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Pindar's First Pythian Ode is an ancient Greek epinicion praising Hiero of Syracuse for a victory in the Pythian Games. It was to be sung at a grand musical festival, celebrating Hiero of Syracuse's achievements and the founding of the new city, Aetna. Most of Pindar's signature characteristics and signature style appear in this poem.
In addition to epinikia, a victorious athlete might be honored with a statue, as with this charioteer found at Delphi, probably a champion driver at the Pythian Games. The epinikion or epinicion (pl.: epinikia or epinicia, Greek ἐπινίκιον, from epi-, "on", + nikê, "victory") is a genre of occasional poetry also known in English as a victory ode.
Pindar (/ ˈ p ɪ n d ər /; Ancient Greek: Πίνδαρος Pindaros; Latin: Pindarus; c. 518 BC – c. 438 BC) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes.Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved.
Not in vain is the praise of Opus and her son, whose home is renowned for Law and Justice, and for Pythian and Olympian victories (13–21). [4] The poet will spread its fame far and wide, for the Graces of song are bound to give delight; but song, no less than strength, depends on Heaven (21–29). [ 5 ]
The ode is compared to a loving-cup (1–10), presented to the bridegroom by the father of the bride. [3] Even as the cup is the pledge of loving wedlock, so is the poet's song an earnest of abiding fame, but Charis, the gracious goddess of the epinician ode, looks with favour, now on one, now on another (10–12). [ 3 ]
The ode begins with a priamel, where the rival distinctions of water and gold are introduced as a foil to the true prize, the celebration of victory in song. [7] Ring-composed, [8] Pindar returns in the final lines to the mutual dependency of victory and poetry, where "song needs deeds to celebrate, and success needs songs to make the areta last". [9]
The term is derived from the name of a Greek archaic poet, Pindar, but is based on a misconception since Pindar's odes were in fact very formal, obeying a triadic structure, in which the form of the first stanza (strophe) was repeated in the second stanza (antistrophe), followed by a third stanza (epode) that introduced variations but whose ...
Ode 3.2 (29th from the end of books 1–3) is one of the poems which has links to its counterpart in the first half of the book, 1.29 (29th from the beginning). The phrase acrem militiam/acri militia 'fierce warfare' is found in line 2 of both poems, and they are also linked by the shared vocabulary Medo/Parthos 'Persian(s)', virginum/virgo ...