Awake my Lyre, and send me forth A witness of heroic worth. The Virtuous in a Friend's fuccefs rejoice, To greet the Victor in the OLYMPIC ftrife; Of every virtuous deed, the luftre, and the life, 5 10 O may the immortal Gods propitious hear His future vows, and grant each pious prayer! With breaft fincere he courts the placid meed 25 Experience to the world will every truth display. He thus the royal Maid addrefs'd: Behold the Man! nor great in speed alone! 35 My hand unvanquifh'd, undifmay'd my breaft. These Silver Treffes, lo! are spread Untimely, on a youthful Head; For oft capricious Nature's Rage Gives to the vigorous Brow, the hoary Tint of Age. 40 NOTE S. PSAUMIS of CAMARINA was, according to the Scholiaft, the fon of ACRON; and got the Victory in the Chariot Race in the eighty-fecond Olympiad, about the time that ROME was governed by the DECEMVIRI. CAMARINA was a city of SICILY, now called CAMARANA. Ver. 2. Borne on the unwearied thunder's wing.] I find the word 'Exaring rendered in most of the LATIN interpretations vibrator, or impulfor. And in SUDORIUS's Poetical Verfion, printed at the end of the OXFORD PINDAR, it is thus tranflated:" O qui corufcâ fulgura dextera Fulmenque torques. J The word 'Earng in this fenfe, when connected with axaarrónode, ftrikes me, as occafioning a confufion of images; but, by confidering it as derived from a very usual sense of 'Eλaúvw, viz. equite, this confufion is removed. My opinion is favored by the elder Scholiaft, who fays, THE SPORT & Πίνδαρος ὡς ἵππον ἐφίσαται τῷ Διὸς, διὸ καὶ ἀκαμαντόποδα αὐτὴν εἶπεν ο and the more modern Scholiaft, though he afterwards ra ther inclines to the other interpretation, fays firft, 'Exaring ὑπέβαλε βροντᾶς· ὡς ἐπὶ ἵππε χρῆται τῷ λόγῳ HORACE HORACE ufes the fame image: -Per cælum tonantes Egit Equos volucremque currum. And the Supreme Being is defcribed in the fame manner by the PSALMIST: Who maketh the Clouds his Chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind.' Pfalm civ. ver. 3. Ver. 28. Experience to the world will every truth difplay.] I own this tranfition feems to me the most abrupt and confufed of any in PINDAR; and the ftory of ERGINUS appears to be brought in without any apparent reason, as the Poet himself makes no mention of PSAUMIS's grey hairs, though all his Scholiafts and Commentators do. Ver. 33-HYPSIPYLE] She was daughter of THOAS, King of LEMNOS, and inftituted Funeral Games in honor of her father, to which the ARGONAUTS were invited; amongst whom was ERGINUS, the fon of CLYMENUS, who, having white hair, was ridiculed by the LEMNIAN women, as unfit to contend for the prize; but beating ZETUS and CALAIS, fons of BOREAS, in the race, their contempt was changed into admiration. This is the ufual interpretation of the paffage; but the Monthly Reviewers fuggeft an idea that the Original Λαμνιάδων γυναικῶν Ἔλυσεν ἐξ ἀτιμίας, alludes to the effeminate life the ARGONAUTS lived among the women of LEMNOS, where they stopped on their return from their Expedition to COLCHIS; and which intepretation it will certainly justify. I have therefore now made my tranflation correfpond with the Original as nearly as poffible. Indeed there is nothing a Tranflator should more carefully guard against, than the being induced to deviate from the plain sense of his Author, to adopt the fanciful ideas of Commentators, and to introduce into the Text words perhaps totally inconfiftent with his real intention. So in the beginning of the fecond PYTHIAN Odě, SUDORIUS, having found in the Scholia that SYRACUSE was compofed of four Cities joined together, renders the words Μεταπόλιες ὦ Συρά κοσαι, Quattuor fecla Syracufa in urbes. and deftroys the fublimity of the paffage by defcending to particulars. THE |