Pythian

Pindar

Pindar. Arnson Svarlien, Diane, translator. Created for the Perseus Project, 1990.

  1. who indeed, when his father was murdered, was taken by his nurse Arsinoe from the strong hands and bitter deceit of Clytaemnestra, when she sent the Dardanian daughter of Priam,
  2. Cassandra, together with the soul of Agamemnon, to the shadowy bank of Acheron with her gray blade of bronze,
  3. the pitiless woman. Was it Iphigeneia, slaughtered at the Euripus far from her fatherland, that provoked her to raise the heavy hand of her anger? Or was she vanquished by another bed
  4. and led astray by their nightly sleeping together? This is the most hateful error for young brides, and is impossible to conceal
  5. because other people will talk. Citizens are apt to speak evil, for prosperity brings with it envy as great as itself.
  6. But the man who breathes close to the ground roars unseen. He himself died, the heroic son of Atreus, when at last he returned to famous Amyclae,
  7. and he caused the destruction of the prophetic girl, when he had robbed of their opulent treasures the houses of the Trojans, set on fire for Helen«s sake. And his young son went to the friend of the family, the old man
  8. Strophius, who dwelled at the foot of Parnassus. But at last, with the help of Ares, he killed his mother and laid Aegisthus low in blood.
  9. My friends, I was whirled off the track at a shifting fork in the road, although I had been traveling on a straight path before. Or did some wind throw me off course,