Pindar

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War is sweet to those who have no experience of it.

Pindar (518 BC – 438 BC) was a Boeotian poet, counted as one of the nine lyric poets of Greece. The only works of his to have survived complete are a series of odes written to celebrate the victors in athletic games.

Unless otherwise stated the translations used here are by Richard Stoneman, and are taken from Pindar The Odes and Selected Fragments (London: Everyman Library, 1997).

[edit] Sourced

Days to come will prove the surest witness.
If a man shall hope in aught he does
To escape the eyes of god, he makes an error.
Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.


  • Here profits not
    To tell the whole truth with clear face unveiled.
    Often is man's best wisdom to be silent.
  • οὔ τοι ἅπασα κερδίων
    φαίνοισα πρόσωπον ἀλάθει᾽ ἀτρεκής:
    καὶ τὸ σιγᾶν πολλάκις ἐστὶ σοφώτατον ἀνθρώπῳ νοῆσαι.
    • Nemean 5, line 17; page 222. (483 BC?)


  • For words
    Live longer down the years than deeds.
  • ῥῆμα δ᾽ ἑργμάτων χρονιώτερον βιοτεύει
    • Nemean 4, line 6; page 213. (473 BC?)


  • Creatures of a day! What is a man?
    What is he not? A dream of a shadow
    Is our mortal being.     But when there comes to men
    A gleam of splendour given of Heaven,
    Then rests on them a light of glory
    And blesséd are their days.
  • ἐπάμεροι: τί δέ τις; τί δ᾽ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ
    ἄνθρωπος. ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν αἴγλα διόσδοτος ἔλθῃ,
    λαμπρὸν φέγγος ἔπεστιν ἀνδρῶν καὶ μείλιχος αἰών
    • Pythian 8, line 95-8; pages 162-3. (446 BC)


  • War is sweet to those who have no experience of it, but the experienced man trembles exceedingly at heart on its approach.
  • γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
    πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.
    • Fragment 110; page 377.
    • Variant translations: This phrase is the origin of the Latin proverb "Dulce bellum inexpertis" which is sometimes misattributed to Desiderius Erasmus‎.
    • War is sweet to them that know it not.
    • War is sweet to those not acquainted with it
    • War is sweet to those who do not know it.
    • War is sweet to those that never have experienced it.
    • War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.


  • A good deed hidden in silence dies.
    • Fragment 121; page 387


  • Time is the best preserver of righteous men.
    • Fragment 159; page 387


  • Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.
    • As quoted in No-one (1985) by R. S. Thomas; also in R.S. Thomas : Identity, Environment, and Deity (2003) by Christopher Morgan, p. 27


[edit] Olympian Odes (476 BC)

 

  • Days to come will prove the surest witness.
  • ἁμέραι δ᾽ ἐπίλοιποι
    μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι.
    • Olympian 1, line 33-4; page 4.


  • But if a man shall hope in aught he does
    To escape the eyes of god, he makes an error.
  • εἰ δὲ θεὸν ἀνήρ τις ἔλπεταί τι λαθέμεν ἔρδων, ἁμαρτάνει.
    • Olympian 1, line 63; page 6.


  • Inborn of nature's wisdom
    The poet's truth.
    • Olympian 2, line 87; page 16.

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