongruous, woven by mutual interpenetration and by subtle threads of connecting thought into a coherent and indissoluble whole. The more minute our scrutiny becomes, the more elaborate appears the structure which it reveals, and the more incredible do we find it that such a structure could result from hurried and unreflecting labour.
It is wholly impossible, within the limits of the present work, to attempt more than the most brief allusion to the light which the Odes of Pindar throw on the moral and theological ideas of his day. The reader who wishes to pursue this most interesting subject will find, in an admirable treatise by a modern German scholar,[23] a full and systematic exposition of the poet's Philosophy of Life in all its branches. He will find that it is possible to gather into a remarkably complete and coherent body of doctrine the numerous moral maxims and religious speculations which are scattered through the Pindaric Odes, composed though these were at varying intervals in the course of a long life. In this respect, as in others, Pindar's intellect seems to have reached its full growth prior to the production of his earliest extant poem. As an artist, his conception of his art, and the technical processes by which he produced his effects, were practically the same at every stage of his career—unmodified either by development from within, or by influences from without. As a theologian and a moralist, he seems in like manner to have adopted early, and once for all, a comprehensive and consistent theory, which remained thenceforth the background of his whole religious and ethical teaching.
Space only remains to indicate in a few words a single phase of this philosophy,—the view involved in it of success within an appropriate sphere as the true aim and ideal of every noble life.
Starting from the principle that deity is the highest and best conceivable state of existence, but a state which is unattainable to frail humanity, Pindar finds the summum bonum of man in the nearest practicable approximation to the divine state. Prowess and wisdom he considers as the two qualities which bring man nearest to the gods. Continual progress, then, in one or both of these respects, constitutes the perfection of a human life; and the zeal or ambition which prompts such progress, is a divinely implanted instinct or grace in every worthy human soul.
But this progress must consist, not in the acquisition from without of prowess or of wisdom, but in the development from within of such germs of these qualities—inherited, or at any rate innate—as exist in a man from his birth. To one man the gods who rule our destinies give capacities of prowess, to another capacities of wisdom; and these in different measure, and capable (in each case) of expansion up to a given limit, and no further. Legitimate ambition encourages a man to develop his peculiar gift up to this point; and another spiritual grace, discretion, enables him to recognise the limit, and to curb ambition within it.
In strong contrast with this, the only true progress is the attempt to win an artificial excellence by straining after those gifts of prowess or wisdom, which the gods withhold from the unworthy aspirant. Presumption in such a man takes the place of legitimate ambition, and urges him onward to a point at which infatuation is waiting to hurl him into destruction.
Such is the general outline of the doctrine. We pass to some of its special applications.
Athletic eminence is a special development of those capacities which are included under prowess. Not every man, therefore, may lawfully seek it; but to seek and to achieve it, proves that the seeker has found his true sphere, and is succeeding in it. The competitions at the great games furnish a test which distinguishes the born champion from the presumptuous charlatan. Concrete victories are, as it were, the fruits by which the tree is known. The gods are careful that the prizes shall fall to no unworthy aspirant. A victory, then, at Olympia or the Isthmus, proves that the winner has found his true sphere, and is exercising within it, at the prompting of a noble ambition, gifts of inborn prowess, which are daily bringing him towards the point where his nearest possible approximation to deity will be realised. Further let him not seek to press. "Seek not to become a god!" [24]
Other and similar capacities of progress are implied in the divine gifts of power and wealth. The culmination of power is kingship; and the ideal king is one whom legitimate ambition carries forward to the attainment of such greatness and magnificence as he may lawfully achieve, and whom, on reaching that point, discretion arrests, and occupies with the consolidation of his power, and the enjoyment of a cultured and dignified leisure. The capacities, again, which the gods give with the gift of wealth, are developed by a generous and public-spirited employment of that wealth; and equestrian victories are among the most conspicuous tokens that such a development is taking place, and that the lord of wealth, with the favour of heaven to back him, is making such approach as his lot allows towards the divine life.
Wholly apart from these, yet equally leading by another road in the direction of divine perfection, is the progress which Pindar considers to be his own especial duty, the development of his own especial gifts. This is the progress in wisdom, which—no more than prowess—can be obtained by unauthorised effort, however charlatans may persuade the foolish herd that they have obtained it. True poetic eminence stands to the gift of wisdom in much the same relation as athletic eminence to that of prowess. Neither is attainable save by special favour of heaven. To win either, a man must possess an inborn gift, must develop it under the influence of legitimate ambition into its due proportions, and must learn from discretion to know his limit and observe it. Convinced that such a gift has been bestowed on himself, Pindar regards his poetry as a sacred trust, which it should be the work of his life to improve by diligent and prudent use. To glorify worth, to condemn evil,—these are to him solemn duties, imposed upon him from his birth; to fail in them would be a disloyalty to the laws of his being. Zealously then, and with many a prayer for divine help, he strives to fulfil his trust. But with all his zeal he recognises a limit at which discretion must arrest him. He dares not "stain his speech" with boastful falsehood nor with seductive flattery; he dares not exalt human worth in terms which encroach upon the prerogatives of gods. Nor must his denunciations of evil carry him beyond his limit. "I saw the portion of the slanderer Archilochus," he cries—"I saw, and I held aloof!" Such is the ideal of the true poet's life, which Pindar strove to realise. And with it he contrasts the vain struggle of its spurious counterfeit towards successes which it can never achieve, its endeavour to substitute an artificial lore for the true poetic gift, the grossness of its flattery, the malice of its censures, and withal its pitiable failure. When all is done, what are the spurious pretenders, and what is the genuine poet whom they envy and assail? They, the loaded nets, dredging in deep waters;—he, the buoyant cork, unscathed by the brine! They, the paltry crows, chattering in pairs over their absurd pretensions;—he, the glorious eagle, soaring in lonely grandeur above their heads.
In the ancient legends of Greece, of which, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, all choric poetry as a matter of course availed itself, Pindar finds abundant materials for illustrating and enforcing his philosophy of life. The development into a truly noble life of inborn prowess impelled by legitimate ambition is sketched in the story of Pelops. The character of Jason shows us the same qualities, and calls our special attention to the discretion which should accompany them. Observance of the due "limit" is described as the crowning virtue of the Theban hero Iolaus. The lavish yet discreet employment of wealth and material prosperity is exemplified in Pindar's legend of the early settlers in Rhodes, and in many brief allusions to old-world worthies—Crœsus, Nestor, Sarpedon, Cinyras. The due development of inborn wisdom is traced in the myths of Iamus and Amphiaraus. On the other hand, Pindar finds in many a legend warnings against a misuse of natural gifts, or a presumptuous departure from a natural sphere. Ixion and Tantalus illustrate the ruin which attends a wrong and presumptuous use of prosperity; Asclepius perishes because he has used his gift of wisdom without discretion;—not content to heal the sick, he has raised the dead to life. These instances are but a few out of many. Pindar rarely misses any opportunity which the details of his legends offer, of calling attention to a point of his philosophy. The heroic qualities of his heroes are traced to their "inborn nature," their feats are performed at the bidding of "noble zeal," "high ambition;" if they fail, it is because they have miscalculated their measure, and discretion has not restrained ambition from degenerating into presumption.
The same doctrines are carried by Pindar into the sphere of politics. Holding that greatness is an inborn and inherited gift, he naturally sympathises with hereditary monarchies and aristocracies of birth, and is unwilling to see political power committed to a "greedy host" of plebeians. But he does not consider any form of government as wholly fatal to the development of political excellence. Even in a democracy inborn worth will assert itself and prosper; and Pindar always urges his aristocratic patrons to assert their superiority over the mob by a display of princely virtues and by lavish munificence and hospitality, never by grasping at political privileges, or appearing in the character of "saviours of society," to disturb the balance of a democratically constituted state. Pindar has little in common with such advocates of extreme oligarchical pretensions as the Megarian poet Theognis. He never exhorts a prince or a noble to regard the populace as a natural enemy, who should be overreached and repressed and ill-treated on principle. On the contrary, he applies his theory of "measure in all things" to teach to monarchs and aristocracies lessons against all undue assertion of their prerogative. An ideal ruling class, as he conceives it, is marked out for power by the possession of a natural influence and authority over inferior natures. Legitimate ambition develops this potential greatness into actuality, and discretion confines such ambition to its proper sphere, and guards against those abuses of power which provoke sedition, and often end in the disasters of a revolution.
But now—for we, too, must observe our "measure"—the time has come to take our leave of Pindar. We have learnt (it is to be hoped) to see in him something more than Voltaire's "poet of the prize-ring." We have formed some idea of the qualities which have earned him his fame—the dignity of his style, to which Gray alludes so finely:[25]—
"The pride and ample pinion
That the Theban eagle bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion
Through the azure deep of air,"—
its dazzling rapidity and force, sketched no less finely by a modern poetess:[26]—
"Bold,
Electric Pindar, quick as fear,
The race-dust on his cheeks, and clear
Slant startled eyes, that seemed to hear
The chariot rounding the last goal,
To hurtle past it in his soul."
We have recognised in him also the possession of other poetic gifts, with which his critics have not always credited him, and have seen that Pindar is no mere panegyrist, but the exponent of a philosophy of life which he genuinely believed it was his mission to proclaim to his contemporaries. If space permitted, it might be shown that Pindar, in his doctrines of "natural capacity" and "the due measure," anticipated some of the most characteristic and suggestive speculations of later Greek philosophy, and prepared men's minds for such a treatment of moral questions as we find in the 'Republic' of Plato or the 'Ethics' of Aristotle. But it would be hopeless within these limits even to hint at a discussion of these matters. And here we may close our survey of Pindar's life and works with a last quotation, showing us what the poet desired that his life and works should be, and what was the memory of himself that he would fain bequeath to later ages:—
"Grant me, O Jove! each crooked path to shun,
Simple and straight my honest race to run!
So may mine be
No name to tinge with shame my children's cheek!
Gold, lands, let others seek;
I ask an honoured grave,—the good to adorn,
And load the vile with scorn." [27]—(S.)
END OF PINDAR.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
- ↑ Dionys. p. 420 (Reiske's edition).
- ↑ De Inst. Or. x. i.
- ↑ Odes, iv. 2.
- ↑ Ol. ii. 85.
- ↑ Athenæus Deipn. xiii. 17, and many writers in the "Anthology."
- ↑ Ol. ix. 97.
- ↑ Nem. x. 35.
- ↑ Isthm. ii. 114.
- ↑ Pyth. v. 27.
- ↑ ib. i. 86.
- ↑ Ol. vi. 82.
- ↑ In the Fourth Pythian Ode: see chap. ix.
- ↑ Pyth. viii. 94.
- ↑ ib. iii. 80.
- ↑ Ol. ii. 15.
- ↑ Ol. vii. 45–50, 30, 77.
- ↑ Pyth. vi. 30–39; Nem. x. 75–90; Ol. viii. 79, 80.
- ↑ Isthm. vi. 37.
- ↑ Pyth. viii. 80–87.
- ↑ ib. ix. 97.
- ↑ By "published" is here meant, produced and performed at public or family gatherings.
- ↑ With a precisely similar artifice, Shakespeare's Duncan increases the effect of the honours which, at the earliest possible opportunity, he has lavished on Macbeth, by an affectation of shame at not having bestowed them sooner:—
"O worthiest cousin,
The sin of my ingratitude even now
Was heavy on me: thou art so far before,
That swiftest wing of recompense is slow
To overtake thee."—Macbeth, Act i. sc. 4. - ↑ Buchholz, Die sittliche Weltanschauung des Pindaros u. Æschylos. Leipzig: 1869.
- ↑ Ol. v. 56.
- ↑ Gray, Ode V., " The Progress of Poesy."
- ↑ Mrs E. B. Browning.
- ↑ Nem. viii. 35–39.