But Phoebus was the sire, and he should be Chief for his prophecy 'mid mortal men, Nor should his children's seed have end. Thus he Uttered the words oracular: and then They swore they had not heard or seen the child, Now five days old; but he within the reed And thick-entangled woodland boskage wild, His limbs 'mid golden beams and purple brede Of gillyflowers deep-sunken, lay; wherefore He by his mother's wish for all time bore That deathless name. But when he plucked the flower Of golden-wreathéd youth, he went and stood Midmost Alpheus, at the midnight hour, And called upon the ruler of the flood, His ancestor Poseidon, and the lord Of god-built Delos, praying that he might Rear up some race to greatness. Then the word Responsive of his sire upon the night Sounded:--'Arise, my son, go forth and fare Unto the land whereof all men shall share!' So came they to the high untrodden mound Of Cronion; and there a double meed Of prophecy on Iamos was bound, Both from the voice that knows no lie to heed Immortal words, and next, when Herakles, Bold in his counsels, unto Pisa came, Founding the festivals of sacred peace And mighty combats for his father's fame, Then on the topmost altar of Jove's hill, The seat of sooth oracular to fill. After so much praise of Pindar's style, it must be confessed that he has faults. One of these is notoriously tumidity--an overblown exaggeration of phrase. For example, when he wants to express that he cannot enlarge on the fame of Ægina, but will relate as quickly as he can the achievements of Aristomenes which he has undertaken, he says: "But I am not at leisure to consecrate the whole long tale to the lyre and delicate voice, lest satiety should come and cause annoy; but that which is before my feet shall go at running speed--thy affair, my boy--the latest of the noble deeds made winged by means of my art."[124] The imaginative force which enabled him to create epithets like #Philaglaos#, #pamporphyros#, and to put them exactly in their proper places, like blocks of gleaming alabaster or of glowing porphyry--for the architectural power over language is eminent in Pindar; the Titanic faculty of language which produced such phrases as #ex adamantos ê sidarou kechalkeutai melainan kardian psychrâi phlogi#, did also betray him into expressions as pompous and frigid as these: #poikilophormingos aoidas ... schoinoteneia t' aoida dithyrambôn#. These, poured forth by Pindar in the insolence of prodigality, when imitated by inferior poets, produced that inflated manner of lyrical diction which Aristophanes ridicules in Kinesias. The same may be said about his mixed metaphors, whereof the following are fair examples: #doxan echô tin' epi glôssâi akonas ligyras ha m' ethelonta proselkei kallirooisi pnoais.#--Ol. vi. 82.