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Pindar's First Pythian: The Fire Within
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 July 2014
Extract
‘If you speak at the right length, winding together the strands of many themes into one, the reproach of men will be less' (ll. 81-82). And in truth Pindar's First Pythian is filled with complex and conflicting elements twisted into a tightly knit pattern of myth, metaphor, advice, and historical allusion. The listener moves from celestial harmony to the volcano of Aitna, from the sack of Troy to the founding of a new city. He witnesses the battle of Cumae and the strivings of a tyrant for immortal fame. He is lulled to sleep by the lyre, startled awake by grim Typhon and the barbarians of Carthage, made to feel compassion for the sick Philoktetes, and confronted with the incarnate evil of a man who burned his enemies to death in a bronze bull. Yet at the same time, in counterpoint to this rapid succession of images, Pindar polarizes basic themes — music and discord, peace and pain, chaos and foundation — over the widest range his poetry will allow.
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- Copyright © Aureal Publications 1974
References
1. The material for this article is drawn from a dissertation submitted to Princeton University. I am much indebted to Professors Robert Murray and Samuel Atkins for their supervision of that work. December 1973.
2. On the importance of music to the ode cf. Norwood, G., Pindar (Berkeley 1945), 102ffGoogle Scholar.; Burton, R. W. B., Pindar’s Pythian Odes (Oxford 1962), 91Google Scholar; Schroeder, O., Pindars Pythien (Leipzig 1922), 4Google Scholar; Gildersleeve, B. L., Pindar: the Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York 1885, 1890), 240Google Scholar; Matheson, W. & Ruck, C., Pindar: Selected Odes (Cambridge, Mass. 1968), 152Google Scholar.
3. For the legend in general cf. Farnell, L. R., The Works of Pindar vol. 2 (London 1931), 108–9Google Scholar; Méautis, G., Pindare le Dorien (Neuchatel 1962), 157Google Scholar; von Mess, A., ‘Der Typhonmythus bei Pindar und Aeschylus’, RhM 56 (1901), 167–94Google Scholar.
4. Cf. Hesiod, Theogony 821–80. Here, as in Pindar, Typhon is a flame-breathing monster who seems to be sustained by fire. Note too that at 872–80 he sends forth winds, rather than lava, after his defeat by Zeus. The fusion of monster with volcano is perhaps one of Pindar’s innovations.
5. Cf. Gildersleeve, 249: ‘Typhon symbolizes every form of violence, domestic (Σικɛλία) or foreign (Κύμη).’ He thus suggests the common network of symbols mentioned above but stops short of investigating how it is expanded by the rest of the ode.
6. Norwood, 102.
7. Finley, J. H., Pindar and Aeschylus (Cambridge, Mass. 1955) 82–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8. The curious word ὑγρóυ surely compares the rippling muscles of the eagle’s back to the flowing movement of water, and this in turn links up with αἰευάου above and the water imagery here, 
in this same line may also look forward to 
in line 28. As trie eagle’s back ripples in the contentment of sleep, so Typhon’s back is grated by the sharp rocks on which he lies.
9. Cf. Méautis, 154; Matheson-Ruck, 154; Bowra, C. M., Pindar (Oxford 1964), 337Google Scholar.
10. On the founding of Aitna cf. Diodorus Siculus xi 49.
11. Drachmann, A. B., Scholia Vetera in Pindari carmina (Leipzig 1910Google Scholar) vol. II, 89a, 17–8.
12. Cf. Evelyn-White, H. G., Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica (Cambridge, Mass. 1936), 508–10Google Scholar.
13. Méautis, 159–60, and Mezger, F., Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig 1880), 79Google Scholar, believe that both Hieron and Philoktetes find cures for their illnesses in Pindar's conception of the myth. On the use of the myth cf. also Bowra, 132–3; Burton, 103; Finley, 82; Schroeder, 8.
14. Farnell alone notes this apparent variation, and supposes, I think correctly, that Pindar deliberately suppresses the standard element of the cure for the sake of the parallel with the uncured Hieron.
15. Cf. Bowra, 129–30.
16. Kirsten, E., ‘Ein politisches Programm im Pindars ersten pythischen Gedicht’, RhM 90 (1941), 58–71Google Scholar, stresses in general the importance of the new constitution and the imitation of old forms in the equality and mutual honor between ruler and people. Méautis, 161–2, adds that Hieron may not have taken too kindly to Pindar’s emphasis on the rights of the citizens. Cf. also Mezger, 84, on the relationship between civic harmony and this constitution.
17. On sound images cf. Schroeder, 10.
18. Cf. the ‘god-built freedom’ of line 61 with the ‘heavy slavery’ involved here.
19. παρμέυωυ (1. 89), for example, picks up the motif of enduring seen before in τλάμουι and παρέμειυ’ (1. 48), while κάμυε for ‘weary’ reminds us that Hieron’s own difficulties, especially his sickness, were characterized by καμάτωυ at line 46, and that the dying enemies of Sicily and Greece are referred to by κάμου at line 78 and καμóυτωυ at line 80. In this way the unmistakable foes of order, the Phoinicians and Etruscans, are linked more closely with the less obvious ones, physical pain and the inner fatigue of ruling justly.
20. Cf. Ovid, Ars Amatoria I 653–4; Bowra, 135, has other sources. The use of this particular figure may in part have been suggested by the comparison of Typhon to a bellowing bull at line 832 of the Theogony.