Instead, he flourished during the era of Pericles when many Greeks were being swept up in the groundswell towards democracy. Pindar spent most of his life in Thebes.
He was quite a traveller, making his way throughout Greece visiting many of his patrons. Pindar had a long career writing into his 70s. He died in or BC at the age of He also wrote hymns, processionals and songs for maidens. This type of poetry is known as a lyric ode, meant to honor winners of athletic competitions. With regard to oracles, he inculcates precisely such a view as would have been most acceptable to the Delphic priesthood, viz. A mystical doctrine of the soul's destiny after death appears in some passages as Pindar was familiar with the idea of metempsychosis cf.
The belief in a fully conscious existence for the soul in a future state, determined by the character of the earthly life, entered into the teaching of the Eleusinian and other mysteries. Comparing the fragment of the Opi vos , Bergk 4, , we may probably regard the mystic or esoteric element in Pindar's theology as due to such a source. The moral sentiment pervading Pindar's odes rests on a constant recognition of the limits imposed by the divine will on. The elements of iryLas 6X 1 os - " sane happiness," such as has least reason to dread the jealousy of the gods - are substance sufficing for daily wants and good repute caoyia.
He who has these should not " seek to be a god. Pindar does not rise above the ethical standard of an age which said, " love thy friend and hate thy foe " cf. But in one sense he has a moral elevation which is distinctively his own; he is the glowing prophet of generous emulation and of reverent selfcontrol. The political sentiments of the Theban poet are suggested by Pyth. He speaks of a king's lot as unique in its opportunities Towards the Greek princes of Sicily and Cyrene his tone is ever one of manly independence; he speaks as a Greek citizen whose lineage places him on a level with the proudest of the Dorian race, and whose office invests him with an almost sacred dignity.
In regard to the politics of Hellas at large, Pindar makes us feel the new sense of leisure for quiet pursuits and civilizing arts which came after the Persian wars. The epic poet sang of wars; Pindar celebrates the " rivalries of peace. Pindar's genius was boldly original; at the same time he was an exquisite artist.
Here we see the exulting sense of inborn strength; in many other places we perceive the feeling of conscious art - as in the phrase SatSAXXEcv, so apt for his method of inlaying an ode with mythical subjects, or when he compares the opening of a song to the front of a stately building Pindar's sympathy with external nature was deeper and keener than is often discernible in the poetry of his age.
It appears, for example, in his welcome of the season when " the chamber of the hours is opened, and delicate plants perceive the fragrant spring" fr. The poet's feeling for colour is often noticeable --as in the beautiful story of the birth of Iamus - when Evadne lays aside her silver pitcher and her girdle of scarlet web; the babe is found, " its delicate body steeped in the golden and deep purple rays of pansies " The spirit of art, in every form, is represented for Pindar by xipcs - " the source of all delights to mortals " The Charites were often represented as young maidens, decking themselves with early flowers - the rose, in particular, being sacred to them as well as to Aphrodite.
In Pindar's mind, as in the old Greek conception from which the worship of the Charites sprang, the instinct of beautiful art was inseparable from the sense of natural. The period from Soo to B. The schools of Argos, Sicyon and Aegina were effecting a transition from archaic types to the art which was afterwards matured in the age of Pheidias.
Olympia forms the central link between Pindar's poetry and Greek sculpture. From about B. In a striking passage Nem.
Pindar recognizes sculpture and poetry as sister arts employed in the commemoration of the athlete, and contrasts the merely local effect of the statue with the wide diffusion of the poem. Thus 1 the sculptures on the east pediment of the temple at Aegina represented Heracles coming to seek the aid of Telamon against Troy - a theme brilliantly treated by Pindar in the fifth Isthmian; 2 Hiero's victory in the chariot-race was commemorated at Olympia by the joint work of the sculptors Onatas and Calamis; 3 the Gigantomachia, 4 the wedding of Heracles and Hebe, 5 the war of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, and 6 a contest between Heracles and Apollo, are instances of mythical material treated alike by the poet and by sculptors of his day.
The contemporary improvements in town architecture, introducing spacious and wellpaved streets, such as the oKUpcoT1 at Cyrene Pyth. A song is likened to cunning work which blends gold, ivory and coral Nem. He instances 1 the development of the dithyramb, 2 certain improvements in the harnessing and driving of horses, and 3 the addition of the pediment to temples In the development of Greek lyric poetry two periods are broadly distinguished.
During the first, from about to B. During the second period, which takes its rise in the sense of Hellenic unity created by the Persian wars, the lyric poet addresses all Greece. Pindar and Simonides are the great representatives of this second period, to which Bacchylides, the nephew of Simonides, also belongs.
These, with a few minor poets, are classed by German writers as die universalen Meliker. The Greeks usually spoke, not of " lyric," but of " melic " poetry i. But Pindar is more than the chief extant lyrist. Epic, lyric and dramatic poetry succeeded each other in Greek literature by a natural development.
Each of them was the spontaneous utterance of the age which brought it forth. Even his descendants are reported to have been given special recognition because of their progenitor. He was married to Timoxena and had one son, Daiphantus, and two daughters, Protomache and Eumetis.
Not all of Pindar's works have been preserved. He composed hymns, paeans, prosodia processionals , dithyrambs, parthenia maiden songs , hyporchemata dance songs , encomia, dirges, and epinikia victory odes in honor of athletic heroes.
Forty-four of the victory odes celebrate winners of Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games, which were religious as well as athletic occasions. These odes are brilliant in form but difficult and complex.
Richmond Lattimore observes, "Competition [in the games] symbolized an idea of nobility which meant much to Pindar; and in the exaltation of victory he seems sometimes to see a kind of transfiguration, briefly making radiant a world which most of the time seemed, to him as to his contemporaries, dark and brutal.
An epinikion was sung by a chorus of men or boys at a private occasion for the winner, his family, and friends—any of these people having commissioned it. Apparently, contracts were made specifying fees, details about the winner and his family to be included, and mythical allusions to be interwoven in the commemorative ode.
The victor, the event, and the festival had to be indicated, and the poet had to laud the winner for his excellence, as well as offer felicitations to his family and state. Pindar does all this skillfully.
He weaves the facts into the ode gradually and highlights not the victor but the festival, the aristocratic descent of the victor, a mythological event suggested by the life of the victor, or a myth connected with the holy occasion, the victor, or the victor's native place. This "myth" constitutes the heart of the ode. The technical structure is prooimion prelude , arche beginning , katatrope first transition , omphalos center , metakatatrope second transition , exodion conclusion , and sphragis seal.
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