First published in 1883 and revised in 1899, this edition is full of practical help for understanding the texts.

The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including the Olympics. The Odes contain versions of some of the best known Greek myths and are also a valuable source for Greek religion and ethics. Verity's lucid translations are complemented by insights into competition, myth, and meaning. - ;'we can speak of no greater contest than Olympia' The Greek poet Pindar (c. 518-428 BC) composed victory odes for winners in the ancient Games, including the Olympics. He celebrated the victories of athletes competing in foot races, horse races, boxing, wrestling, all-in fighting and the pentathlon, and his Odes are fascinating not only for their poetic qualities, but for what they tell us about the Games. Pindar praises the victor by comparing him to mythical heroes and the gods, but also reminds the athlete of his human limitations. The Odes contain versions of some of the best known Greek myths, such as Jason and the Argonauts, and Perseus and Medusa, and are a valuable source for Greek religion and ethics. Pindar's startling use of language - striking metaphors, bold syntax, enigmatic expressions - makes reading his poetry a uniquely rewarding experience. Anthony Verity's lucid translations are complemented by an introduction and notes that provide insight into competition, myth, and meaning. -

Pindar's victory odes, written in the fifth century B.C. to commemorate the heroes of the athletic games, are some of the most powerful and intricte works of ancient Greek poetry -- and perhaps the most difficult to translate well.

This collection of the extant odes by the Greek poet Pindar presents a comprehensive look at the odes that define his poetic career. Along with Sappho, Pindar is one of the esteemed nine lyric poets of Ancient Greece. These extant odes are also representative of Greece's cultural and artistic trends at the beginning of the dynamic classical period, between the 5th and 4th century BC. Primarily in the mode of his famed victory odes, or "epikinia", Pindar elevates the legends of various athletic victors. From charioteers to wrestlers, these poems are frank yet powerful accounts of Ancient Greece's most harrowing Olympic events. Pindar's poetic style is particularly striking, often employing grandiosity unheard in his contemporaries' verse. His elegant phrasing and exacting imagery make these odes delightfully arresting. These games provide an opportunity for mortal men to be elevated to divine status; and it is these odes that so effortlessly set these transformations into action. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and follows the translation of Ernest Myers.

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Pindar and the Cult of Heroes takes a radical new look at the veneration and cult of heroic men, living and dead, in ancient Greece. Bruno Currie finds the roots of the Hellenistic ruler cult, and hence Roman emperor cult, in the 5th century BC (and earlier). Pindar's victory odes represent a crucial stage in this process. Currie also offers a major re-evaluation of the epinician genre and extensive studies of five of Pindar's odes.

Pindar-the 'Theban eagle', as Thomas Gray famously called him-has often been taken as the archetype of the sublime poet: soaring into the heavens on wings of language and inspired by visions of eternity. In this much-anticipated new study, Robert Fowler asks in what ways the concept of the sublime can still guide a reading of the greatest of the Greek lyric poets. Working with ancient and modern treatments of the topic, especially the poetry and writings of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), arguably Pindar's greatest modern reader, he develops the case for an aesthetic appreciation of Pindar's odes as literature. Building on recent trends in criticism, he shifts the focus away from the first performance and the orality of Greek culture to reception and the experience of Pindar's odes as text. This change of emphasis yields a fresh discussion of many facets of Pindar's astonishing art, including the relation of the poems to their occasions, performativity, the poet's persona, his imagery, and his myths. Consideration of Pindar's views on divinity, transcendence, time, and the limits of language reveals him to be not only a great writer but a great thinker.