Pindar on Theoxenus
The poet Pindar focuses on love
Derived from burning rays from flashing eyes
Of young Theoxenus. They are above
All others. Love in any other guise
Is dimness at its best. The sun can melt
The wax of bees, can sting it with its heat.
When passion of another kind is felt
Like lust for bolder women then, though sweet,
It’s paltry when compared to the desire
This boy’s looks alone can generate.
The lines suggest that men not set on fire
By him love only money or love hate.
Some man might harbor a very hard heart
But most would grow . . . another hardened part.
“One must pluck loves, my heart, in due season and at the proper age.
Ah! But any man who catches with his glance
The bright rays flashing from Theoxenus’s eyes
And is not tossed on the waves of desire,
Has a black heart of adamant or iron [End Page 255]
Forged in a cold flame, and dishonored by Aphrodite of the arching brow
Either toils compulsively for money
Or, as a slave, is towed down a path utterly cold
By a woman’s boldness.But I, by the will of the Love Goddess, melt
Like the wax of holy bees stung by the sun’s heat,
Whenever I look upon the fresh-limbed youth of boys.
And surely even on the isle of Tenedos
Seduction and Grace dwell
In the son of Hagesilas
Pindar fr. 123 S.-M.”