Pindar's Third Pythian (updated)

By chance I happened to look at Pindar's Third Pythian Ode the other day, and realized it offers the opportunity to see how a Greek poet -- indeed, their greatest lyric poet -- handled some of the same material Ovid has been weaving together in books 2 and 3 of the Metamorphoses.

Pindar was claimed by Thebes, and Books 3 and 4 of the Metamorphoses are concerned with the Theban cycle. So admired was he that when Alexander the Great reduced Thebes to rubble, he made an exception of Pindar's house. Perhaps the conqueror was hoping that Pindar's spirit would return to sing of his conquests - after all, according to legend, that spirit did return after his death to share some verses about Persephone with a relative.

Horace defined the way admirers of the Greek poet have seen him ever since:

Julus, whoever tries to rival Pindar,

Flutters on wings of wax, a rude contriver

Doomed like the son of Daedalus to christen

Somewhere a shining sea.

A river bursts its banks and rushes down a

Mountain with uncontrollable momentum,

Rain-saturated, churning, chanting thunder –

There you have Pindar's style...

Anyway, in the Third Pythian, Pindar interweaves the tale of Apollo and Coronis with those of Cadmus and Harmonia, Chiron and Aesclepius, Semele and Dionysus, and even Achilles' parents, Peleus and Thetis:

But she made light of Apollo, in the error of her mind, and consented to another marriage without her father's knowledge, although she had before lain with Phoebus of the unshorn hair, [15] and was bearing within her the pure seed of the god. She did not wait for the marriage-feast to come, nor for the full-voiced cry of the hymenaeal chorus, such things as unmarried girls her own age love to murmur in evening songs to their companion. Instead, [20] she was in love with what was distant; many others have felt that passion. There is a worthless tribe among men which dishonors what is at home and looks far away, hunting down empty air with hopes that cannot be fulfilled. Such was the strong infatuation [25] that the spirit of lovely-robed Coronis had caught. For she lay in the bed of a stranger who came from Arcadia; but she did not elude the watcher. Even in Pytho where sheep are sacrificed, the king of the temple happened to perceive it, Loxias, persuading his thoughts with his unerring counsellor: his mind, which knows all things. He does not grasp falsehood, and he is deceived [30] by neither god nor man, neither in deeds nor in thoughts. Knowing even then of her sleeping with Ischys, son of Elatus, and of her lawless deceit, he sent his sister, raging with irresistible force, to Lacereia, since the girl lived by the banks of Lake Boebias. [35] A contrary fortune turned her to evil and overcame her. And many neighbors shared her fate and perished with her; fire leaps from a single spark on a mountain, and destroys a great forest. But when her kinsmen had placed the girl in the wooden walls of the pyre, and [40] the ravening flame of Hephaestus ran around it, then Apollo spoke: “I can no longer endure in my soul to destroy my own child by a most pitiful death, together with his mother's grievous suffering.” So he spoke. In one step he reached the child and snatched it from the corpse; the burning fire divided its blaze for him, [45] and he bore the child away and gave him to the Magnesian Centaur to teach him to heal many painful diseases for men. 

The doomed house of Thebes, from Cadmus to Pentheus to Laius to Oedipus, hangs over the poet's ruminations:

But a secure life was not granted either to Peleus son of Aeacus or to godlike Cadmus; yet they are said to have attained the highest prosperity of all mortal men, since [90] they heard the Muses of the golden headbands singing on the mountain and in seven-gatedThebes, when Cadmus married ox-eyed Harmonia, and Peleus married the famous daughter of wise Nereus.

Like lightning, Pindar's words to the tyrant Hieron of Syracuse illuminate the torrent of myth:

Do not crave immortal life, my soul, but use to the full the resources of what is possible.

A few updates:

More from Pindar on this story can be found here:

https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/04/27/koronis-death-and-the-birth-of-asclepius/

https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/07/30/koronis-death-and-the-birth-of-asclepius-2/

See also:

https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2016/04/25/asclepius-two-mothers/

And also the expression "nail the eyes of crows," which according to Sententiae Antiquae, was "a proverbial expression, which meant in effect that you could beat someone at their own game."

Birth of Asclepius death of Coronis

Philyreius in Ovid and Milton

Here's a poem composed by John Milton when he was in his teens. His deep acquaintance with Ovid among other ancients is apparent in the use of "Philyreius," which means "son of Philyra." One would learn from the Metamorphoses (Book 2.676) that Chiron was sometimes called Philyreius.

Philyra incidentally has her own tale of transformation, told by Apollodorus among others:

PHILYRE (or Philyra) was an Okeanid nymph of Mount Pelion in Thessalia loved by the Titan Kronos. When his wife Rhea came upon their rendevous, he quickly transformed himself into a horse to escape detection. As a result, Philyre birthed a half-horse, half-man hybrid, the kentauros (centaur) Kheiron. To ease her shame, Kronos transformed the girl into a linden tree (philyra in Greek.)

Here's Milton's poem:

Learn to submit to the laws of destiny, and lift your suppliant hands to the Fate, O children of Iapetus who inhabit the pendulous orb of the earth. If Death, the doleful wanderer fromTaenarus, shall but once call you, alas! vain is it to attempt wiles and delay, for all must pass through the shades of Styx. Were the right hand strong to repel destined death, fierce Hercules had not lain dead on Aemathian Oeta, poisoned by the blood of Nessus; nor had Ilium seen Hector slain by the base guile of envious Pallas; nor Sarpedon whom the phantom Achilles slew with Locrian sword, whilst Jove wept. If Hecatean words could put to flight sad fate, the infamous mother of Telegonus had yet lived, and the sister of Aegialeus, who used the powerful wand. If mysterious herbs and the art of the physicians could thwart the triple goddesses, Machaonwith his skill in simples had not fallen by the spear of Eurypylus; and the arrow smeared with the serpent's blood had done you no injury, O Philyreius; nor had the arms and bolts of your grandsire harmed you, O son, who were cut from your mother's womb. And you, too, Gostlin, greater than your tutor, Apollo, you to whom was given the rule of the gowned flock, had not died, whom now leafy Cyrrha mourns, and Helicon amid its springs. You would still live, happy and honored to have shepherded the flock of Pallas. You would not have gone in Charon's skiff to the horrible recesses of the abyss. But Persephone broke the thread of life, angered when she saw how many souls you snatched from the black jaws of Death by your arts and your potent juices. Revered Chancellor, I pray that your body may rest in peace beneath the soft turf, and that from your grave may spring roses, and marigolds, and the hyacinth with blushing face. May the judgment of Aeacus rest mildly on you, and may Sicilian Proserpina grant you a smile, and in the Elysian fields among the blest may you walk for ever.

Latin text here, notes here.

Cross-posted @ the Classics Blog.