Tuesday, May 30, 2023

 

Apollo's Advice

Plutarch, Letter of Consolation to Apollonius 14 (= Moralia 109A; tr. Frank Cole Babbitt).
Of Agamedes and Trophonius, Pindar [fragment 3 Snell and Maehler] says that after building the temple at Delphi they asked Apollo for a reward, and he promised them to make payment on the seventh day, bidding them in the meantime to eat, drink, and be merry. They did what was commanded, and on the evening of the seventh day lay down to sleep and their life came to an end.

καὶ περὶ Ἀγαμήδους δὲ καὶ Τροφωνίου φησὶ Πίνδαρος τὸν νεὼν τὸν ἐν Δελφοῖς οἰκοδομήσαντας αἰτεῖν παρὰ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος μισθόν, τὸν δ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐπαγγείλασθαι εἰς ἑβδόμην ἡμέραν ἀποδώσειν, ἐν τοσούτῳ δ᾽ εὐωχεῖσθαι παρακελύσασθαι· τοὺς δὲ ποιήσαντας τὸ προσταχθὲν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ νυκτὶ κατακοιμηθέντας τελευτῆσαι.
εὐωχέω, middle and passive = fare sumptuously, feast (Liddell and Scott), whence εὐωχητήριον (banqueting-hall, which would be a good name for a restaurant), εὐωχητής (reveller), εὐωχία (good cheer, feasting).

From the same poem (an ode in praise of Kasmylos of Rhodes, winner at boxing in the Isthmian Games, 462 BC), Pindar, fragment 2 (tr. William H. Race):
He who is willing and able to live luxuriously,
by taking the advice of the Far-Shooter
given to Agamedes and Trophonius...

ὁ δ᾿ ἐθέλων τε καὶ δυνάμενος ἁβρὰ πάσχειν
τὰν Ἀγαμήδεϊ Τροφωνίῳ θ᾿ Ἑκαταβόλου
συμβουλίαν λαβών...
See Giovan Battista D'Alessio, "The Lost Isthmian Odes of Pindar," in Reading the Victory Ode, edd. Peter Agócs et al. (2012; rpt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 28-57 (at 35-37).



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