Pindar's Victory Songs

by Frank Nisetich

Book Overview

Pindar's victory odes, written in the fifth century B.C. to honor the heroes of the great athletic festivals, are some of the most powerful and intricate works of ancient Greek poetry--and among the most difficult to bring to modern readers. With precise translations that retain Pindar's poetic intentions, Frank Nisetich provides the only contemporary English version that captures the brilliance and density of the original odes without sacrificing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801823560
• ISBN13: 9780801823565
• Release Date: June 1980
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.7" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A Modern Victory

Pindar's world, and the circumstances of his writing, are so foreign to ours that it's hard to expect any translation to bring over the features of his Victory Odes into English. Nisetich himself is the first to clue you into this, with a thorough apparatus of explication, history, metrical analysis, and gloss that prepares you for exactly what not to expect from Pindar--business-as-usual "my heart sings" lyricism that Pindar, writing for pay for elaborate choral events, had little time for. Instead, the sudden shifts in reference, narrative gaps, and apparently oddball approach to commemoration (whole victory odes where the victor's not mentioned; the hero celebrated negatively only by the qualities he lacks) are explained as features of an archaic world-view that was already antique by Euripides's time. The translations are direct and adequate, broken up like modern free verse, and framed with ode-by-ode intros that make this book a helpful combination of poetry and archaeology.

The Best Translation of Pindar

Pindar, arguably the greatest lyric poet of ancient Greece, presents the translator with a difficulty--how to retain the often grandiose beauty of Pindar's Greek (and perhaps even show something of the form of Pindar's odes) while not departing far into the land of the unreadable.This translation is the only one that does it. These are renditions that are literal, and yet can be read out loud and impress the ear with a beauty that can only be called Pindaric. And every ode is laid out on the page in a fashion that, without clutter, conveys the structure of the ancient Greek song-and-dance performance that these choral odes originally were.Moreover, this edition provides you with an ideally informative and insightful introduction. The only thing wrong with it is the high price--though you do get a superbly made, sewn-binding, oversize paperback for your money.One final note--whether your interest is specifically in ancient Greek poetry, or in poetry period, you should also check out Holderlin's "Hymns and Fragments" (ISBN 0691014124), which are informed by the spirit of Pindar and early Greek religious feeling like nothing else written by a modern human being.