33 



PINDAR. 



PINEDA, JUAN DE. 



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composed in B.C. 502), exhibits no marks of a want of skill or practice 

 on the part of the author. He soon rose to the highest rank in his 

 profession, and spent his long life in lucrative intercourse with the 

 tyrants and wealthy men of Greece and its colonies. The free states 

 vied with one another in honouring the great lyric poet. He had the 

 rpotvta, or complimentary franchise, at Athens, ^Egina, and Opus ; 

 and although the people of Ceos had two celebrated poets of their 

 own, namely, Simonides and Bacchylides, they employed Pindar to 

 compose a TtpoaASiov, or procession-ode, for them. At Delphi he had 

 an iron chair to ait upon when he sang the Apollinean hymns (Pausan., 

 x. 24, sec. 4), and, by order of the Pythia, he received a portion of the 

 banquet of the Theoxeuia. (Plutarch, ' De Sera Num. vindict.,' c. 13.) 

 A long time after his death, and not, as the paeudo-^Eschinea states, 

 in his lifetime, his statue was erected at Athens. He was courted by 

 Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse ; by Thero, tyrant of Agrigentum, and his 

 brother Xenocrateg ; by Thrasydseus, son of There, and Thrasybulus, 

 son of Xenocrates ; by Arcesilaus IV., king of Gyrene ; by Thorax, 

 one of the Aleuadie ; and by Alexander, the son of Amyntas, king of 

 Macedon, who was an active patron of lyric poetry. Pindar, as might 

 have been expected, from the nature of his employment, was very 

 religious, or rather very observant of particular superstitions. He 

 had consecrated a temple to the Magna Mater and Pan near his own 

 house at Thebes ; this was probably iu his character of hereditary 

 flute-player, for the Magna Mater and Pan were Phrygian deities, in 

 whose honour the first flute-music was composed. He also dedicated 

 statues to Jupiter Amman, and to Mercury of the Agora, and also 

 perhapa to Apollo Boedromiua. 



The entire specimens of Pindar's works which have come down to 

 our time (with the exception of the llth Nemean) belong to one class, 

 that, namely, of the Epiuician or triumphal odes. Besides these how- 

 ever, Pindar wrote dithyrambs, paeans, dirges, drinking songs, mimic 

 dancing songs (inropx'ht"fTa.), songs of maidens (irapSfi'(ia), and encomia 

 or panegyrics on princes, of all which we have numerous fragments. 

 Prom Horace's enumeration of the various kinds of poetry which 

 Pindar cultivated (' Carui.,' iv. 2), we may infer that Pindar was not 

 regarded by the ancients as pre-eminently or exclusively a composer 

 of Kjiiniciau odes. On the contrary, it is likely that Pindar was quite 

 aa celebrated in other departments of lyric poetry; and from his 

 education under Lasos, and his hereditary profession of a flute-player, 

 it is not improbable that the dithyramb, which is placed first by 

 Horace, was his favourite style of composition. We have still a very 

 beautiful fragment of a dithyramb by Pindar ; and if the others were 

 like it, we may well regret the loss which we have sustained. As 

 however all Pindar's extant odes (with the one exception just men- 

 tioned, of an ode composed for the installation of a Prytauia at 

 Teneiios) were composed for the celebration of some victory in the 

 public games', we muat be content to form our judgment of hi* poetical 

 power from theae specimens, and in order to this we must bear in 

 mind the very peculiar nature of the occasion for which they were 

 composed, for it waa this which gave the ode itself the particular 

 character by which it waa distinguished. An Epinician ode was the 

 celebration of a victory gained at one of the public games, either by 

 the speed of horses, by strength of body, by skill in gymnastic exer- 

 cises, or by proficiency in music. Along with the victor's name the 

 herald proclaimed that of his native city, which was considered to 

 derive great renown from the achievement of its citizen. The games 

 themselves being a religious institution, it is obvious that the celebra- 

 tion of the victory must also have had something of a religious 

 character. It was in fact a mixture of the solemnities of religious 

 worship with the joy and revelry of the feast, a mixture very common 

 among the Greeks, whose sacrifices to the gods were often only a 

 constituent part of the banquet. The victor either went in procession 

 to the altar of the god of the games, as at Olympia, iu the evening of 

 the contest, accompanied by a ' comus,' which sang the taMirucei of 

 Archilochu.s, or an ode composed for the occasion by tome other 

 poet; or he celebrated his victory on his return to his native city by a 

 procession to a temple, a sacrifice, a banquet, and a comus. The poet 

 praised both the victor himself, and his native city : the victor waa 

 praised either for bis wealth (8A/8os), as in the case of the horse-race, 

 for it was only the wealthy who could contend for this prize, as Pindar 

 himself says ; or for his valour (iftrti), if he had been exposed to any 

 danger in the contest. The city of the victor is generally praised 

 with some reference to the mythical legends of its early history. 

 This mythical element always formed the chief part of Pindar's ode, 

 and it is allowed to run into every aort of digression, not however at 

 random, but with some fixed purpose, which we have generally no 

 difficulty in determining. Although Pindar's Epinician odea were 

 performed by a chorus, the poet is always conaidered to apeak in hia 

 own person. He awils himself of this, to deliver advice to the victor 

 wbo-e praise he ia singing ; to defend himself against the calumnies 

 of hU enemies ; to criticise and depreciate rival poets, such as Simonidea 

 and Bacchylides ; and sometimes even to address the person whom he 

 employed as his xP0'8affKaAoj when his own absence prevented him 

 from teaching the chorus. Thus in ' Ulymp.' vi., V. 88, he addresses 

 the Stymphalian ./Eneas, who had been sent to receive the ode, aud to 

 instruct the chorus of his countrymen iu the words and music of it. 

 He often makes boastful comparisons between himself and other poets, 

 M when he sajs (' Ol.,' ii, 83) : "I have many swift arrows within 



lilOO. DIV. VOL. IV. 



my quiver; they have a voice for the wise; but for the common herd 

 they need an interpreter : wise is he who has learned much by his 

 natural abilities ; but those two (Simonides and Bacehylides), whose 

 expertness comes from practice only, babbling iu their garrulity like a 

 brace of jack-daws, clamour in vain against the god-like bird of Jove 

 (i.e., himself)." The most striking feature in Pindar's poetry is its 

 picturesqueness. He has great skill and power in description, and hia 

 style abounds in the most racy and vivid metaphors. From the festal 

 nature of most of his odes, we find in them, not unfrequeutly, coarse 

 jocularities which are repugnant to the spirit of modern lyric poetry, 

 and which therefore offend the modern reader, who comes to the 

 perusal of Pindar with vague expectations of that continued flow of 

 sublime imagery and dignified but pompous diction which are gene- 

 rally considered essential to the lyrical poem. It should never be 

 forgotten, that though the occasions for which Pindar wrote required 

 much of solemnity and religious gravity, they admitted, at the same 

 time, every variety of jocose merriment which such a joyful event 

 might suggest. In a word, the Epinician odes of Pindar were performed 

 by the comus as much as by the chorus ; they were sung to the loud- 

 booming flute as much as to the tranquil melodies of the harp; and 

 the rhythms were ^Eolian, or Lydian, as often as Doric. 



The best edition of Pindar is that by August. Bockh, Lipsise, 1811, 

 1821, 3 vols. 4to. The sound criticism which Bockh has applied to 

 the text of the author, and his comprehensive aud masterly explana- 

 tions, have thrown an entirely new light upon the music, metres, 

 lyric poetry, &c., of the Greeks. Ludolf Dissen, who wrote the expla- 

 nations to the Nemean and Isthmian odes for BSckh's edition, subse- 

 quently (1830) published a smaller edition, which may be considered 

 as an abridgment of Bockh's. There is a very good translation of 

 Pindar into English verse by the Rev. H. F. Cary (London, 1S33), 

 which would have \ieen still better if the translator had takeu Bockh 

 and Dissen for his guide instead of Heyue. The translations by West 

 and Moore are very inferior to Gary's, as representativea of the senae 

 of the original, though there is much of taste and vigour in those of 

 the latter author. A prose translation by Dawson Turner, with the 

 metrical version of Moore, forms a volume of Bohn'a ' Clasaical 

 Library.' 



PINDEMO'NTE, IPPO'LITO, born at Verona, in 1753, was a 

 younger son of a patrician family of Verona. His elder brother, 

 Giovanni Pindemonte, wrote some tragedies, among others, ' I Bac- 

 cauali,' which were much esteemed at the time. Ippolito studied at the 

 college of Este, and afterwards at Modena. On completing his studies, 

 he travelled through Europe, and visited France, Germany, Holland, and 

 England, of which last country he speaks iu his verses with affectionate 

 remembrance. Being made a knight of the order of St. Jolm, he went 

 to Malta, where he resided some time, as well aa iu Sicily. When he 

 was about thirty years of age, a serious illness, which showed the 

 constitutional weakness of his frame, induced him to give up active 

 life and retire to the country. He fixed hia residence at Avesa near 

 Verona, where ha wrote his ' Proae e Poesie Campestri,' published 

 first in 1785, and often reprinted since. The philosophy of his prose 

 ia of the contemplative kind, but it is warm-hearted and liberal. His 

 poetry is harmonious and flowing. In his next production, 'Epistole 

 in Versi," he alludes to the revolutionary war then raging in Italy, and 

 its fatal effects upon morals and social happiness. The catastrophe 

 of Venice is especially deplored by him, as well as the devastation of 

 his own native town, Verona, in 1797, and the plunder of the Italian 

 works of art, which were carried to Paris. Pindemonti afterwards 

 published a volume of Sermoni, also in verse, being a kind of satires 

 after the manner of Horace, in which he lashes, though iu a good- 

 humoured strain, the follies of his age. 



Piudemonte wrote a drama, ' Armiuio,' in which he introduced tho 

 chorus, a novelty on the Italian stage. He published together with 

 it, three dissertation*, one on recitation, another on tragical poetry, and 

 the third on the drama of Merope, a subject treated by both Voltaire 

 and Mafl'ei. Theso dissertations contain much sound criticism. He 

 also published a translation of the ' Odyssey,' in Italian blank verse, 

 which was well received. When Foacolo published his beautiful little 

 poem the ' Sepolcri,' addressed to Piudemoute, the latter replied to it 

 by another poem on the same subject, which is full of pathos, and at 

 the same time of consolatory thoughts on man's immortality. The 

 two poems are generally published together. 



The last work of Pindemonte was his ' Elogi di Letterati," a bio- 

 graphical work in prose, 2 vols. 8vo, 1825-26. Pindemonte's health 

 had always been delicate, aud in hia latter yeara he suffered from 

 depression of spirits, which the death of his early friends, and especially 

 of Foscolo and Monti, seema to have increased. He died at Verona, in 

 November, 1823, a month after the death of Monti. His unblemished 

 character, his amiable disposition, and his great accomplishments, 

 contributed as much as his writings to mark him aa one of the most 

 distinguished Italians of hia age. A monument was raised to his 

 memory by his townsmen of Verona. 



PINE'UA, JUAN DE, was born at Seville, in 1557. He entered 

 the order of St. Francis, and not of the Jesuits, as stated iu the 

 ' Biographic Universelle." He acquired a great reputation for general 

 erudition, especially in the Greek, Hebrew, and Oriental languages. 

 On being appointed counsellor to the court of the Inquisition, he waa 

 commissioned to visit the principal libraries of Spain, iu order to 



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