it no less exquisite where we cannot. Study
and thought will generally suggest explanations, though these will
sometimes approve themselves differently to different minds. Too often
we must acknowledge, as elsewhere in ancient literature, that the key
is lost beyond all certain hope of recovery.

Still less have I attempted to discuss questions of critical
scholarship. Sometimes where there are more than one plausible reading
I have signified which I adopt; once only (Ol. 2. 56.) I have ventured
on an emendation of my own. For the most part I have, as was natural,
followed the text of Boeckh and Dissen.

In the spelling of names I remain in that inconsistency which at
present attaches to most modern writers who deal with them. Olympus,
Athens, Corinth, Syracuse, and the like are naturalized among us by
long familiarity; it seems at present at least pedantic to change
them. In the case of other less familiar names I have concurred with
the desire, which seems in the main a reasonable one, that the names
of Hellenic persons and places should be reproduced, as far as
possible, without Latin mediation.

Of the Fragments I have translated six of the longest and most
interesting. They are 289 in all, but the greater part are not longer
than a line or two, and very many even shorter.

The odes are unequal in poetical merit, and many readers may not
unreasonably wish to have those pointed out which, in the judgement of
one acquainted with all, are among the best worth reading; though of
course the choice of individual readers will not always be the same.
To those therefore who would wish to begin with a selection, the
following may be recommended as at any rate among those of preeminent
merit: Pyth. 4, 9, 1, 10, 3; Ol. 7, 6, 2, 3, 13, 8, 1; Nem. 5, 10;
Isthm. 2, 7; all the Fragments translated.

In the arrangement of the odes I have adhered to the traditional
order. I should much have liked to place them in what must always be
the most interesting and rational arrangement of a poet's works,
that is, in chronological order. This would have been approximately
possible, as we know the dates of the greater part of them. But
convenience of reference and of comparison with the Greek text seems
to supply a balance of reasons on the other side. Subjoined however is
a list of the odes in their probable chronological order so far as it
can be obtained.

Pythian 10-------------B.C. 502.
" 6-------------