Victory Odes

numerous commonalty in subjection, solely by their fighting superiority.1 We must not lose sight of the transcendent importance of bodily vigour in an age when all fighting was hand-to-hand, and where the numbers on each side were so small that a few abnormally strong men might, by breaking the enemies’ line, decide the issue. Each successful champion in the great athletic contests means a large number of men who went through a course of training in which they were wrought up to the highest pitch of perfection not only of muscular development, but also of pluck and endurance.

Among reasons which have been assigned for the discursiveness of these triumphal odes, in which a very small space is given to the victor, and none to the details of the contest, perhaps the most important was this: excessive praise was universally regarded as mischievous to its objects, as tending directly to provoke the jealousy of the Gods, and to invite their nemesis. In the mouth of an enemy it was malicious, tactless in that of a friend. Hence the praise in an ode was distributed widely: the bard celebrated the champion, his family, former victors, the city or island of his birth, his ancestors, the ancient heroes of the land, so that the φθόνος might fall heavily on none, especially as all success was ascribed to the Gods, to whom the competitors sacrificed before engaging in the contest. A religious halo surrounded the Great Games. “Not unto us” is the burden of more than one ode, in which success is expressly attributed to the help of a God, as Poseidon, and often to the Graces.

A feature of the Games which strikes us moderns unpleasantly is the absence among the Greeks of what we call the sporting spirit. While no praise was too high, no reward too splendid for the victor, his unsuccessful competitors neither expected nor obtained any sympathy even from their fellow-townsmen. Even the victor was sometimes assailed by envious disparagement, especially where a state was rent by political factions; while the vanquished had to hide his head from the storm of derision which greeted his failure.

Victory Odes

The Olympian Odes

I

For Hiero, ruler of Syracuse, on a victory won by his horse Pherenikus, 476 BC.

Strophe 1

Chiefest is water of all things, for streaming
Therefrom all life and existence came;
And all proud treasure of princes the gleaming
Splendour of gold outshines, as the flame
Of a great fire flings through the night its rays.
But, heart of mine, if thou fain wouldst praise
Triumphs in athlete-contests won,
Search not, when day with his glory is glowing,
For a radiant star more life-bestowing
In the whole void sky, than the kingly sun.
Even so shall we find no brighter crown
Than Olympia giveth whereof to sing;
For thence doth the chant of high renown
O’er the spirits of bards its perfume fling,
When, the praise of Kronion in song resounding,
Unto Hiero’s blest hearth wealth-abounding
The hymn of his praise they bring.

Antistrophe 1

Hiero!⁠—yea, for the rod of his power
Is a sceptre of righteousness stretched o’er the land
Of the myriad flocks; and the choice of the flower
Of chivalry ever is plucked by his hand.
Yea, and he also is garlanded
With the blossom of song enstarring his head,
The song that with gladsome voices now
We singers chant, at the banquet meeting
Of the Prince who giveth us friendship’s greeting.
Now, O my Muse, from its rest take thou
The lyre that is strung to the Dorian strain,
If the glory of fleet Pherenikus, he
Who triumphed in Pisa’s Olympian plain,
Haply with rapture of song thrilled thee,
When flashed in the course by Alpheus’ river
His body by lash or by goad touched never,
And wedded to victory

Epode 1

His lord, the ruler of Syracuse-town,
The king who joyeth in gallant steeds.
Flasheth afar his name’s renown,
Flasheth from Sicily far oversea
Where Pelops, the exile from Lydia’s meads,
Founded a hero-colony⁠—
Pelops, beloved of the Earth-enfolder,
Poseidon the strong, when the Fate of the Thread
Drew him resplendent with ivory shoulder
From the undefiled laver, whom men deemed dead.
There be marvels full many; and fables hoary
With inventions manifold broidered o’er
Falsify legend, I wot, with a story
Wherein truth liveth no more.

Strophe 2

But the Grace of Beauty, which aye is weaving
All manner of charm round the souls of men,
Taketh these tales unworthy believing,
And arrays them in honour: so cometh it then
That man with unwavering credence clings
To a false-feigned tale of impossible things.
But the after-days are the witnesses
That be wisest. Reverent speech beseemeth
The mortal who uttereth that which he deemeth
Of the Gods⁠—so shall his reproach be less.
O Tantalus’ son, I will speak not as they
Who told thy story in days of old!
But thy father bade thee a guest that day
To a banquet arrayed by the righteous-souled
Upon Sipylus’ loved height⁠—so he tendered
To the Gods requital for boons they had rendered.
On a sudden the chariot of gold

Antistrophe 2

Of the Lord of the Trident gleaming splendid,
Whose soul was with love for thy youth overcome,
Bare thee, as up through the blue ye ascended,
To imperial Zeus’s glory-home,
Whither also came in the after-day
Ganymedes ravished from earth away
In halls celestial the nectar to pour.
But when viewless thus from the earth they had caught thee,
Nor the questers that far and near had sought thee
To the arms of thy mother could thee restore,
Then spake some neighbour in envious spite
A whispered slander of sin and shame,
How that over the boiling water’s might
Which hissed in the bronze that bestrode the flame
Did they carve thy flesh with the knife, and seethe it,
And served at the feast, and⁠—dare lips breathe it?⁠—
That the God-guests ate of the same!

Epode 2

But impossible is it for me to call
Any Blest One man-eater⁠—with loathing and scorn
I recoil! O, the profit is passing small
That the dealer in slander hath ofttimes found.
But if ever a man on the earth was