Honeyvoiced: A Translation of Pindar’s Songs for Athletes

This new translation of Pindar’s songs for victorious athletes marries philological rigour with poetic sensibility in order to represent the beauty of his language for a modern audience as closely as possible.Pindar’s poetry is synonymous with difficulty for scholars and students of classical studies. His syntax stretches the limits of ancient Greek, while his allusions to mythology and other poetic texts assume an audience that knows more than we now possibly can, given the fragmentary nature of textual and material culture records for ancient Greece.

It includes an authoritative introduction, both to the poet and his art and to ancient athletics, alongside brief orientations to the historical context and mythological content of each victory song. The inclusion of a glossary supplies additional mythological and historical information necessary to understanding Pindar’s poetry for those coming to the works for the first time. His is the largest body of textual remains that exists for ancient Greece between Homer (conventionally dated to 750 BCE) and the Classical Period (480-323 BCE), and constitutes a rich resource for politics, history, religion, and social practices.

James Bradley Wells is Associate Professor of Classical Studies at DePauw University, USA. He has published one poetry collection, Bicycle (2013), and one poetry chapbook, The Kazantzakis Guide to Greece (2015), and his poetry has appeared in New England Review, North Dakota Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly, Solstice: A Magazine for Diverse Voices, Spoon River Poetry Review, Stone Canoe, and Western Humanities Review, among other journals. He is also the author of Pindar’s Verbal Art (2009), a study of poetics and performance of Pindar’s (518-438 BCE) victory songs for ancient Greek athletes.