This paper attempts to solve a difficult textual problem in Pindar's poetry. Albeit the manuscripts are utterly unanimous, editors tend to correct the passage. The author, on the other hand, argues in favour of preserving the manuscript tradition. His interpretation of the line: 'immo nuper delectat Neptunum ad gentem Pelei cognatam etiam nunc transgressum materterus tuus, Pythea' might present a contribution to the understanding of the Fifth Nemean and Pindaric poetry as well. This new perspective could also suggest that some of the problems in Pindar's epinician poetry are not textual, but hermeneutical ones.
The I. 5. 56 - 58 is one of the few highly controversial cruxes in Pindar, though it may be an interpretative and not a textual one. The kernel of the ambiguity is in the expression 'oupis elpidon'. After examining the various interpretations the paper analyses the concept underlying the rare and quaint word 'oupis' from Homer on, which turns out to be a strong visual metaphor in Pindar as well. The author's reading of the passage: 'nec labor ingens occaecatus est, nec tot sumptus, qui aciem spei excitaverunt' is examined within the context of the poem, and the relevance of the keen visual metaphor prevalent in Pindar's whole poetry, is elucidated.
This essay draws on texts not translated into English as yet, in particular Heidegger’s brilliant 1943 lecture course on Heraclitus, to show how Heidegger understood Pindar’s “gold” and Heraclitus’s “kosmos” as early Greek names for Being itself. The “gleaming” and “adorning” “kosmos” − which the later Heidegger understood to be “world” (Welt) in the fullest and richest sense − is not in the first place any kind of transcendental-phenomenological “projection” of the human being; it is rather the resplendence of the “ever-living” Being-unfolding-way itself from out of which both the gods and human beings − indeed all beings and things − come to pass and pass away.
The article examines two interpretations of several verses of the famous Greek lyric poet Pindar. Pindar’s poem has not been preserved; probably his introductory verses were recorded by Plato in the dialogue Gorgias. However, the verses are not declaimed by Socrates, but by his greatest opponent in the dialogue – a young aspiring Athenian politician Callicles. Another author referring to the main idea of the first line of Pindar’s poem was his contemporary – historian Herodotus. The aim of the article is to compare these two interpretations.
The thorough analysis of the language, metrics and content of the poetic quotation in the Favorinus’ De exilio (col. VII,44–46) suggests its attribution to a Greek tragedian (perhaps Euripides – the Andromeda or a tragedy in connection with the Perseus’ myth, such as Danae or Dictys) rather than to Pindar.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.