PINDAR 



PINE 



183 



the great Hiero to avoid flatterers, and cautions 

 Arcesilaus of Cyrene against undue severity. He 

 resided four years at the court of Hiero. He died 

 about the age of eighty in 443 B.C. Two con- 

 ouerors Pausanias, king of Sparta during the 

 Peloponnesian war, and later Alexander the Great, 

 who left no other dwelling in Thebes standing 

 spared the house of Pindar. 



Pindar was in the prime of life when Salamis 

 and Thermopylae were fought, when Greek energy 

 and enterprise were at their highest, and Greek 

 poetry and philosophy were opening into their 

 richest blossom. But his poetry belongs to the 

 old rather than the new period of literature. In 

 spite of his admiration for Athens, which he calls 

 ' the pillar of Greece,' the spirit of Athens did 

 not lay hold of him. Intellectually, lie stands 

 nearer to the age of Homer than to that of his 

 contemporary -tschvlus. Pindar's language is 

 Epic, tinged with Doric. He wrote an immense 

 munlier of poems, including hymns to the gods, 

 p;eans, dithyraiiilis, odes for processions (prosoilin), 

 mimic dancing songs (lii//niri-hciiiata), choral songs 

 of maidens (fitirtheneia), convivial songs (skolin), 

 dirges (tHrenoi), and odes in praise of princes 

 (encomia). Of all these poems we possess frag- 

 ments only, often very lieautiful, but his Ejrinilia 

 or Triumphal Odes have come down to us entire. 

 They are divided into four l>oks, - celebrat- 

 ing the victories won respectively in the 

 Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian games. 

 The special occasion for which these odes were 

 composed explains their character. A victory 

 won either in the chariot-race, for prowess in 

 wrestling or other exercises, or for skill in music 

 was held to confer honour not only on the 

 winner and his family, but also on bis city, 

 ami received a solemn celebration. It Iwgan 

 with a procession to the temple, where sacrifice 

 was offered, followed by a I>anquet, and con- 

 cluding with a boisterous revel (comas). Thus 

 the festival wan partly religious, partly convivial 

 and joyous. For the occasion an ode was com- 

 pMM, and was sung by a chorus either during the 

 proco.-ioii or, more frequently, at the comiis. An 

 intense enthusiasm for athletic sports was one of 

 the most distinctive features of the Greek, as of 

 the English national character. The performance 

 of a triumphal ode by a trained chorus to the 

 music of lyre and Mute, amid an enthusiastic con- 

 course of the victor's townsmen, must have lieen 

 <mc of the most stirring events of Greek civic life. 

 Pindar treats the victory not as a mere incident, 

 but as connected with the victor's whole life and 

 history. He loves to dwell on the moral side of it, 

 not merely on the bodily prowess which gained it, 

 but on the temperance, love to parents, or piety 

 which secured the favour of the gods who granted 

 success. Ami this is to him no mere poetic fiction, 

 for he has the sincerest faith in the divine super- 

 intendence. But it is tun much to say, as Paley 

 does (Trans. Pref. p. viii. ), that Pindar shows 

 'unquestioning credulity in the wildest legends.' 

 Of myths relating things unworthy of the gods he 

 -ays with emphasis : ' I cannot think this way of 

 ilivine l>eings !' (as of the myth of Pelops, 01. i., 

 and another regarding Hercules, 01. ix.). The plan 

 of his jMM'lry is intricate, and the connection of the 

 different parts is often very hard to see. Pindar 

 lakes up various trains of thought, either relating 

 to the victor, his ancestors, the history of his city, 

 ir else moral reflection : he breaks off each of these 

 before the application is seen, and it is not till the 

 en. I of the poem that he weaves the different threads 

 ther and explains the allusions. Thus, says 

 Miillcr. ' (lie curiosity of the reader is kept on the 

 MI etch throughout the entire ode.' The great 

 merit of Pindar's ix>etry i* its vividness and pictur- 



esque power, seen even in single epithets, as when 

 he calls the mountain-mass of Etna, overtowering 

 all heights in the island, ' the forehead of fertile 



eyes that seem to see ' the chariot rounding its 

 last goal.' The description of the happy lot of the 

 good after the final judgment in the Islands of the 

 Blessed (01. ii.), the voyage of the Argonauts 

 (Pyth. iv.), and the vivid picture of the eruption of 

 Etna in the First Pythian illustrate this power. 

 To us his poems are specially interesting because 

 they show as in a mirror the intense admira- 

 tion of the Greeks for Imdily prowess, strength, 

 endurance, and beauty. Such gifts rouse in him a 

 feeling of religious veneration ; they come from the 

 gods and are sacred. The groundwork of Pindar's 

 poems consists in those legends which form the 

 Greek religious literature. It will be seen that his 

 life was intimately associated with the observances 

 of Greek religion. In connection with the worship 

 at Delphi he received unique honours. The lielief 

 in his devoutness as a worshipper of the gods shows 

 itself in the legend, which apparently sprang up 

 during his life, Jiat the god Pan was seen and 

 heard in a glade between Citha-ron and Helicon sing- 

 ing one of Pindar's hymns. When once asked what 

 sacrifice he intended to offer at Delphi, he answered 

 ' a prean," a reply not presumptuous, for his odes 

 are full of religious feeling, not formal but real. 

 His protest against myths dishonouring to the gods 

 shows a truly reverent nature and an enlightened 

 telief. Both in its strength and in its deoeiencies 

 his poetry reminds us of his claim on his own 

 behalf : 'That man is wise who km>irs nnicli by 

 natural gaum;' but the poets, his rivals, 'those 

 who have learned, the versatile talkers, are but as 

 crows vainly chattering against the ilivine bird of 

 Zeus.' Thus the distinction lietween genius and 

 talent is as old as Pindar's time. This high faith 

 in his own poetic inspiration must not be mistaken 

 for self-confidence ; but it almost verges on a con- 

 tempt for art which seems responsible for the fre- 

 quent intricacy anil obscurity of his poetry. 



See Biickh (1811-21); Uissen (1830; re-edited by 

 Schneidewin, 1840-47 commentary excellent, but, owing 

 to Schneidewin's death, incomplete); Fennell (1879-83); 

 Bury, Aemtan Met, 1891 ; translations by Gary in verse 

 (1833), Paley (occasionally powerful, but arbitrary; 

 1869), E. Myi-rs (2d ed. 1883). K. O. Muller's chapter 

 ( Muller and Donaldson's History of Greek Literature) is 

 full of excellent criticism. 



Pindar. PKTER. See WOLCOT. 



Pilldaris, or PINUARREKS, bands of freebooters 

 or mercenary soldiers who, after the overthrow of 

 the Mogul empire of India, grew ( 1804-17) to be a 

 formidable power in the Central Provinces, their 

 headquarters lieing at Malwa. Hastings, to put 

 an end to their depredations, gathered two armies 

 (120,000 men in all) in 1817 and crushed them. 



Find Dadail Khan, a town in the Punjab, 

 stands one mile N. of the Jhelum and 110 milet 

 NW. of Lahore. The people (16,724) make brass 

 and copper utensils, pottery, whips, boats, and 

 woollens, and carry on a large trade. 



Pindns. See GREECE, Vol. V. p. 384. 



Pine (Finns), a genus of trees of the natural 

 order Conifera; (q.v.). Pinus is distinguished by 

 monii'cious (lowers, and woody cones with numer- 

 ous two-seeded scales, the scales having an angular 

 truncated apex. The leaves are linear and very 

 narrow, growing in clusters or in pairs, and sur- 

 rounded by searious scales at the base. To this 

 genus belong many noble and useful trees. They 

 mostly grow in mountainous or other exposed 

 situations, and their narrow leaves are admirably 



