Blog Post 5

“for Xenophon son of Thessalos, from Corinth,

victor in the stade race and the pentathlon”

from Olympian 13 by Pindar

“Now for me the muse fosters in her reserves of force the mightiest arrow:

in different matters different men show greatness, but the utmost peak belongs to kings.”

from Olympian 1 by Pindar

Odes usually include a few basic elements as a structure and then the poets add a few specific traits to their Odes to make them stand out a little. These basic elements include an introduction for the victor, the event they participated in, and a reference to the muses. Olympian 13 has the victor, Xenophon, and an introduction for him. The introduction includes his name, some information about his family, and where he is from. In this case, Xenophon is the son of Thessalos and is from Corinth. Odes usually have the event they won and sometimes go into a little more detail about how glorious his victory was or why he was so good at that event. The poet also calls to the muses for inspiration and for help with immortalizing the victor. An example of this is in Olympian 1 by Pindar where he refers to the “mightiest arrow” shot by the muse. The mightiest arrow here is Pindar, so he is being used through the muse to show greatness in his victor.

The ability of the poet to give immortality to the victor they are writing about is mainly reliant on the skill of that poet to make an ode that will be preserved through time and referenced by others to gain notoriety. If the poet is good, their works will be kept around and seen by many people. Examples of this are most of the poets in this book, Sappho, Pindar, etc. If the poet is popular, their subject is immortalized, since the works they are included in are remembered for a long time. If the poet isn't good enough to be referenced in later works or their works are lost, even though they are good, their subjects will be forgotten much sooner. Another aspect of immortalizing a victor is the poet's ability to portray them as someone who had a glorious victory. If the ode doesn't do a good job that, the victor will not get much attention even if the poet is famous forever.