Pindar

Olympic Level Poetry: Pindar's Odes

Richard Carroll
After covering Sappho a couple weeks ago, I figured I’d move on to another of Greece’s most famous poets, Pindar. Fortunately, his work is much better preserved than the poetess of Lesbos, as we have several dozen of his poems. He made his name writing odes for the victors of the four Panhellenic games, the Olympian being the most famous of these, but also including the Isthmian, Nemean, and Pythian. To be specific, these odes were choral lyrics, which means that they were sung with musical accompaniment.