These games were celebrated at Olympia, Delphi, Neme'a, and on the Corinthian Isthmus: they consisted of athletic sports, races, literary and musical contests. All Greece was represented at them. Peasant and prince, trader and priest, poet and historian, painter and sculptor, hurried to the exciting scene as contestants or spectators; and the simple crown of olive or laurel, pine or parsley, that was placed on the conqueror's brow, was valued beyond price. All that was needed. to complete the triumph was an ode in its honor from the Great Lyrist. This, when obtained, was sung at an honorary banquet or solemn procession, amid great rejoicings; and was annually rehearsed in the victor's native town to the accompaniment of soul-stirring music-for his family, town, and state, participated in the victor's glory.

PINDAR'S STYLE is original, chaste, full of splendor and majestic energy. The Theban eagle, as he has often been called, soaring to the sun, seems to disdain the commonplace in his solitary flight. His style, however, is not faultless. The over-boldness of his metaphors confuses; his massing of magnificent images and high-sounding epithets wearies; his Doric condensation obscures his meaning; his metre is too complicated for the uneducated ear, and his transitions are so abrupt that the reader has difficulty in finding the connection. His subjects were hard to treat; but Pindar found material and lent variety to his odes by skilfully interweaving legendary lore, history, and fragments of mythology. This was by Corinna's advice; but her young pupil carried it to such excess in his first attempt that his fair teacher warned him, "One should sow with the hand, not with the whole sack.”

Pindar's tone is everywhere moral. He merits indeed the title of "Sacerdotal Poet;" for he upheld the religion of Greece in its purity, rejecting all sensual notions of "the blessed ones," and asserting his faith in their holiness and justice. He taught the immortality of the soul; "things of

a day" are men, but after death there is in store " a gladsome life." His belief in an existence beyond the grave is indicated in the following lines from one of his dirges. And here be it observed that no translation can do justice to Pindar; the Doric diamonds cease to flash when removed from their Doric setting.

"Shines for them the sun's warm glow,
When 'tis darkness here below;
And the ground before their towers,
Meadow-land with purple flowers,
Teems with incense-bearing treen,
Teems with fruit of golden sheen.
Some in steed and wrestling feat,
Some in dice take pleasure sweet,
Some in harping: at their side
Blooms the spring in all her pride.
Fragrance all about is blown

O'er that country of desire,
Ever as rich gifts are thrown
Freely on the far-seen fire,
Blazing from the altar-stone.

But the souls of the profane
Far from heaven removed below,
Flit on earth in murderous pain,

'Neath the unyielding yoke of woe;

While pious spirits tenanting the sky
Chant praises to the mighty one on high.”

CONINGTON.

The more characteristic extract given below consists of portions of the Seventh Olympic Ode, in which the poet sings the praises of Diag'oras of Rhodes for having gained a victory with the cestus (made of leather thongs and worn round the hands in boxing). This ode was so much admired by the Rhodians that they wrote it in golden letters on the wall of Minerva's temple at Lindus. It relates the birth of their patron goddess and the story of their own origin, closing with an invocation to Jupiter, who was worshipped on Ataby'ris, a mountain of the island. Here stood a temple, dedicated to him, containing the fabulous brazen bulls that bellowed when any calamity threatened.

ODE TO DIAGORAS.

"As when a sire the golden bowl,

All foaming with the dew of wine,
Takes with a liberal hand and soul,

Chief gem where all his treasures shine-
Then tends the beverage (hallowed first
By prayers to all the powers above)
To slake the youthful bridegroom's thirst,
In honor of connubial love;

The social pledge he bears on high,

And, homeward as his course he bends, Blesses the fond connubial tie,

Admired by all his circling friends;

E'en thus I bring the nectared strain,

The Muses' gift, to those who gain

The Pythian and Olympic crown;

Thrice blest, to whom 'tis given to share

The arduous fruit of mental care,

Cheered by the voice of high renown!

Full many a victor in the fray

My life-inspiring strains survey—

Which bid the sweet-toned lyre its music raise, And wake the sounding flutes through all their notes of praise.

And now, Diagoras, to thee

They breathe united melody.

When Rhodes, the warlike isle, is sung,

Apollo's bride from Venus sprung;
He too, the hero brave and bold,
With hardy frame of giant mould,
Who, by Alphe'us' sacred tide,
And where Castalia's waters glide,
First in the cestus' manly fray,
Bore the triumphant prize away.
Let Damage'tus next, his sire,

To justice dear, the strain inspire.

Fixed on that isle which three fair cities grace,

Where Embolus protects wide Asia's coast,

They dwell united with the Argive host.

In that blest isle secure at last,

'Twas thine, Tlepolemus, to meet

For each afflictive trial past

A recompense and respite sweet.

EXTRACT FROM PINDAR.

Chief of Tirynthian hosts, to thee,
As to a present deity,

The fumes of slaughtered sheep arise
In all the pomp of sacrifice:
Awarded by thy just decree,

The victor gains his verdant prize-
That crown whose double honors glow,
Diagoras, around thy brow;

On which four times the Isthmian pine,
And twice the Nemean olive shine:
While Athens on her rocky throne
Made her illustrious wreath his own.

Trophies of many a well-fought field
He won in glory's sacred cause,
The Theban tripod, brazen shield
At Argos, and Arcadia's vase.

Her palms Boeotia's genuine contests yield;
Six times Ægina's prize he gained,
As oft Pellene's robe obtained,
And graved in characters of fame,
Thy column, Megara, records his name.

Great sire of all, immortal Jove!

On Atabyris' mount enshrined,
Oh! still may thy propitious mind
The encomiastic hymn approve,
Which celebrates in lawful strain
The victor on Olympia's plain,

Whose valorous arm the cestus knows to wield.

Protected by thy constant care,
In citizens' and strangers' eyes
Still more exalted shall he rise
Whose virtuous deeds thy favor share:
Since he, to violence and fraud unknown,
Treads the straight paths of equity alone;
His fathers' counsels mindful to pursue,
And keep their bright example still in view.
Then let not inactivity disgrace

The well-earned fame of thine illustrious race,
Who sprang from great Calli'anax, and crown
The Erat'ida with splendor all their own.
With joy and festal hymns the streets resound-
But soon, as shifts the ever-varying gale,
The storms of adverse fortune may assail-
Then, Rhodians, be your mirth with sober temper-
ance crowned."-WHEELWRIGHT.

191

Antimachus.-An elegiac poet of the golden age was Antim'achus of Col'ophon, whose "Ly'de," an elegy on his lost love, enjoyed considerable celebrity. When, however, Antimachus undertook to read his long "Theba'is " to an audience, their patience became exhausted and one after another departed, until finally he had but a single listener left, the young Plato.

DRAMATIC POETRY.

Rise of the Attic Drama.-The Greek drama, like the Hindoo, had a religious origin. In the festivals of Bacchus, the wine-god, which consisted of licentious dances and songs round his altar by persons disguised in goat-skins as fauns and satyrs (beings half-man and half-goat), we must look for its earliest phase. From the dress of those who composed the chorus, or because a goat was sacrificed, or a goat-skin of wine awarded to the poet who wrote the best ode for the occasion, such ode was called a tragedy (goat-song); and the name was afterward extended to the entire department of dramatic poetry to which these rude hymns gave rise.

Comedy, on the contrary, was elaborated from the villagesongs rife during the gala-days of the vintage, when companies of noisy revellers,* their cheeks stained with wine-lees, went about from town to town, plunging into all kinds of excesses, and garnishing their songs with jokes at the expense of the spectators.

The Father of Greek tragedy was THESPIS, the Athenian, who refined the coarse Bacchanalian orgies, and introduced a single actor (generally sustaining the part himself), to alternate with the chorus or enter into a dialogue with its leaders (536 B.C.). Between the hymns, the poet, having smeared his face with paint, would mount a table and recite with copious

* Some derive our word comedy from kōmos, the Greek term for a band of revellers.