Sometimes, however, the leading ide

Sometimes, however, the leading idea is still more difficult to discern: it is expressed only in abstract terms and is a symbol that unifies the ode. A. Croiset clearly recognizes this in Pythian 1, in which the unity, according to Rauchenstein, is attributed to the symbol of harmony and to music.?" This is the same type of explication that G. Norwood has now applied generally. It is, of course, a troubling mode of explication, difficult to apply; but it is a fact that, without it, the interconnection of themes is often quite obscure It is clarified, on the contrary, if one allows that, for very different reasons, the guiding thought emerges, in Pindar's work, in the encounter of different lyric themes, just as the historical judgment emerges, in Thucydides' work, from the encounter of different narratives. As A. Croiset writes about Pythian 1, the general idea resides in the combination of themes: "This idea is nowhere and it is everywhere; nowhere is it formulated in an abstract way, and hardly could be; but it inspires the entire poem, for it consists essentially in that parallelism, so deeply felt and conveyed, between the sensitive harmony of the music and the superior harmony of the moral life: or rather, it is by layering this one over that one and in the case with which Pindar moves from the glory of the visible feast to the invisible beauty of virtue... It is precisely these methods-juxtaposition, parallelism, and contrast-that convey the profound meaning of the work.This is how we get to the idea of the subtlety of the method and of meanings that are intentionally disguised. Each bit of information, says G. Norwood, "they quicken one another with newly discovered kinship of significance"," little by little the mind is playing with allusions and delicate understatements, in which the Greek taste for riddles is apparent."