Studies of the Greek Poets (Vol 1 of 2)

by John Addington Symonds

With this we may compare the story of happy lives told by Crœsus to Solon, and the celebrated four lines of Simonides: "Health is best for a mortal man; next, beauty; thirdly, well-gotten wealth; fourthly, the pleasure of youth among friends."

Closely connected with Pindar's ethical beliefs were his religious notions, which were both peculiar and profound. Two things with regard to his theology deserve especial notice—its conscious criticism of existing legends, and its strong Pythagorean bias, both combined with true Hellenic orthodoxy in all essentials. One of the greatest difficulties in forming an exact estimate of the creed of a philosophical Greek intellect is to know how to value the admixture of scientific scepticism on the one hand, and of purer theism on the other. About Pindar's time the body of Hellenic mythology was being invaded by a double process of destructive and constructive criticism. Xenophanes, for example, very plainly denounced as absurd the anthropomorphic
Pantheon made in the image of man, while he endeavored
to substitute a cult of the One God, indivisible and incognizable. Plato still further developed the elements suggested by Xenophanes. But there was some inherent incapacity in the Greek intellect for arriving at monotheism by a process of rarefaction and purification. The destructive criticism which in Xenophanes, Pindar, and Plato had assailed the grosser myths, dwindled into unfruitful scepticism. The attempts at constructing a rational theosophy ended in metaphysics. Morality was studied as a separate branch of investigation, independent of destructive criticism and religious construction. Meanwhile the popular polytheism continued to flourish, though enfeebled, degenerate, and disconnected from the nobler impulses of poetry and art. In Pindar the process of decadence had not begun. He stood at the very highest point which it was possible for a religious Greek to reach—combining the æsthetically ennobling enthusiasm for the old Greek deities with so much critical activity as enabled him to reject the grosser myths, and with that moderate amount of theological mysticism which the unassisted intellect of the Greeks seemed capable of receiving without degeneracy into puerile superstition. The first Olympian ode contains the most decided passages in illustration of his critical independence of judgment:

"Impossible is it for me to call one of the blessed ones a glutton: I stand aloof: loss hath often overtaken evil speakers."

Again:

"Truly many things are wonderful; and it may be that in some cases fables dressed up with cunning fictions beyond the true account falsify the traditions of men. But beauty, which is the author of all delicious things for mortals, by giving to these myths acceptance, ofttimes makes even what is incredible to be credible: but succeeding time gives the most certain evidence of truth; and for a man to speak nobly of the gods is seemly; for so the blame is less."

These two passages suffice to prove how freely Pindar handled the myths, not indeed exposing them to the corrosive action of mere scepticism, but testing them[115] by the higher standard of the healthy human conscience. When he refuses to believe that the immortals were cannibals and ate the limbs of Pelops, he is like a rationalist avowing his disbelief in the savage doctrine of eternal damnation. His doubt does not proceed from irreligion, but from faith in the immutable holiness of the gods, who set the ideal standard of human morality. What seems to him false in the myths he attributes to the accretions of ignorant opinion and vain fancy round the truth.

The mystical element of Pindar's creed, whether we call it Orphic or Pythagorean, is remarkable for a definite belief in the future life, including a system of rewards and punishments; for the assertion of the supreme tribunal of conscience,[116] and, finally, for a reliance on rites of purification. The most splendid passage in which these opinions are expressed by Pindar is that portion of the second Olympian in which he describes the torments of the wicked and the blessings of the just beyond the grave:

"Among the dead, sinful souls at once pay penalty, and the crimes done in this realm of Zeus are judged beneath the earth by one who gives sentence under dire necessity.

"But the good, enjoying perpetual sunlight equally by night and day, receive a life more free from woes than this of ours; they trouble not the earth with strength of hand, nor the water of the sea for scanty sustenance; but with the honored of the gods, all they who delighted in the keeping of their oath pass a tearless age: the others suffer woe on which no eye can bear to look. Those who have thrice endured on either side the grave to keep their spirits wholly free from crime, journey on the road of Zeus to the tower of Kronos: where round the islands blow breezes ocean-borne; and flowers of gold burn some on the land from radiant trees, and others the wave feeds; with necklaces whereof they twine their hands and brows, in the just decrees of Rhadamanthus, whom father Kronos has for a perpetual colleague, he who is spouse of Rhea throned above all gods.