Pindar

REVIEWS PINDAR* W. D. WooDHEAD "Poetry," ·says A. E. Hbusman, "is not the thing said but a way of saying it." The truth· of this statement may best be witnessed by those who have studied the attempts of even the most successful of translators . to render the masterpieces of another literature in their own language. A challenging and difficult task at all times, it becomes well-nigh impossible with a poet so strong of wing, so soaring in flight' as Pindar. Cowley's dictum that "if a man should attempt to translate Pindar literally, it would.be thought that one madman had translated another" is a rueful admission of a truth understood by all who have read Pindar in the original Greek. But it is not even enough to see our poet in cold print: perhaps above any other poet, he must be heard. Poetry, as all good Greeks knew, is m1:1sic:. and even with our imperfect knowledge of ancient Greek pronunciation we can still catch some of the splendour when we hear that "majestic organ-playing" and submit ourselves to "the grave strong magic . of the language, the lightning-flashes of half-revealed mystery" to which Sir Gilbert Murray bears such eloquent testimony. ' The task of translating Pindar, then, in such a way as to give a true conception of'his strange genius is beyond ppssibility. The poet, proudly conscio~s of his inspired gifts, compares himself more than once to an eagle -and to o~ertake and tame an eagle is a hazardous adventure. But lovers of his work are ever eager to fil}.d those who share their admiration; and Gilbert Norwood's book is a welcome companion to such devotees, for he writes with real enthusiasm, and. his knowledge is the fruit of close and prolonged study. The second chapter of his work records the number of different forms of 'choral lyric in which the poet composed, each form being illustrated by . some ~ovely fragment preserved through- the accident of quotation. But the main concern of the lectures is naturally the Epinicianor Victory Odes, .which have fortunately survived almost completely, odes wh_ich celebrate the successes of victors in the four great athletic festivals of Greece, the Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean. These festivals were religious celebrations in which the leading athletes of Greece competed with i:heir bodies, the leading princes with their horses and chariots, to render to the presiding god the finest tribute of which they were capable. And though the little Greek states were almost continuously at war with each other, all nostilit!es ceased and the truce of God was proclaimed while competitors and spectators flocked from the various cities to participate in this act of worship. The victors in the different events brought distinction to their native cities as well as to themselves and their families; and their triumphs were commemorat.ed in some cases by statues, in some by official poems. *Pindar: The Sather Classical Lectures. By GILBERT NoRwooo. Berkeley ~nd Los Angeles:. University of California Press [Toronto: Clarke, Irwin]. 1945. Pp. 302. ($2.50) 430 REVIEWS 431 commissioned for the purpose, and written by the greatest poets of Greece. It is necessary to emphasize some of these aspects of the great athletic festivals of ancient Greece in order to expl~in why the Epinician Odes of Pindar are so dominated ~y religion. Being a Greek, our poet is naturally lJ11pressed by the heroic potentialities of man. "Success in the games," as Norwood says, "is good because it proves quality, perseverance, and Heaven's favour; because it gives a man glory, because it therefore sheds glory u'pon his city, and because it reasserts and proves m·an's kinship with the gods. Pindar's own task was not so much to be the teacher of Greece as to be the prophet of human greatness-of a tradition that was accepted, indeed, by the society whose culture he shared, but had never been so eloquently proclaimed." · It is this conception of man's relation to the gods that dictates. the form assumed by most of the Epinician Odes. There are no exciting descriptions of the contests themselves. The victor...