whom they had long been proud, and whose achievements it would be needless for the poet to narrate. And this very knowledge of his audience is made by Pindar a ground for complimenting them. He has an endless store of such glorious allusions, he tells them, —the wise grasp their sense at once, but to the uninitiated they remain a blank perplexity.
"Oh mine are keen shafts many a one
Within the quiver stored:
Of meaning to the wise, but to the horde
Dark riddles!" [1]
To some extent Pindar has paid the penalty for his imperious scorn of the uninitiated "horde," and has sacrificed, for the applauses of his immediate audience, the chance of a wider popularity.
Sometimes, in passing from the occasion of an Ode to his favourite legends, Pindar seems to scorn the employment of any bridge whatever. Of this a good instance will be found in the First Nemean, addressed to Chromius of Ætna. Chromius, he says,[2] is at once strong and wise, and on such a patron he would fain lavish all the best stores of his poetry. He is no miser to hoard its treasures for himself; no! let him pour them on Chromius, and win his gratitude in return.
"But, when I fain would wake
Some old heroic lay,
Whose but Herakles' noble name
Should deck the exulting verse for thy dear sake?"—(S).
