Chronic dyspepsia in Olympian 1

Pindar's First Olympian has several interesting motifs. This is about one of them: digestion. The ode begins with a banquet honoring Hieron, and swiftly moves to the somewhat less felicitous feast of Tantalos, though Pindar's version of events swerves from the grisly tales of other poets.

Pindar begins by protesting his own innocence - he would never dishonor a god:

For me it is impossible to call one of the blessed gods a glutton. I stand back from it.

The word for "glutton" is γαστρίμαργον, (gastro: stomach.)

At Hieron's feast, the assembled guests have the "sweetest thoughts" (γλυκυτάταις ἔθηκε φροντίσιν) thanks to the grace of Pisa and of Pherenikos, Hieron's horse. χάρις, or grace, is a potent word that contains beauty, favor, and goodwill, as well as some show of kindness that gains gratitude, and thus can act as a charm, or influence.

As the charmed guests sing and toast Hieron at his feast, Pindar sings of that arch-feast to which Tantalos invited the gods, to reciprocate their grace:

If indeed the watchers of Olympus ever honored a mortal man, [55] that man was Tantalus. But he was not able to digest his great prosperity, and for his excess he seized overpowering ruin, which the Father hung over him: a mighty stone.

εἰ δὲ δή τιν᾽ ἄνδρα θνατὸν Ὀλύμπου σκοποὶ

ἐτίμασαν, ἦν Τάνταλος οὗτος: ἀλλὰ γὰρ καταπέψαι

μέγαν ὄλβον οὐκ ἐδυνάσθη, κόρῳ δ᾽ ἕλεν

ἄταν ὑπέροπλον, ἅν οἱ πατὴρ ὑπερκρέμασε καρτερὸν αὐτῷ λίθον, 

Pindar makes a punning joke. This raising up of Tantalos by the "watchers of Olympus" was a bit too rich for Tantalos, who couldn't keep it down. The word Pindar uses, καταπέσσω, is not a metaphor. It simply means "to digest." 

What Tantalos couldn't digest was the μέγαν ὄλβον, the great happiness that he was enjoying among the gods. According to one version of the tale, when they discovered he had cooked them up his son, Pelops, they were horrified - it was an indigestible thing (except for Demeter, who nibbled absentmindedly, hence the ivory shoulder).

Great happiness can be as indigestible as great horror, Pindar tells the happy peers of Hieron. Tantalos's error -- κόρῳ -- can mean satiety or surfeit --is perfectly consonant with the gastronomic figure. I have translated it as "excess" to underscore the ethical dimension.

A brief digression . . .

Why does Pindar here call the gods the "watchers of Olympus"? One possibility is that, as we know, they hold Olympus because Zeus defeated his father, Kronos, in a war after Kronos ate, or tried to eat, all his children. (This gastronomic predilection is a bit of a tradition.) The Olympians are always "watchers" because at any time some extraordinary monster, like Typhon, could rise and try to unseat them from their place in the sky. Perhaps Tantalos was trying to emulate Kronos? Or Zeus himself, who ate Metis ("cunning") because of a prophecy that her child would unseat him -- a devouring that led to the birth of Athena.

In any event, angered that Tantalos attempted to share the gods' ambrosia and nectar with mortals, Zeus hangs the stone over Tantalos. The man who found Olympian happiness indigestible now and forever lives beneath it. But the gastronomic imagery continues.

The scene shifts to the night that Pelops, alone, at the edge of the sea, called upon Poseidon:

θανεῖν δ᾽ οἷσιν ἀνάγκα, τί κέ τις ἀνώνυμον γῆρας ἐν σκότῳ καθήμενος ἕψοι μάταν, 

Since all men are compelled to die, why should anyone sit stewing an inglorious old age in the darkness, with no share of any fine deeds?

Translator Svarlien's "stewing" is precise. Pelops's word is ἕψοι - which describes the boiling and seething of meat. To Pelops, life itself is a matter of being cooked -- it's only a question of whether one stews in dark anonymity, or steps up:

As for me, on this contest

I will take my stand. 

ἀλλ᾽ ἐμοὶ μὲν οὗτος ἄεθλος

ὑποκείσεται:

In taking his stand, Pelops speaks and establishes a position. He posits a place from which the contest is on. ὑποκείσεται literally means to put or set under, and is related to hypothesis. Pelops "takes as given" the possibility that he can defeat Oenomaus with his former lover's help.

For Pelops that "stand" leads to "horses with untiring wings" and a golden chariot -- he has become an image of the sun. The shift from dark ocean's shore to blazing flight and triumph is quick in the telling. Pelops's race launches the games forever linked with his coming of age, his courage, his slaying of the evil father, and his marriage to Hippodameia. The rest, as we say, is history. Now it's Hieron's turn. No winged horse, but the radiant χάρις of Pherenikos. 

τὸ δ᾽ἔσχατον κορυφοῦται βασιλεῦσι. μηκέτιπάπταινε πόρσιον

the peak of the farthest limit is for kings. Do not look
beyond that!

To be king is sweet, but

the good of the common day

is the best that comes to every mortal man.

τὸ δ᾽ αἰεὶ παράμερον ἐσλὸν

ὕπατον ἔρχεται παντὶ βροτῶν.

The core of coeur-age

The first Olympian sets the scene for Pelops' address to Poseidon:

ἐγγὺς ἐλθὼν πολιᾶς ἁλὸς οἶος ἐν ὄρφνᾳ 
ἄπυεν βαρύκτυπον 
Εὐτρίαιναν: ὁ δ᾽ αὐτῷ 
πὰρ ποδὶ σχεδὸν φάνη.

near to the gray sea, alone in the darkness, 

he called aloud on the deep-roaring god, 

skilled with the trident; and the god 

appeared to him, close at hand.

Pelops then says:

θανεῖν δ᾽ οἷσιν ἀνάγκα, τί κέ τις ἀνώνυμον 

γῆρας ἐν σκότῳ καθήμενος ἕψοι μάταν, 

ἁπάντων καλῶν ἄμμορος; ἀλλ᾽ ἐμοὶ μὲν οὗτος ἄεθλος 
ὑποκείσεται

Since all must die, why should anyone nameless 
sit in the dark, foolishly stewing old age 

with no share in all that is good? As for me, on this contest 

I will take my stand.

Compare Sarpedon's speech that comes near the center of the Iliad (end of Book Twelve):

'Glaukos, why is it you and I are honored before others
with pride of place, the choice meats and the filled wine-cups
in Lykia, and all men look on us as if we were immortals,
and we are appointed a great piece of land by the banks of Xanthos,
good land, orchard and vineyard, and ploughland for the planting of wheat? 

Therefore it is our duty in the forefront of the Lykians
to take our stand and bear our part of the blazing of battle,
so that a man of the close-armoured Lykians may say of us,
“Indeed these are no ignoble men who are lords of Lykia,
these kings of ours, who feed upon the fat sheep appointed
and drink the exquisite sweet wine, since indeed there is strength
of valour in them, since they fight in the forefront of the Lykians.” 

'Man, supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
would be able to live on forever, ageless, immortal,
so neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost
nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.
But now, seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us
in their thousands, no man can turn aside nor escape them,
let us go on and win glory for ourselves, or yield it to others.'

When Laius met Pelops, and other tales of Thebes

The third choral ode in the Antigone refers to the house of Oedipus, naming his grandfather, Labdacus:

I see that the ancient sorrows of the house of the Labdacids [595] are heaped upon the sorrows of the dead.

Another ode later in the play alludes to Niobe. It might be helpful to situate these and other key figures in the back story of Thebes. The problem is, there isn't one epic tale that manages to weave them all into one text. The Cypria apparently made an effort, but only 50 lines survive.

One thing to note is, the line of Theban kings beginning with Cadmus and going past Creon is rife with dynastic interruptions. Amphion and Zethus, who built the walls of the Thebes later ruled by Oedipus, were not Cadmeians, but were sons of Antiope and (not unlike Theseus) two fathers: Zeus and a mortal, Epopeus. Niobe was Amphion's wife.

The pair seized power at a certain point, as others would at other points. An overview of the line of kings is here. Note the frequent appearance of regents. Lycus is twice a regent, once for Labdacus and once for Laius. Later on Creon similarly will twice be a regent. Many events seem paired, for example, Labdacus will be torn apart by Bacchantes just as Pentheus had been. Labdacus was the son of Polydorus, who was the son of Cadmus and Harmonia, and the brother of Semele.

There are many side plots and strange intersections. For example, Labdacus dies in a battle with Athens over a border. Athens wins in part because its king, Pandion, receives aid from Tereus of Thrace. Tereus is of course the notorious rapist of Philomela, whose tale Ovid told with gruesome relish.

One could go on. But here's one thing that might shed light on the curse on the Labdacids, which the chorus mentioned. It has to do with Labdacus' son, Laius. We all know that Laius was given a prophecy that he should not ever have a child, and that if he did, that child would murder him. One version of the tale explains the reason for the prophecy, and it has to do with the mighty Peloponnesian hero and son of Tantalus, Pelops:

While Laius was still young, Amphion and Zethus usurped the throne of Thebes. Some Thebans, wishing to see the line of Cadmus continue, smuggled Laius out of the city before their attack, in which they killed Lycus and took the throne.[1] Laius was welcomed by Pelops, king of Pisa in the Peloponnesus.[2] According to some sources, mostly belonging to the Christian era, Laius abducted and raped the king's [bastard] son, Chrysippus, and carried him off to Thebes while teaching him how to drive a chariot, or as Hyginus records it, during the Nemean games. This abduction is thought to be the subject of one of the lost tragedies of Euripides. Most scholars agree that the rape or seduction of Chrysippus was a late addition to the Theban myth. With both Amphion and Zethus having died in his absence, Laius became king of Thebes upon his return.

There are other variants. In one, Pelops' wife Hippodamia tries to get her two sons by Pelops to kill Chrysippus, the bastard by a nymph. Those two sons of Hippodamia and Pelops are Atreus and Thyestes, father and uncle respectively of Agamemnon and Menelaos. (See Parada, Greek Mythology Link, for more on this story). Surprise connections between the mythologies of different Houses of Greece pop up like this.

Anyway, after this we get to the part of the tale which most have heard:

After the rape of Chrysippus, Laius married Jocasta or Epicasta, the daughter of Menoeceus, a descendant of the Spartoi. Laius received an oracle from Delphi which told him that he must not have a child with his wife, or the child would kill him and marry her; in another version, recorded by Aeschylus, Laius is warned that he can only save the city if he dies childless. One night, however, Laius was drunk and fathered Oedipus with her . . .

And thus we arrive by a commodius vicus at Sophocles' tale of Antigone.

Eerie confusion in the chorus

Forgive this long, pedestrian entry.

The choral ode at the end of Hippolytus scene 5 has a lot of work to do. At the very least, it purports to bring us the civic response to the banishment of Hippolytus by his father, Theseus. The reaction can be construed as dual -- male companions singing strophes, female attendants of the dead queen singing the antistrophes.

But the ode, with lyric timelessness, also serves to mark a sense of time passing, and prepares us for the scene of high action that is about to come, the tale of the messenger. This dramatic anticipation seems in part the burden of the third and fourth strophes. If we try to chart the "logic" of the ode, it might go something like this:

If the first strophe raised the "thesis" of whether ordered powers exist in the world or whether all is randomness void of divine intention, the antistrophe then offers, as "antithesis," some practical sense of how to "survive" in the absence of meaning.

If we are now expecting synthesis, it does not appear to arrive. The third stanza, sung by Hippolytus's friends, reaches not some happy fusion of existential angst and "go along to get along," but something more on the order of darkness at noon:

οὐκέτι γὰρ καθαρὰν φρέν᾽ ἔχω 

no longer am I clear . . . 

καθαρὰν: spotless, clear, untroubled, clean, free of debts, pure
φρέν᾽: seat of the passions; heart; mind.

The loss of clarity is linked to the banishment of the φανερώτατον ἀστέρ᾽ -- the most visible star -- of "Hellenic Athens." Given that the central ode had linked the story of Hippolytus with that of Phaethon and Helios (and the amber-weeping Heliades), then this "star" carries the force of the sun for the friends and attendants of Hippolytus, a palpable loss of clarity indeed.

 Within that darkness, bewilderment, loss of bearings, the chorus twice repeats εἴδομεν -- "I see":

εἴδομεν εἴδομεν ἐκ πατρὸς ὀργᾶς1125 

ἄλλαν ἐπ᾽ αἶαν ἱέμενον 

I see, I see out of his father's wrath
towards another land he hastens.

But, instead of a vision of that other land, the chorus turns back to address the old land from which Hippolytus is being expelled. The address -- an apostrophe -- breaks from narrating what the chorus "sees" to addressing what is lost -- the sands (not just beach, but sands of the city's shore) and mountain haunts in which the brightest star hunted, raced, exhibited his excellence and devotion to Artemis:

ὦ ψάμαθοι πολιήτιδος ἀκτᾶς,ὦ δρυμὸς ὄρεος, ὅθι κυνῶνὠκυπόδων μέτα θῆρας ἔναιρεν1130 

Δίκτυνναν ἀμφὶ σεμνάν. 

O sands of our city's shore, o mountain thickets where with his swift hounds he slew the wild beasts [1130] in company with holy Dictynna!

Dictynna

The name "Dictynna" evokes a tale from Crete that involves eros (Minos's) and flight that we can only point to en passant.

Here the mention of sands and shore anticipates the next scene with Hippolytus on the sandy shore. But the mountain thickets also echo the wild words of Phaedra in her first scene, when she enters, raving, disheveled,

Phaedra sung [215] Take me to the mountain: I mean to go to the wood, to the pine-wood, where hounds that kill wild beasts tread, running close after the dappled deer! By the gods, how I want to shout to the hounds [220] and to let fly past my golden hair a javelin of Thessaly, to hold in my hand the sharp-pointed weapon!

The chorus asks (141) whether she is possessed by the frenzy (ἔνθεος)  of Pan - ἔνθεος: god within - enthusiasm. To be en-theosed is not a state of mind one associates with sophrosyne.

In the next strophe, the chorus (presumably of women) addresses the absent Hippolytus, and echoes of Phaedra become more pronounced. As Hippolytus steps into his chariot to begin his fatal journey, the chorus evokes his horse-handling prowess:

Chorus
No more shall you mount behind a pair of Enetic horses and take the Limnaean race-course with the feet of your trained steeds. [1135]

οὐκέτι συζυγίαν πώλων Ἐνετᾶν ἐπιβάσῃτὸν ἀμφὶ Λίμνας τρόχον κατέχων ποδὶ γυμνάδος ἵππου:

In Phaedra's first entrance, her mind has lost its self-mastery, and she raves of taming "Enetic horses":

Phaedra
Mistress of the Limnaean Salt Lake, Artemis, mistress of the coursing-ground for horses, [230] oh that I might find myself on your ground taming Enetic horses! 

δέσποιν᾽ ἁλίας Ἄρτεμι Λίμνας καὶ γυμνασίων τῶν ἱπποκρότων,230εἴθε γενοίμαν ἐν σοῖς δαπέδοις,πώλους Ἐνέτας δαμαλιζομένα.

The love-struck queen's erotic fantasy (of Artemis!) interweaves with the choral vision of the chaste pursuits of Hippolytus, producing a chiastic (ABBA) pattern:

Enter Phaedra : Horse taming :: Horsemanship of Hippolytus : Exit Hippolytus.

The loss of pure clarity of the choral singers brings a confusion of Phaedra and Hippolytus, or an interfusion of the two characters -- "alike" in both being victims of Aphrodite's anger. There is a sense of duality, of two who are in some sense, through a "twist" of fate, as one.

The epode brings the chorus from reflection to action -- to what it will do:

Χορός
ἐγὼ δὲ σᾷ δυστυχίᾳ
δάκρυσι διοίσω πότμον
ἄποτμον: ὦ τάλαινα μᾶ-
1145τερ, ἔτεκες ἀνόνατα: φεῦ:
μανίω θεοῖσιν.
ἰὼ ἰώ:
συζύγιαι Χάριτες, τί τὸν τάλαν᾽ ἐκ πατρίας γᾶς
οὐδὲν ἄτας αἴτιον
1150πέμπετε τῶνδ᾽ ἀπ᾽ οἴκων;

Chorus
But I for my part will spread abroad your unhappy fate with tears at your misfortune. O unhappy mother, [1145] it was to no purpose that you bore him. Oh, I am angry with the gods! Ye Graces that dance your round, why do you not accompany this man from this house? He has been ruined by his father's wrath [1150] but is guiltless of no mad deed.

No comforting sense of closure here, only a sense of injustice that extends from the king to the Graces (how ungraceful of them!) and the gods.

A few notes, briefly, as this is already too long:

1. "Enetic" horses relates to the Veneti, early settlers of the region around Venice, Italy. Legend had it they were remnants from Troy (like Aeneas). Later on, these tribes chose to side with the Romans, but in the 5th century they were a people known for their fast horses and amber.

2. Let's remember, Hippolytus is the great-great-grandson of Pelops (father of Pittheus), the horseman who claimed Hippodamia -- by bribing her brutal father Oenomaus's charioteer to replace a metal axle with one of wax, leading to the king's death.  Some say this occurred near where Hippolytus has his mutilating collision in his chariot. The lethal trickery of Pelops -- a favorite of Poseidon -- lies behind this tale of Thesesus and Hippolytus

3. The mad words of Phaedra curiously echo "Hippodamia," which means "horse-tamer":

ἱπποκρότων,230εἴθε γενοίμαν ἐν σοῖς δαπέδοις,πώλους Ἐνέτας δαμαλιζομένα.

The technical term for a linguistic phenomenon in which the beginning and ending of a word is split by other inserted words is tmesis, from the Greek word for "cut". Tmesis occurs several times in the play. Note the eerie effect: uncanny echoes of the past bleed through the words the confused chorus sings just before the play turns to the wondrous death of Hippolytus.