ins a firm abode forever."14 The one hundred and second
fragment is supposed to be a part of the dirge composed by Pindar
on the death of the grandfather of Pericles. It runs in this way:
"Whoso by good fortune has seen the things in the hollow under the
earth knows indeed the end of life: he also knows the beginning
vouchsafed by Zeus." It refers to initiation in the Eleusinian
Mysteries, and means that the initiate understands the life which
follows death. It is well known that a clear doctrine of future
retribution was inculcated in the Mysteries long before it found
general publication. The ninety fifth fragment is all that remains
to us of a dirge which appears, from the allusion in the first
line, to have been sung at a funeral service performed at
midnight, or at least after sunset. "While it is night here with
us, to those below shines the might of the sun; and the red rosied
meadows of their suburbs are filled with the frankincense tree,
and with golden fruits. Some delight themselves there with steeds
and exercises, others with games, others with lyres; and among
them all fair blossoming fortune blooms, and a fragrance is
distilled through the lovely region, and they constantly mingle
all kinds of offerings with the far shining fire on the altars of
the gods." This evidently is a picture of the happy scenes in the
fields that stretch around the City of the Blessed in the under
world, and is introduced as a comfort to the mourners over the
dead body.

The ensuing passage the most important one on our subject is from
the second Olympic Ode.15 "An honorable, virtuous man may rest
assured as to his future fate. The souls of the lawless, departing
from this life, suffer punishment. One beneath the earth,
pronouncing sentence by a hateful necessity imposed upon him,
declares the doom for offences committed in this realm of Zeus.
But the good lead a life without a tear, among those honored by
the gods for having always delighted in virtue: the others endure
a life too dreadful to look upon. Whoever has had resolution
thrice in both worlds to stand firm, and to keep his soul pure
from evil, has found the path of Zeus to the tower of Kronos,
where the airs of the ocean breathe around the Isle of the
Blessed, and where some from resplendent trees, others from the
water glitter golden flowers, with garlandsofwhich they wreathe
their wrists and brows in the righteous assemblies of
Rhadamanthus, whom father Kronos has a