Pythian4.html

Pindar, Pythian 4
trans. F. J. Nisetich, Pindar's Victory Songs (Johns Hopkins, 1980) pp. 174-88

Introduction

Arkesilas of Kyrana, chariot race, 462 B.C.

Pythian 4 is the longest of Pindar's odes. Most of its extra length is due to the expansion of the mythical section, in which Pindar tells the story of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece. The ode is unique also in its clearly political purpose. It praises Arkesilas IV, but it also addresses an appeal to him on behalf of an exiled Kyranaian.

Arkesilas IV, king of Kyrana (Cyrene), a Greek city in North Africa, traced his ancestry back eight generations to the founder of the city, Battos I, who, on the urging of the Delphic Oracle, had led a colony from the island of Thera to Kyrana. Battos had consulted the oracle in hopes of finding a cure for his speech defect (the name Battos means "Stammerer"), but Apollo had taken the occasion to hail him as future king of Kyrana.

According to Pindar, the prophecy made to Battos at Delphi repeats a prophecy made seventeen generations earlier by Medea. Medea and the sailors of the Argo, on their way home from Kolchis with the Golden Fleece aboard, had reached the site of the future city of Kyrana in Libya; from there they sailed to Thera, called at that time Kallista Island. It was on Thera that Medea delivered the prophecy that Pindar quotes in the first three triads of the ode. Among those who heard it was a certain Euphamos, destined to be an ancestor of the people of Thera, future settlers of Kyrana. Euphamos' original home was Tainaros. Medea, in her prophecy, explains how it came about that his descendants colonized Kyrana not from Tainaros but from Thera.

At the end of the third triad, Pindar declares his intention to tell the myth of the Argo. The remote genealogical connection between Euphamos, one of the original Argonauts, and Arkesilas, present king of Kyrana, justifies the choice of this particular myth.

In the background is the story of Phrixos and Helle, the children of King Athamas by his first wife, Nephele. His second wife, Ino, conceived a deadly hatred for her stepchildren and plotted to destroy them. A golden ram appeared, the gift of Hermes to Nephele. On its back the children rode through the sky, escaping the cruelty of their stepmother. But Helle slipped and fell on the way, drowning in the sea that afterward bore her name the Hellespont. Phrixos arrived safely in Kolchis, on the shores of the Black Sea. Here, in thanks for his safe passage, he sacrificed the ram and dedicated its golden fleece to Zeus. Aietas, king of Kolchis, son of Helios and father of Medea, placed the fleece in a grove sacred to Ares the god of war. There it remained, guarded by a terrible dragon, until Jason came aboard the Argo to fetch it home.

The greater part of the mythical narrative of the ode is taken up with the quarrel between Jason and his older second cousin, Pelias, usurper of the throne of lolkos from Jason's father Aison. The fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh triads dramatize this conflict. At the beginning of the eighth, Jason accepts Pelias' treacherous invitation to go in quest of the Golden Fleece. Triad 8 contains a list of the heroes who responded to his summons and sailed with him. In triad 9, they embark. Triad 10 brings them to Kolchis, where Jason must face the ordeals imposed on him by Aietas. These he could not pass without the help of Medea, whose passion for Jason leads her to betray her father. Aphrodite plays her part in this: she brings from Olympos for the first time the love charm described in the preface to Pythian 2, the iunx or wryneck, which helps Jason seduce the exotic princess. At the end of triad 10, Jason passes the first ordeal imposed by Aietas. In triad 11, Pindar breaks off just as Jason is about to confront the formidable dragon guarding the Golden Fleece. Pindar then rapidly enumerates certain important moments in the rest of the story, particularly the sojourn of the Argonauts among the Lemnian women, for it is here that Euphamos consummates the union from which his Theraian descendants will spring. Once we have reached this episode in the story, we have returned to the point where it began: here, in triad 12, Pindar repeats the prophecy of the colonization of Kyrana, now ruled by Arkesilas.

The ode contains in its closing triads an appeal to Arkesilas for the restoration of a certain Damophilos, living in exile. Pindar mentions him by name only once, but the entire poem seems to exist on his account. He may have commissioned it from Pindar as a means of ingratiating himself with Arkesilas.

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Turn 1 (Strophe) 1-8

Today, Muse, you must stand beside

a man beloved,

Arkesilas,

king of Kyrana,

and join him in celebration,

swelling the breath of songs

due to Apollo and Delphi,

where once the priestess, seated

by the gold eagles of Zeus,

foretold that Battos,

founder-to-be of fertile Libya,

would leave behind

his sacred island home and build

a city famed for chariots

on the gleaming white breast of a hill,

Counterturn 1 (Antistrophe 1) 9-16

and thus fulfill, seventeen generations later,

the prophecy Medea, Aietas' great-hearted daughter,

queen of Kolchians,

made on Thera,

speaking with immortal inspiration

to the spellbound seamen

who sailed with Jason:

"Hear me, sons of brave men,

children of the gods:

the day will come when Libya,

daughter of Epaphos,

in the temple of Zeus Ammon,

shall receive and have implanted in her

from this sea-beaten island

the root of cities dear to mankind.

Stand 1 (Epode 1) 17-23

Instead of dolphins soaring through the waves,

they will see mares prancing,

and in their hands,

no longer oars, but reins to guide their dashing horses.

Thera shall be mother of great cities then,

when the portent of Euphamos

comes to pass:

he stepped from the ship's prow, where Lake Tritonis

surges into the sea,

and a god who seemed a man

offered him a piece of earth in welcome.

Father Zeus let crash a peal of thunder, for good sign--

Turn 2 (Strophe 2) 24-31

we were hoisting the bronze-fluked anchor,

the coursing Argo's bridle,

when he came upon us:

for twelve days

we had borne her over desert dunes,

having hauled her out of Okeanos

at my direction.

And then he came,

walking alone, a god

in the radiant likeness of a man,

deserving reverence.

And he began

with friendly words, such as a host will use

when greeting strangers, offering

refreshment from their journey.

Counterturn 2 (Antistrophe 2) 32-39

But we declined, eager to be on our way.

He said he was Eurypylos, son of Poseidon,

and he recognized

our longing to be off.

In his right hand then he seized

a clump of earth, the first thing

to present itself, and eagerly

sought to offer it

in token of hospitality.

And, just as eagerly, Euphamos

leaped onto the beach,

reached hand to hand, and took the fateful gift.

But now I see that it has tumbled overboard

and skimmed in the ship's foaming wake

Stand 2 (Epode 2) 40-46

nightlong over the bright main.

Indeed I had warned

the sentries to keep close guard on it,

relieving one another at the watch.

But they forgot,

and now upon this island the immortal seed of Libya

has washed ashore before the time.

For if lord Euphamos--

son of Poseidon, Master of Horses, and of Europa,

Tityos' daughter, who bore him by the Kaphisos--

had brought this earth back home with him to sacred Tainaros

and cast it down where Hades' mouth gapes into the underdark,

Turn 3 (Strophe 3) 47-54

then would his descendants in the fourth generation

have been destined to seize broad Libya,

together with the Danaans--

uprooted, in those days,

from great Lakedaimon,

Argos Valley, and Mykenai:

but instead he will found

a race of distinguished men

begotten on the women of a distant land;

and they will come, honored by the gods,

to this very island,

and in time produce among them

a man to be the future lord

of Kyrana's plains, veiled in clouds.

He will enter the Pythian temple

Counterturn 3 (Antistrophe 3) 55-62

and be told by Phoibos to transport cities

on shipboard to the rich precinct

of Zeus' Nile."

So Medea prophesied,

chanting in oracular verses.

The men listened, breathless,

stricken with awe by the words

from the depth of her mind.

It was you that she meant,

Battos, blest son of Polymnastos;

and you whom Phoibos' oracle later exalted,

speaking unbidden

in the cry of the Delphic priestess--

three times she bade you "Hail,

fated King of Kyrana! "--

Stand 3 (Epode 3) 63-69

when you had come, asking the god to cure

the stammer in your voice,

eight generations ago.

And now it is the height of spring

for Battos' line:

Arkesilas his descendant is flourishing

like earth with crimson flowers.

To him Apollo and Pytho

gave glory of triumph in the chariot race.

Of him, then, will I sing,

and of the Golden Fleece,

for when the Minyan chiefs set sail to fetch it,

the gods sowed honor for his race and him.

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Last revised 3 February 1998