Pindar calls his song “a writing tally of the Muses.” Not he that runs may read, but whoever will be at pains to wrap the Greek scroll around the tally-stick can read the cypher and can find the clue to lead him safely through “the sounding labyrinths of song.”[40] Pindar could presuppose an acquaintance with mythology at least as familiar as was to every child of a generation ago the knowledge of the Old Testament. Conflicting myths lived side by side in the popular consciousness. The sculptor and the poet could choose or reject at will. However recondite may seem at times the application of the myth to the Olympic victor in question, the pages of Pindar are constantly illuminated by some flash-light that photographs upon the particular a glimpse of the universal. From Olympia in Elis we are transported to Olympus. Heracles brought from Olympus the charter for the games; there, too, is both the starting-line and finish of the poet’s courser: “Pegasus is stabled in Olympus.” Pindar does not belittle the mysteries of the unseen. When the fame of Theron of Acragas (Girgenti) is said to over-pass Sicily and to touch the pillars of Heracles, the thought of the pathless ocean suggests a wider and uncharted Cosmos. His search-light projects for a moment its stare into infinity, but it is forthwith checked with characteristic restraint:— “What lies beyond nor foot of wise man nor unwise has ever trod. I will not follow on. My quest were vain.” Footnote 40: _Olympian Odes_, i, translated by E. Myers. Pindar’s description of the ancient consecration of the Altis may serve to justify the Labours of Heracles carved upon the Zeus temple:— “Heracles there measured off a sacred grove unto the sovereign father and he ordained the plain around for rest and feasting. He honoured the Alpheus stream together with the twelve lord gods and he gave utterance to the name of Kronos hill, till then unnamed.” His praise of the discus victor comes to mind when we see a copy of Myron’s Discobolus or the graceful throw of a contemporary Greek in the Stadium of modern Athens:— “In distance passing all, Enikeus hurled the stone with circling hand and from his warrior mates a mighty cheer swept by.” And we seem ourselves to share in the evening celebration in the Altis when— “the lovely shining of the fair-faced moon illumined it and all the precinct rang with song and festal mirth.” We can share too in the undertone of pathos in Pindar’s reference to the dead father of a young athlete. Asopichus is winner in the boys’ footrace, and the news of his victory is sent to his father in Hades. The Arcadian nymph Echo is the messenger:— “Fly, Echo, to the dark-walled palace of Persephone and to his father bear the tidings glorious. Seek Cleodamus, tell him how for him his son hath crowned his boyish hair with wreaths of th’ ennobling games in famous Pisa’s vale.”