Pythian III — Pindar

III. FOR HIERON OF SYRACUSE, WINNER IN THE HORSE-RACE. The dates both of the victory and of the ode are uncertain. But as Pherenikos, the horse that won this race at Pytho, is the same that won at Olympia B.C. 472, in honour of which event the First Olympian was written, the victory cannot have been very long before that date, though the language of the ode implies that it was written a good deal later, probably for an anniversary of the victory. It must at least have been written before Hieron's death in 467. It is much occupied with his illness. Fain were I (if meet it be to utter from my mouth the prayer conceived of all) that Cheiron the son of Philyra were alive and had not perished among men, even the wide-ruling seed of Kronos the son of Ouranos; and that there still lorded it in Pelion's glens that Beast untamed, whose soul was loving unto men, even such as when of old he trained the gentle deviser of limb-saving anodynes, Asklepios, the hero that was a defence against all kind of bodily plague. Of him was the daughter of Phlegyas of goodly steeds not yet delivered by Eileithuia aid of mothers, ere by the golden bow she was slain at the hands of Artemis, and from her child-bed chamber went down into the house of Hades, by contriving of Apollo. Not idle is the wrath of sons of Zeus. She in the folly of her heart had set Apollo at nought, and taken another spouse without knowledge of her sire, albeit ere then she had lain with Phoibos of the unshorn hair, and bare within her the seed of a very god. Neither awaited she the marriage-tables nor the sound of many voices in hymeneal song, such as the bride's girl-mates are wont to sing at eventide with merry minstrelsy: but lo, she had longing for things otherwhere, even as many before and after. For a tribe there is most foolish among men, of such as scorn the things of home, and gaze on things that are afar off, and chase a cheating prey with hopes that shall never be fulfilled. Of such sort was the frenzied strong desire fair-robed Koronis harboured in her heart, for she lay in the couch of a stranger that was come from Arcady. But one that watched beheld her: for albeit he was at sheep-gathering Pytho, yet was the temple's king Loxias aware thereof, beside his unerring partner, for he gave heed to his own wisdom, his mind that knoweth all things; in lies it hath no part, neither in act or thought may god or man deceive him. Therefore when he was aware of how she lay with the stranger Ischys son of Elatos, and of her guile unrighteous, he sent his sister fierce with terrible wrath to go to Lakereia—for by the steep shores of the Boibian lake was the home of her virginity—and thus a doom adverse blasted her life and smote her down: and of her neighbours many fared ill therefore and perished with her: so doth a fire that from one spark has leapt upon a mountain lay waste wide space of wood.