SOURCE: "Messages to the Underworld: An Aspect of Poetic Immortalization in Pindar." American Journal of Philology, Vol. 106, No. 2, Summer, 1985, pp. 199-212.

In the excerpt below, Segal elucidates the significance of sending messages between the living and the dead in Pindar's odes.

In a dithyramb for Thebes, Pindar calls himself an "outstanding herald of skilled verses" appointed by the Muse. At the end of the "Fourth Pythian," he claims Homer's authority for his role as a "noble messenger" through whose "upright" skill the Muse gains in honor One of the tasks of a "messenger of song" is to establish communication: communication between the mortal victor and the timeless realm of the gods, between the present and the past (both actual and mythical), between the individual laudandus and the community as a whole, between his native city and the place of the victory. Pindar frequently uses concrete spatial metaphors to...