Messages to the Underworld: An Aspect of Poetic Immortalization in Pindar

Author(s): Charles Segal

Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 106, No. 2 (Summer, 1985), pp. 199-212
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD:
AN ASPECT OF POETIC IMMORTALIZATION IN PINDAR
In memoriam
Alison Goddard Elliott
(Sept. 7, 1937-Sept. 18, 1984)

In a dithyramb for Thebes, Pindar calls himself an "outstandin

herald of skilled verses" appointed by the Muse (6eaipesov Kdpu
o00ofv brt0wv, frag. 61.18-20 Bo = 70b.23-25 Sn). At the end of th
Fourth Pythian, he claims Homer's authority for his role as a "nob
messenger" (a~yyeAov oaA6v) through whose "upright" skill the Mu
gains in honor (au`eTaL Kai Moioa i6' 6yyAhiaq opeaq, Pyt
4.276-79).' One of the tasks of a "messenger of song" is to establish com-
munication: communication between the mortal victor and the timeless
realm of the gods, between the present and the past (both actual and
mythical), between the individual laudandus and the community as a
whole, between his native city and the place of the victory.2 Pindar fre-
quently uses concrete spatial metaphors to express this act of mediation.
In 01. 6.22 f. he yokes the victor's chariot to travel into the land of
myth. In Pyth. 2.67 f. and Nem. 5.2 ff. he sends his message of song like
cargo across the sea. Frequently he makes a journey, real or imagined,
to his patron's home city, even though this is as far as Sicily or Liby
(Nem. 1.19 f.; Pyth. 4.1 f.).3

'The scholion ad loc. (493 Drachmann), followed by many commentators, sug-

gests that Pindar is referring to II. 15.207, eo0Aov KQi TO TSTUKTaQ, OT ayyeCOq ciotipa

2For the motif of poet as "messenger" in the Epinicia, see also 01. 7.20 f., 9.25-29;
Pyth. 2.3 f., 9.1-4; Nem. 6.57-59; cf. too 01. 6.90 f. and Pyth. 6.15-19. See also
Theognis 769 f. and Giuliana Lanata ad loc. in Poetica Preplatonica (Florence 1963)
64 f.

In the latter poem, there is also a corresponding visit of xenia between the exiled
Damophilus at Thebes, Pyth. 4.299, whose return journey Pindar hopes to effect, 293 ff.
On the motif of the nostos in the ode, see R. W. B. Burton, Pindar's Pythian Odes (Ox-
ford 1962) 167 f. On the motif of philia and xenia generally, see W. Schadewaldt, "Der
Aufbau des Pindarischen Epinikion," Schrzften der Konigsberger Gelehrten Gesellschaft
5,3 (Halle 1928) 314 f.; Hermann Gundert, Pindar und sein Dichterberuf (Frankfurt
1935) 35 f., 39, 41; W. J. Verdenius, "Pindar's Fourteenth Olympian Ode," Mnemosyne
32 (1979) 32.

A etrici t.i Jouna;>l o I'Philology )06 (1)985) 199-212 (c) 1985 b,y I'Tc Johls Holpkinls Ulivcrsil Pirtss

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200 CHARLES SEGAL

In establishing communication between realms separated b

and space, the poet also may send a message to the Underwo
motif occurs several times in the Epinicia but has not received
terpreters the attention that it deserves.4 This message to Hades i
metrical with the more familiar poetic task of suffusing mortal l
the radiance of Olympian eternity.5 When the poet addresse
ceased kinsmen of the victor, he momentarily illuminates ev
realm of death with the light of song. At the end of Nemean
ample, he speaks directly to the victor's deceased father of the
bility of bringing back his life: (i Maya, TO 5' aUTLq Teav ipuxav
/ Ou [gOl 6UVQTOV (44 f.). By contrast, he can easily raise a "ston
Muses" to memorialize the family's athletic prowess (46-48).
This sending of messages between living and dead is an im
theme in classical literature. Plato's Er is to be a "messenger to
the things in Hades (QayyeAov ysveSOat avOp0pnolt TWOv CK
10.614d). In a later development of the poetic tradition, Virg
ptolemus brutally sends Priam to Hades as a "messenger" of
(Aen. 2.547-49):
referes ergo haec et nuntius ibis
Pelidae genitori. illi mea tristia facta
degeneremque Neoptolemum narrare memento.

This establishment of continuity between the separate sp

existence is one of the gifts of the goddess Memory, Mnem
Jean-Pierre Vernant remarks, she confers on the poet "le pri
d'un contact avec l'autre monde, la possibilite d'y entrer et d'e
librement."6 This motif is another form of the poetic 'AArh
commemorative praise that bridges the gap between past an
and overcomes the power of time's oblivion to efface morta

4Burton (note 3 above) 148 and C. M. Bowra, Pindar (Oxford 1964) 37

tion the motif, but without discussion of details. A. W. Miller, "Thalia E
Consolation in Pindar's Fourteenth Olympian," TAPA 107 (1977) 234, n.
number of passages where Pindar refers to dead kinsmen of the victor. See als
(note 3 above) 34.
5E.g., 01. 6.1-4, Pyth. 9.89 f., Nem. 7.12-16. The "Zeus-given gleam"
8.96 may possibly also imply the radiance of honor in poetry. For the interact
life and death as motifs of praise in the Epinicia, see Jacqueline Duchem
poete et prophete (Paris 1955) 282 ff.
6J.-P. Vernant, "Aspects mythiques de la memoire et du temps," in
pensie chez les Grecs, ed. 3 (Paris 1974) 1.87. Cf. Virgil's memento in Aen. 6
above.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 201

ment. Song enlists the positive value of time as preserver, inste

as destroyer, to keep great deeds alive for future generations.7
des provides a lucid statement of how the "truth" of this poetr
will defeat the darkness of blame and envy and overcome the "
ness" or AiT0rl associated with them (13.202-7):8

3pOTWv 5S l)lpIOC;
ntaVTIoaOl plV ?O TLV tn 9pyoL[q'
a 6' dAaQoeia 4)tA
VIKaV, 0 TS navi[a]pUaTw[p
XpOvoq TO KaA6ci
;]pypVvov aiv a[s&tE...
On the whole, Pindar remains more concerned with death than Bac-
chylides. This insistent consciousness of death -as in his address to de-
ceased kinsmen -results in the mixture of both funerary and triumphal
imagery throughout the Epinicia.9
The wish to span the distance between the living and the dead (as
the poetic 6Ar90eta seeks to do) is typical of most societies' interest in
reaching the departed and communicating to them the concern that the
living still have for them.'l In archaic and classical Greece, an impor-
tant duty of the men of the household is to attend to the funeral offer-
ings for departed ancestors. Communication with the dead takes place
particularly at the tombs, often through the pouring of ritual liba-

7The best statement of this view of time in connection with Pindaric "truth" is 01.
10.53-55; cf. also Nem. 4.43 and Pae. 6.5. For recent discussion see Marcel Detienne,
Les maitres de verite dans la Grace archa'que (Paris 1967) ch. 2, esp. 13 ff., 18 ff.; Gret-
chen Kromer, "The Value of Time in Pindar's Olympian 10," Hermes 104 (1976) 420-
36, esp. 425 ff.; Paolo Vivante, "On Time in Pindar," Arethusa 5 (1972) 107-31; Anna
M. Komornicka, "Quelques remarques sur la notion d'Alatheia et Pseudos chez Pin-
dare," Eos 60 (1972) 235-53; G. F. Gianotti, Per una poetica pindarica (Torino 1975)
63 ff.; P. Vidal-Naquet, "Temps des dieux et temps des hommes," Le chasseur noir
(Paris 1981) 69-94, esp. 76.
8On the contrast of Truth and Blame, memory and the "darkness" of forgetting in
archaic poetry generally see Detienne (note 7 above) 24 ff.; Gregory Nagy, The Best of
the Achaeans (Baltimore 1979) ch. 12, citing also G. Dum6zil, Servius et lafortune (Paris
1943).
9See Duchemin (note 5 above) 271 ff., 301 ff.
'lSee Emily Vermeule, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Poetry, Sather
Classical Lectures 46 (Berkeley, Los Angeles 1979) 7. Cf. Herodotus' account of the
"messenger" that the Getae send to the dead, 4.94.2 f., with the ethnographic parallels
cited by W. W. How andJ. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus (Oxford 1912) ad loc.,
and by Georges Devereux, "Les blessures d'Hektor et les messagers vers l'autre monde,"
L'Homme 23 (1983) 136 f.

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202 CHARLES SEGAL

tions. 1 The aural dimension of this communication also re

ular stress.12 We may recall, for example, Orestes' empha
tive KhAuSv QKOU(oQL in the prologue of the Choephoroe (TU
o6X0 TO), KrpUooGo rnaTpi / KAUhLV aKouOal), a verse for w
des takes Aeschylus to task in the Frogs (1173 f.).
From the other side, the dead can be presumed to hav
ing interest in the affairs of the living. Despite the shadowy
the souls in the Homeric nekyiai, popular belief continu
them with some kind of vague sentience about the world
most influential literary paradigm is Achilles' meeting wit
Odyssey 11.14 The dead hero is eager for news about his
Odysseus cannot supply, but he strides off with joy at Odyss
his son Neoptolemus (11.492-540).'5 The great literary
course, have special privileges; but even for ordinary mortals
the dead and the cult of heroes probably contributed to th
the deceased were somehow reachable beyond the grave. I
mentioned Pindar's frequent address to dead ancestors; a
out the Epinicia he also shows much interest in cult-her
1.90 ff., Pyth. 8.56 ff., Nem. 7.85 ff.). A recent article by
ten reminds us of the poet's concern to stress his person
heroes, particularly through the proximity of their graves.16
Ancestors are obviously not heroes, and the degree of the
in the Underworld is more obscure and more precarious
contexts in the Epinicia suggest that Pindar associates the
bations of song with the cult practice of pouring libations

'lSee in general Vermeule (note 10 above) 28 ff. In II. 23.218-21,

libations all night long at the pyre of Patroclus. Cf. also II. 24.791 f. Fo
cal evidence, see D. C. Kurtz andJ. Boardman, Greek Burial Customs (I
205-10.

2See Vermeule (note 10 above) 14 f.

'3See Erwin Rohde, Psyche, ed. 8, trans. W. B. Hillis (London 1925) 414. In n
24, p. 441, Rohde cites the three passages from the Odes on which I comment belo
14, Pyth. 5, 01. 8), but without discussion and only as examples of the soul's cons
ness of the world of the living.
"'For recent discussion and bibliography, see Vermeule (note 10 above) 28
with n. 49 on p. 218; alsoJan Bremmer, The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (Prin
1983) 88 f.
5Compare Virgil's projection of this motif into the future in Dido's threat to
Aeneas, Aen. 4.385-87; et, cumfrzgida mors anima seduxerit artus, / omnibus umbra
locis adero. dabis improbe, poenas. / audiam et haec Manis ueniet mihifama sub imos.
'6Jeffrey S. Rusten, "FEITON 'HPQ2: Pindar's Prayer to Heracles (N. 7.86-101)
and Greek Popular Religion," HSCP 87 (1983) 289-97, esp. 291 ff.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 203

of the departed and that in both cases the poet is functio

senger" between the upper world and Hades. The asso
Pindar and elsewhere, between athletes and heroes per
to strengthen the connection between the poet's offering
parted kinsmen of the victor and the cult offerings
number of legends, analyzed byJoseph Fontenrose in a
cle, athletes gain the status of cult heroes.18 From the eig
fifth centuries B.C., these figures follow a remarkably co
they display extraordinary athletic prowess at the pan
meet a violent and mysterious death often attended by
ness, and after their mortal end roam the land as pote
divinities, jealous and irascible, requiring honors, cult,
to end plague, barrenness, or famine that their wrath
the city. We are here far away from the luminous O
which Pindar brings into association with the glory of th
brated in his odes; but it is clear that in the popular
religious attitudes of his time it was easy to assimilate th
lete's capacity for superhuman-appearing feats of phy
the aura of supernatural power that surrounds the her
beyond the grave.19

II

The best known of these Pindaric messages to the

the end of Olympian 14 (20-24):
P?XeavTleXC vUv O661ov
tpapoep6vaq iet, 'AXoi, rTaTpi KAuTQV 'Ppoio' ayyeiiav
KAeo66aov 65p' i6olo', ulov E?iT[rC o6T Oi v:av
KoArnoL nrap' ei56otqc nFioac
SOTes46vawC KU6i[(OV 6dAXov rnTEpoli xaaiTav.

''For the close affinities between hero cult and ancestor worsh
13 above) 125.
18Joseph Fontenrose, "The Hero as Athlete," CSCA 1 (1968)
own time the case of Cleomedes of Astypalaea is a celebrated exam
for further references see Fontenrose, p. 74, n. 1. See also Rohde (n
B. M. W. Knox, The Heroic Temper, Sather Classical Lecture
Angeles 1964) 56 ff.
'9For the process of historicizing the cult hero as the athletic
contest or festival, see Fontenrose (note 18 above) 83, 85 ff. We sh
victorious athletes at Olympia often received the extraordinary hono
themselves erected in the sacred precinct: cf. Paus. 6.1.

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204 CHARLES SEGAL

Through the vivid personification of the sound itself, Acho,

the barrier between life and death.20 But this oral/aura
renews the sense of "sight" (i6oioa) in Persephone's "b
house.21 The lasting fame through song implied in KAUT
Ol(t can, for a moment, penetrate the blackness and encl
TELXSa 66pOV, 20) of Hades. The bold metaphor of "wing
ers," rTTspd, for the olive wreath with which the victorious
his "young hair" also keeps in the foreground the upwar
toward the gods and Olympus.22 The end of the first stro
the Charites as the "stewards of all deeds in the heavens"
The "wings" at the very end of the ode recall this skyward m
eternizing song, in contrast to the subterranean gloom of
As the ode's opening lines tell us, this locale of Orchom
the site of the Charites, who preside over the waters of
They are worshipped here as divinities of the fecundatin
and life-giving power of water.24 These Kac)iota ua6Ta (1
ters of Castalia, Dirce, or Tilphussa elsewhere in Pindar, a
with birth and the immortalizing power of poetry.25 Here th
initial mood of vital energy, over against Hades at the en
20The striking quality of the personification of Acho in 01. 14, as of
8, is noted by Verdenius (note 3 above) 34. 01. 14 contains the first pe
Echo in Greek literature: see L. R. Farnell, The Works of Pindar 2
ad loc.

21Along with the "seeing" there is also the "hearing," explicit or implied, in the
compounds of-po,AnoC and in rtnaKoOOiT in 14-15. Cf. also KAuTav dyysAiav in 21. Simi-
larly in Nem. 4.79-88, the poet's memorial to the victor's dead uncle combines the visua
brightness of the white Parian marble (81) with the aural resonance of his songful tongue
(yAoooaav eUpSTTO KsAaX6rTV, 86).
22The same metaphor of the wreath as "wings" occurs at Pyth. 9.125, rtoAAXa 5
rtp6o0ev rtTepc 65aTo vIKav. Cf. Verdenius (note 3 above) 36 f.
23 Pindar does not say explicitly that Acho's journey to Hades is a downward jour-
ney: his verb is the noncommital l0t (21). But if Echo is conceived of as a daimon of some
sort associated with Orchomenos, she would in fact be descending from earth to under
world as the bearer of the poet's message from living to dead.
24Gundert (note 3 above) 30 describes them as "die nahrenden und spendenden
'Lebenskrafte des Bodens."' See also Duchemin (note 5 above) 72-80, esp. 73 f.; Gordon
Kirkwood, Selectionsfrom Pindar, APA Textbook Series 7 (Chico, Calif. 1982) 119 f.
who, following Gilbert Norwood, Pindar (Berkeley, Los Angeles 1945) 100, notes th
connection of water, life, and honor in advaov in 12. B. L. Gildersleeve, Pindar. The
Olympian and Pythian Odes (New York 1885) ad loc. suggests that Echo too may have
local associations, although none of these are attested before Hellenistic literature.
25E.g., 01. 6.85 f.; Pyth. 4.299; Isth. 6.62 ff. and 74 f.; Pae. 6.7 ff.; frag. 188
Bo = 198b Sn; cf. also Nem. 7.11 f. and 79. The symbolism of the immortalizing water
of song has been much commented on, e.g., A. Kambylis, Die Dichterweihe und ihr
Symbolik (Heidelberg 1965) esp. 26 ff.; Gianotti (note 7 above) 110 ff.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 205

Pindar has prepared an elaborate foil to the subterra

ness. The intricate word-order of his opening lines assoc
menos with both the radiance and the liquid vitality of
Charites who dwell there are the songful queens of bright
(3 f.): d Atrrapaq 6oi6tpot 3BaoiAeati I XdpLTeq 'EpXopevo
erence to the "Minyans of ancient race" in the next phras
continuity of local habitation and the association betwee
and their divinities, the Charites (rnaAaty6vwv Mlvuav e
The "hearing" that takes place here (KAuTE, 5) establishe
communication between the mortal realm (the singer and
ancestors) and the goddesses who also dwell on Olympus
second strophe begins with another request for "hearing"
the first strophe's association of radiance, song, and "hear
(tArfloipoATr' T' 'Euq)poova ... TernaKooLTe vuv, 14 f.).
that all three of the imperatives in the ode are requests
(5, 15) or telling (21).
This "hearing" between mortal and divinity, via the m
the poet's song, is symmetrical with the "hearing" that t
Hades in the ode's last lines (KAuTdv dyyAhiav, 21). Hen
flowing glory of the Olympian father" (12) that the Char
the heavens (10) contrasts sharply with the dead "father"
who receives Echo's "message of glorious hearing" (21, sl
translating KAUTcV).
The communicative power of song operates on a v
temporal) axis that runs between Olympus, Orchomenos
and between past and present (rtaAaiy6vwv, 4, and cnta
15). It also operates on a horizontal (and spatial) axis, bet
menos and Olympia. The Minyans at the beginning are fir
in close association with their local setting (4); but when
curs, near the end, its modifier, "winning at Olympia," in
"Minyan city" with the place of the victory ('OAuprtL6VlKOc
19). Acho's literal journey to Hades' "black-walled house"
most at once (20 f.).
Several of these motifs in Olympian 14 are thematically a
closing section of Isthmian 6, where the poet again connec
tes, water, poetry, and the family of the victor (62b-66):
dvd 6' ayayov ec (?doC olav polpav upvov v
Txv waAuxi6av &s rTaTpav XapiTWV

26'Aoi6tpot in 3 can mean "associated with song," "of song," and "fa

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206 CHARLES SEGAL

ap6ovTL KaAAiCOTa 6p6o(p,

TOV TE OeiOliOTU op06boavTeq OLKOV TdV6e noAiv
0esotAii vaioicYL.

By including the victor's clan of the Psalychidae, Pindar may imply that
the "light" of song extends beyond the individual celebrandus to the
whole family. The reference to the whole clan will presumably include
its dead members, but Pindar says nothing of the dead explicitly, per-
haps because the old patriarch, Themistius, is still living (65, cf. Nem.
5.50 f.). Hence his imagery here is all of upward movement: cq (doq,
6p0o)oavTeq.

III

In the fifth Pythian, Pindar uses a different technique to inter-

weave the motifs of dead ancestors, the locale of their burial, and the
connection with the living through fame and the waters of poetic im-
mortality. Praising the victory of King Arcesilaus of Cyrene, Pindar re-
fers to his remote ancestor, Aristoteles or Battus I, who founded the
kingdom (82 ff.). Battus' descendants, "coming forth as bearers of gifts,
receive with sacrifices" the Trojan Antenoridae who reached Cyrene in
the mythical past (85-88):
TO 6' Aadolnrrov eOvoc 8V6UKSoW
6EKOVTQi OucY(aioav avbpeq oixvove0VC Oa4) 6 opo()6pot,
TOUq 'AptITOTOI6Ac ayays vauai EoaPq
aAo6 paOelav KASEUOoV 6voiyov.

Coming to them as bearers of gifts, the men whom Aristoteles led in swift
ships as he opened the sea's deep path receive with sacrifices the horse-
driving race (of the Trojan Antenoridae).27

Here Pindar links Cyrene's historical past to the great cycle of Tro-
jan myths. The Cyreneans' sacrificial honors to these early Trojan set-

271 follow the scholia (113 Dr.) in understanding the passage to mean that the
contemporary Cyrenaeans worship the Antenoridae who once came to their land from
Troy (for the legend, see the schol. 110 Dr.). I differ from the scholia, however, in taking
the Ad6oyrnnov evoq to mean the Trojans of old rather than the contemporary Cyre-
naeans, although this point is not essential for my translation. The passage is much dis-
puted. I follow the majority of interpreters (Farnell, Gildersleeve, Mezger). For different
views see U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Pindaros (Berlin 1922) 380, n. 1; W. Christ,
Pindari Carmina (Leipzig 1896) ad loc. (with a different text and punctuation); J. Du-
chemin, Pindare, Pythiques (Paris 1967) ad loc. and 162-65. Her objection that ouocat
in 86 cannot refer to offerings to the heroized figures of the past is refuted by passages like
Hdt. 7.117: see Rohde (note 13 above) 140, n. 15.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 207

tiers also parallel the rituals in which they honor their ow

status as a cult-hero.28 As a "founder" (KTioCSV, 89), Battu
"at the lower edge of the agora where he lies apart in d
pvolq ayopa( crTt 6iXa KelTaL OavCbv, 93). The word "dead,"
Oavcvv, the last word of the epode, leads into the reference to Battus as
heroized founder in the following strophe.29 Instead of viewing death in
terms of ending and rupture, Pindar sets it into the continuity that is
one of his main poetic goals. He incorporates Battus and the other "holy
kings" of the remote past into the traditions of the city which the poet
himself revivifies through the commemorative power of song.
In this passage, then, the opening of the fourth strophe, Pindar
tells how Battus and the other "holy kings" of the past dwell in death
"apart, before their homes" and hear the celebration of the great deeds
of the present. They share in the X6plt that Pindar now bestows on the
present king, Arcesilaus (94-103):
paKap pIev av5pOv [eTa
Evatev, P)q 6' enenTETa Aaooeplq.
rTEpe 6 npOrp 6WajiTWaV ETEspOI AaXOVTsq da'av
paoLAteq iepoi
eVTi, peyaAav 5' QpeITV
5p6o) CiaAheaKa
paveOloav KWCOtV u 66 xeuPaoiv
aKOUOVTi TnoI Xovig 4)psvi,
o?OV oAp3ov uic) TS KOIVQV XdpIV
eV6iK6V T' 'ApKSOcia.

Here, as in 01. 14 and Isth. 6, the present celebration binds together the
living and the dead generations. By reminding us of the heroized found-
er's presence beneath the soil of the agora and of the old kings' graves
each before his own house (whether or not these are now outside the city
walls),30 Pindar evokes the favoring presence of the kindly dead in the
earth, who now approximate the status of local divinities.3'
'8See Farnell (note 20 above) 179, ad loc.
29On the practice of worshiping the founder of a colony as a hero, see Rohde (note
13 above) 127 f. Lines 89 ff. speak of Battus' "founding" only the gods' "groves" (i.e.,
temenos) and processional Sacred Way, but it would be pedantry to exclude the implica-
tions of founding the city in general.
30The scholiast ad loc. (129 Dr.) takes the reference to be to tombs outside the city
gates, in contrast to the burial of Battus in the agora. For a different view, see Wilamo-
witz (note 27 above) 380, n. 2; Duchemin, Pythiques (note 27 above) ad loc. Both Christ
(note 27 above) and Farnell (note 20 above) ad loc. take the phrase to mean "each before
his own house," a view that would fit Rusten's material on heroes' shrines in close proxim-
ity to the private houses in the city: see note 16 above.
3'See Rusten's article, note 16 above.

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208 CHARLES SEGAL

That communication with the past takes place throug

resonance of the poet's song: the "holy kings" who "hea
101) the good fortune" of their descendants in Hades are
lel to the dead father who receives the message brought b
14. To complete the analogy, Arcesilaus is here called the
102), as the victor of 01. 14 is the "son" of the "father"
Acho's message (rnaTpi ... 6uov, 01. 14.21 f.).
Though these remote kings have their (pevseq beneath
they are able to participate somehow (not) in the festive
present celebration (aKoOovTi not X0OVia )pevi, 101).
KOlVdV in 102 and the filial bond between the remote founder and the
living Arcesilaus in the next lines (103 ff.) explicitly link the glory con-
ferred by song in the present and the glory won by his ancestors and
celebrated with cult and sacrifice at the festivals (cf. 86). The poet's
"soft dew of song" freshens the old arete of the ancestors; and simultane-
ously they, like Achilles in Odyssey 11, rejoice in the present arete made
manifest in the victory of their descendant, King Arcesilaus.
The sequence of thought in 85-103 places the poet's present offer-
ings of "libations of praise-songs" (KdJ6pV Urr XUpOlJaav, 100) in the
context of the city's cult-offerings to its heroes and ancestors. These
songs are themselves a kind of libation-one of Pindar's favorite meta-
phors (01. 6.91 and 7.1-10, Isth. 6.1-3 and 63 ff.). They are both a
freshening "dew" and a "libation" that might be poured on a hero's
grave.32
Encomiastic song, like the communal rituals, participates in what
Mircea Eliade calls the renewal of time: it makes the past part of the
living present in the ever-renewable time of myth.33 This renewal of
time, time as continuity, stands out the more forcefully against the rav-
ages of time in seasonal change and biological decay, the "wintry blast
of winds" that brings withering and destruction at the end of the ode
(120 f.).

32See Friedrich Mezger, Pindars Siegeslieder (Leipzig 1880) 232, ad 100: "Der
Ausdruck erinnert an die Grabespenden." See also my remarks on line 86, supra. The
collocation of 5p6oop ucaAE0iaK pav9eloav and KctpOWV un6 XeUUaotv immediately there-
after in 99 f. (with KO)aOV going both with 6p6oap and Xeruaatv) suggests another associ-
ation between the figurative liquid of the song and the actual liquid poured out in liba-
tion. Cf. the similar phrasing of Pyth. 8.57. The notions of vitality and fertility in drosos
are explored by Deborah Boedecker, A Descent from Heaven, American Class. Stud. 13
(Chico, Calif. 1984) 88 ff.
"3M. Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. W.
Trask (Princeton 1954) esp. ch. 2.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 209

Recently, Gregory Nagy has elaborated for the epic her

plicit equation between hero-cult and the "fame imperisha
ferred by song.34 A similar equation, far more explicit, p
Epinicia. Pindar's closest analogy between the cultic honor
and the poet's encomium of the victor occurs in Olympian
radiance (6yAaia) and "mingling" with the supremacy o
(14, 22) corresponds to the "radiant sacrifices" with which t
Olympia are "mingled" at Pelops' tomb and altar (6v aiQ
ayhaaiotl IStLELKTat, 90 f.), where aip,aKoupiaL is the cult term
ings to heroes.35 We may recall also the legends of heroiz
studied at length by Fontenrose.36

IV

The finale of 01. 8, like that of 01. 14, deals with ordinary mortals
rather than founding heroes or "sacred kings" (Pyth. 5.97). Here Pindar
makes explicit the power of poetic Memory to overcome old age and
death. The young victor's athletic success at Olympia "breathed into his
father's father the spirit that can wrestle against old age" (yripaoc avTi-
naAov, 71). When Pindar remarks that success in itself brings a "forget-
ting" (A60a) of Hades, he is perhaps playing on the force of poetic
6-Afi0ela, the negation of oblivion by the poetry of praise (72 f.): 'A'6a
TOl Aix6STa / ap6ppva rrpadatq 6vrip. In the next verse he will "awaken
Memory" (Mnamosuna) to preserve the achievements of the victor's
family.
The poet then turns from the living to the dead (77-84):

(OJT 65 Kai TI eav6vTE?oov Jippoq

KaV v6pov 6p65op:vcov-
KaTaKpUrTTIT 6' OU KOVIC
ouyy6v)V Ke6VaV XdpIv.

'Eppua 6e: uyaTpo6 aKouoaia 'l(itov

AyycAiaCq ?v0noL KSV KaAALpd6X Ai nap6v
KO6(pOV 'OAuprTia 6v o?L ZEcc; y6VEl
6nracev.

34Nagy (note 8 above) chs. 6-10, esp. pp. 114-16.

35See the scholion ad loc.; also my "God and Man in Pindar's First and Third
Olympian Odes," HSCP 68 (1964) 218, with ns. 24 and 29, pp. 255 f.
36See note 18 above.

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210 CHARLES SEGAL

Like Acho in 01. 14, the agent of his message is personifi

Pindar makes Angelia the daughter of Hermes, appropri
view of the latter's role as "messenger of the gods" (01. 6.78
we also think of the mediating function of Hermes Psych
god who literally makes the passage between life and de
nects the two worlds? Nowhere do the Epinicia explicitly
mes Psychopompos. The Hermes of the Odes is Hermes E
The psychopomp is presumably out of place amid the jo
And yet the emphatic placement of "Hermes" at the begi
epode, coming between the description of the dead in 77
deceased relative in Hades hearing news from the living
wonder if the god's funereal role is not also in the backg
As in 01. 14 too, the verbal component of the messa
forced by a visual quality which helps counteract the da
Underworld. The "brilliant adornment" (Aitrapbv KOOaO
dead kinsman Iphion will "hear" from Angelia and "tell"
world companion Callimachus contrasts with the "coverin
burial. The ode's message will in fact prevent this conceal
doing its work of hiding the glory of the present victory: K
oO KOVLq / cuyy6vWV KE?daV XaPLV (79 f.). What is not "h
cifically the charis, the honor of the victory as a shared joy
rocal relations of the family: hence Ke6VdV XaplV. The
family solidarity here parallels the motif of the "joy in
their son" that the dead kings "hear of" in Pyth. 5.101 f. (ui,
xapLv).
The metaphor of 79 f. now marks the third defeat of the forces of
oblivion: first the "wrestling" against old age (70 f.), then the "forget-
ting" of Hades (72 f.), and finally the dust's "not concealing." In these
three instances the battle against time receives a negative formulation,
and this negative statement is a foil to the positive statement of the
poet's "awakening Memory" in 74.38
In countering the darkness of death with this "radiant adornment"
(82 f.)- a phrase that can refer both to the victory and to the poetry that
celebrates it39- Pindar not only restores communication between living
and dead kinsmen, but also reestablishes communication among the

3701. 6.79; Pyth. 2.10; Nem. 10.53; Isth. 1.60.

38Cf. the imagery of sleep and awakening to depict the immortal power of song in
Isth. 4.24 f. and 7.16 f.
39Cf. frag. 184.2 f. Bo = 194.2 f. Sn: riolKiAov KOOHOV cau6aevTQ Aoyov.

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 MESSAGES TO THE UNDERWORLD 211

dead themselves. He restores to the inhabitants of that silent realm the

"hearing" and "speaking" (81 f.) of animated family life.40 One is re-
minded of the power of speech that the shades in Homer's Underworld
regain when they drink the sacrificial blood poured out to them by liv-
ing men (Od. 10.535-37).
The verb "speak," vvnrtEsv, in 82 occurs twice before in the ode.
The victor "spoke forth" or "proclaimed" the name of his city in glory to
living men at Olympia (20). Apollo "spoke" to Aeacus, a signal commu-
nication between god and mortal, in the mythical past (41). This em-
phasis on "speaking" builds up the communicative energy set into mo-
tion by the victory so that the reverberations may reach down to Hades
and impel the shades to address one another.
Pindar frequently suggests analogies or parallels between the vic-
tor, the mythical hero, and the poet. The visit of the poet's song to the
Underworld reflects one such parallelism. A journey to the realm of the
dead to bring back knowledge of the Beyond is a common task of the
hero, from Gilgamesh on to Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante. Pindar and
Bacchylides both describe such catabases of the hero Heracles, Pindar
in a fragmentary Theban Dithyramb (61 Bo = 70b Sn), Bacchylides in
his Fifth Ode.41 Pindar performs an equivalent journey, figuratively,
and brings back consoling wisdom about the realm of death in his ac-
count of the Beyond in Olympian 2.
The passages that we have examined in 01. 8, 01. 14, and Pyth. 5
remain within the traditional "Homeric" conception of Hades: lifeless
and bloodless ghosts moving feebly amid dim shadows. Pindar knew of
happier possibilities in the hereafter: in a celebrated passage of Olym-
pian 2 he describes the Isles of the Blest, with their soft winds, golden
flowers, and radiant trees (70-77). But even in the three odes under
discussion, the poet lightens the darkness of death through his privi-
leged access to what is hidden or closed off from ordinary mortals. By
penetrating both time and space through Memory and through the mo-
bile power of his poetry's sound (Acho, Angelia), he too is able to bring

40Cf. Odysseus' wish to embrace his mother in Hades and share the solace of lam-
entation with her, Od. 11.211 f.; also II. 23.97 f.; cf. Anchises' desire notas audire et
reddere voces with his son, Aen. 6.689.
41 Relevant here too are Heracles' journey to the far West in Stesichorus' Geryoneis
and particularly the (probably) Pindaric catabasis of Heracles, including initiation at
Eleusis, in P. Oxy. 2622 and P.S.I. 1391, on which see H. Lloyd-Jones, "Heracles at
Eleusis," Maia 19 (1967) 206-29, and R. J. Clark, Catabasis: Vergil and the Wisdom-
Tradition (Amsterdam 1979) 89 ff. and 218 ff.

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212 CHARLES SEGAL

knowledge of the living to the Underworld, and vice ver

the unforgotten dead participate once more in the fresh j
ing, and thus he soothes the bleakness of Hades with
consolation.42

CHARLES SEGAL
BROWN UNIVERSITY

42For the motif of consolation, see Miller (note 4 above) 233 f. I thank the journal's
anonymous reader for helpful criticism and Professor Diskin Clay both for specific sug-
gestions and for interest and encouragement beyond the call of editorial duty.

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