Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NEMEAN ODES: 10. CASTOR AND POLYDEUCES, by PINDAR


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NEMEAN ODES: 10. CASTOR AND POLYDEUCES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They with alternate change for one day keep
Last Line: Of castor in his bronzen guise.


THEY with alternate change for one day keep
By their dear father Zeus; the next they lie
Far-sunk beneath Therapne's valleys deep
In earth, fulfilling thus one destiny
For each alike; for Polydeuces chose
To share the grave's repose
And not himself alone in Heaven to dwell
In full eternity of life divine,
Since in the strife his brother Castor fell,
When Idas haply for his raided kine
Was angered sore, and through his body sheer
Drove the bronze-pointed spear.

For gazing from Taygetus' far height,
Lynceus espied them where they lay reclined
Within an hollow oak, for keener sight
Had he than all the rest of humankind;
And thither straight on lightning feet he hied
With Idas at his side,
And they together planned the monstrous deed.
Yet dreadful retribution fell anon
On both Aphareus' sons, as Zeus decreed,
When swiftly on their track came Leda's son,
And face to face they stood, anigh the ground
Of their sire's burial-mound.

From thence a carven stone, that bore
The glory of the dead, they tore,
And flung it at the breast
Of Polydeuces; but it failed
To crush him, and he still assailed,
And forward hotly pressed,
And through the side of Lynceus sped
His flying javelin's brazen head,
While Zeus on Idas threw
His bolt of fire; and there the two
Perished forlorn, for hard it is to fight
With those that be of stronger might.

Then quickly to his brother's manly frame
Back Polydeuces went. Not yet had Death
Quite mastered him, but from his throat there came
The shuddering gasps of his departing breath.
And while he moaned and the hot teardrops shed,
He cried aloud and said:
'O Father, Son of Cronus, what can fall
To save me from my grief? O let me die,
Let me too die with him, great Lord of All!
The glory of life departeth utterly
When dear ones leave us, and of all mankind
In sorrow we shall find

Few only we may trust to share our woe.'
He spake; then Zeus himself before him stood
And uttered thus his voice: 'Full well I know
Thou art my son, whereas thy brother's blood
Flowed through thy mother from her lord on earth
After thy Heavenly birth.
But now, behold, this choice I offer thee.
If thou thyself would'st never more be vowed
To death and hateful age, but dwell with me,
And with Athene, and with Ares proud,
The dark spear's lord, upon our Mount Divine,
That portion shall be thine.

But if for thy dear brother slain
Thou pleadest, and thyself art fain
To share with him thy doom,
Then may'st thou draw the living breath
For half thy time where after death
He lies in nether gloom,
And half thy time abide on high
In golden mansions of the sky.'
Then, hearing the god's voice,
The other stayed not in his choice;
And straightway Zeus unsealed the lips and eyes
Of Castor in his bronzen guise.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net