by Coleridge · Cluster: Heroism · Hero · Last Stand
Abstract
A literal English version of the opening strophe of Pindar’s Second Olympic ode (celebrating victor and city) plus a fragment on superstition as the shadow of weak mortality.
Connections
Topoi: War as Glory Themes & Concepts: Heroism, Faith and Doubt Forms & Genres: Pindaric Ode Historical References: Ancient Greece, Greek Mythology
Testo integrale / Full text
‘As nearly as possible word for word.’
Ye harp-controlling hymns!
(or)
Ye hymns the sovereigns of harps!
What God? what Hero?
What Man shall we celebrate?
Truly Pisa indeed is of Jove,
But the Olympiad (or, the Olympic games) did Hercules establish,
The first-fruits of the spoils of war.
But Theron for the four-horsed car
That bore victory to him,
It behoves us now to voice aloud:
The Just, the Hospitable,
The Bulwark of Agrigentum,
Of renowned fathers
The Flower, even him
Who preserves his native city erect and safe.
1815. First published in Biog. Lit., 1817, ii. 90; 1847, ii. 93. First
collected 1893.
O! Superstition
is
the
giant
shadow
Which the solicitude of weak mortality,
Its back toward Religion’s rising sun,
Casts on the thin mist of th’ uncertain future.
1816. First published from an MS. in 1893.