Aërios procul in tractus, et nubila supra Pindarus it Dircæus olor, cui nectare blandæ Os tenerum libâstis apes, dum fessa levaret Membra quiete puer mollem spirantia somnum; Sed Tanagræa suo mox jure poetria risit, Irrita qui toto sereret figmenta canistro; Tum certare auso palmam intercepit opimam Æoliis prælata modis atque illice formâ. Ille Agathocleâ subnisus voce coronas Dixit Olympiacas, et quâ victoribus Isthmos Fronde comam, Delphique tegant, Nemeæaque tesqua Lunigenam mentita feram; tum numina divum Virtutesque, virosque undanti pectore torrens Provexit, sparsitque pios ad funera questus. Frugibus hunc libisque virum Cirrhæus ab arâ Phoebus, et accubitu mensæ dignatus honoro est: Panaque pastores solis videre sub antris Pindarico tacitas mulcentem carmine silvas. Inde senem pueri gremio cervice repostâ Infusum, et dulci laxantem corda sopore, Protinus ad manes, et odoro gramine pictum Elysium tacitâ rapuit Proserpina dextrâ. Quin etiam hostiles longo post tempore flammæ, Quæ septemgeminas populabant undique Thebas, Expavere domum tanti tamen urere vatis, Et sua posteritas medios quoque tuta per enses Sensit inexhaustâ cinerem juvenescere famâ.[418] [Footnote 418: 'Far off into the tracts of air and high above the clouds soars Pindar, the Dircæan swan, whose tender mouth ye gentle bees with nectar fed, while the boy gave rest to weary limbs that breathed soft slumber. But him the maid of Tanagra derided, what time she told him that he sowed his myths from the whole sack to waste; and when he dared contend with her in song, she bore away the victor's palm, triumphant by Æolian moods, and by her seductive beauty too. He with his mighty voice, trained in the school of Agathocles, sang the crowns of Olympia and the garlands wherewith the Isthmus and Delphi, and the Nemean wastes that falsely claimed the moon-born monster, shade the athlete's brows. Then, like a torrent, with swelling soul, he passed to celebrate the powers and virtues of the gods and heroes, and poured forth pious lamentations for the dead. Him Phoebus, lord of Cirrha, honoured with food and drink from his altar, and made him guest-fellow at his own board: shepherds too saw Pan in lonely caverns charming the woods with a Pindaric song. At last, when he was old, and lay with his neck reclined upon the bosom of the boy he loved, soothing his soul in sleep, Proserpina with still right hand approached and took him straight to join the shades and pace Elysium's fragrant meads. Nay, more: long afterwards, the foeman's flames, which laid seven-gated Thebes in ruins far and wide, these names dared not to burn so great a poet's house; and his descendants, safe 'mid a thousand swords, learned that his ashes still were young through fame that lives for aye.'--_Carmina_, &c. p. 173.] Sappho is described in the following lines:--