The first of these "shafts" to whic

The first of these "shafts" to which the "quick minds" should pay attention is no doubt the composition. At first glance, this composition seems strange. It unites themes of circumstance, of fairly remote myths, of moral lessons: the unity is to be found only deeply, by one able to discern in each clement the general, shared intention. A. Croiset demonstrates this in his analysis of several odes. In Olympian 1, the myth of Pelops echoes a lesson about moderation that Pindar addresses to Hieron, where he contrasts the glory of moderate and pious kings with the fate of the imprudent Tantalus: "Thus, in the first Olympian, the lyric idea, the generative idea of the poem, returns easily to a lesson that may be expressed by this proposition: 'Unite with your glory, o Hieron, a pious moderation.' I hasten to add that Pindar's thought does not take such abstract form."4 Also, in Pythian 1, for example, both the story of Coronis and that of Aesculapius are used to suggest to a sick man that he must practice resignation.