Sunday, November 26, 2017

Conception of Immortality

[caption id="attachment_5343" align="aligncenter" width="600"]Picou,_Henri_Pierre_-_La_naissance_de_Pindare_-_1848 Henri-Pierre Picou - The birth of Pindar[/caption]

"The most beautiful conception of immortality of which I know, and certainly one that by contrast shows the utter vulgarity of Christian ideas, is set forth in Pindar's second Olympian: after three or six lives in which a man has lived with strict justice and perfect integrity, he passes beyond the tower of Cronus to the fair realm that cannot be reached by land or sea, where gentle breezes from a placid ocean blow forever on the fields of asphodel. For a description, see Pindar. If the beauty of great poetry can commend a religion, here you have it."

Revilo P. Oliver
"Then whosoever have been of good courage to the abiding steadfast thrice on either side of death and have refrained their souls from all iniquity, travel the road of Zeus unto the tower of Kronos: there round the islands of the blest the Ocean-breezes blow, and golden flowers are glowing, some from the land on trees of splendour, and some the water feedeth, with wreaths whereof they entwine their hands: so ordereth Rhadamanthos' just decree, whom at his own right hand hath ever the father Kronos, husband of Rhea, throned above all worlds"

Pindar's Olympian Ode 2

Pindar dedicates two Olympian odes, 2 & 3, to Theron, both for the same victory in the chariot race at the Olympic Games of 476 B.C. The poet Simonides of Ceos was also active at Theron's court. Theron (Greek: Θήρων, gen.: Θήρωνος; died 473 BC), son of Aenesidamus, was a Greek tyrant of the town of Acragas in Sicily from 488 BC.

[caption id="attachment_5344" align="aligncenter" width="500"]Theron_tomb The so-called "Tomb of Theron" near the Porta Aurea, Agrigento[/caption]

 

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