I translate: ʻFor many things have been told in many ways, but to give novel things, when one has found them out, to the touchstone | For testing is pure danger: words are an amuse-bouche to the envious, | And it fastens on good men always, not taking issue with inferiors. | That too gnawed at Telamon's son, had him writhing on a sword.’ The difficulty presented by the transition in 22 from the plural ʻthe envious' to the singular subject ʻit' will be obvious. However, some commentators, including Mezger,Footnote ¹ FennellFootnote ² and Bury,Footnote ³ have assumed that φθόνοϲ can be supplied as the subject of ἅπτεται in 22 from φθονεροῖϲιν in 21, and the modern texts of Pindar – Bowra, Puech, Turyn and Snell–Maehler – do not mention the possibility of corruption in 21.Footnote ⁴

A few have been prepared to note the difficulty and even to try to correct it. Thus, Heyne commented on ἅπτεται: ʻsc. ὁ φθόνοϲ: aut etiam ὁ φθονερόϲ: ex φθονεροῖϲ. Durum hoc; melior tamen ratio haud suppetit.’Footnote ⁵ Farnell admitted that the supplying of the noun φθόνοϲ from the adjective φθονεροῖϲιν is ‘a strange freedom of style',Footnote ⁶ and in his collection of Pindaric emendations Gerber lists various attempts to address the difficulty.Footnote ⁷ The most recent commentator, W.B. Henry, comments that ʻφθόνοϲ is required as subject in 22f. ... , and it is very doubtful whether it could be supplied without warning from φθονεροῖϲιν. ... even if κεῖνοϲ followed immediately on φθονεροῖϲιν, I doubt whether φθόνοϲ could be understood.’Footnote ⁸ That Aesch. Pers. 13 protects the text here, as some commentators have claimed following Dissen, is doubtful.Footnote ⁹

In the eighteenth century Vauvilliers suggested at different times two possible remedies, one introducing correptionFootnote ¹⁰ and the copula (εἰϲίν), the other, φθονερῷ ᾽ιϲιν, a violent aphaeresis alien to the Doric dialect.Footnote ¹¹ It is perhaps surprising that Vauvilliers did not suggest ὄψον δὲ λόγοϲ φθονερῷ ᾽ϲτιν, but the singular noun following πολλὰ γὰρ πολλᾷ λέλεκται would be unnatural and it would still entail an aphaeresis unparalleled in Pindar (or Bacchylides).

Henry argues that φθονεροῖϲιν could have been a gloss,Footnote ¹² and he adopts Vauvilliers’ φθόνῳ εἰϲίν.Footnote ¹³ While a scribe faced with φθόνῳ εἰϲίν might conceivably have been confused and written φθονεροῖϲιν, it seems doubtful that Pindar would have felt the need for a copula here. There are various reasons for thinking this:

1. 1. As a general proposition, in a short statement like this the copula is superfluous. This applies especially to Pindar, an author who favours concision.

2. 2. In Pindar short sentences (containing about six words or fewer) introduced by the particle δέ tend not to include a verb, and certainly not εἰμί without it having emphatic force. I list the following examples: Ol. 1.33–4 ἁμέραι δ' ἐπίλοιποι | μάρτυρεϲ ϲοφώτατοι, 1.113 ἐπ' ἄλλοιϲι δ' ἄλλοι μεγάλοι (text uncertain), 4.25 χεῖρεϲ δὲ καὶ ἦτορ ἴϲον, 8.59–60 τὸ διδάξαϲθαι δέ τοι | εἰδότι ῥᾴτερον· ἄγνωμον δὲ τὸ μὴ προμαθεῖν, 13.47–8 ἕπεται δ᾽ ἐν ἑκάϲτῳ | μέτρον· νοῆϲαι δὲ καιρὸϲ ἄριϲτοϲ; Pyth. 1.59 χάρμα δ' οὐκ ἀλλότριον νικαφορία πατέροϲ, 1.98–9 τὸ δὲ παθεῖν εὖ πρῶτον ἀέθλων· | εὖ δ' ἀκούειν δευτέρα μοῖρ', 2.56 τὸ πλουτεῖν δὲ ϲὺν τύχᾳ πότμου ϲοφίαϲ ἄριϲτον, 3.104–5 ἄλλοτε δ' ἀλλοῖαι πνοαί | ὑψιπετᾶν ἀνέμων, 9.76 ἀρεταὶ δ' αἰεὶ μεγάλαι πολύμυθοι; Nem. 1.25 τέχναι δ' ἑτέρων ἕτεραι, 1.54 εὐθὺϲ δ' ἀπήμων κραδία κᾶδοϲ ἀμφ' ἀλλότριον, 2.16–17 Ἀχάρναι δὲ παλαίφατον | εὐάνορεϲ, 4.91 ἄλλοιϲι δ' ἅλικεϲ ἄλλοι, 8.42 χρεῖαι δὲ παντοῖαι φίλων ἀνδρῶν, 8.45 κενεᾶν δ' ἐλπίδων χαῦνον τέλοϲ, 10.29–30 πᾶν δὲ τέλοϲ | ἐν τὶν ἔργων, 10.72 χαλεπὰ δ' ἔριϲ ἀνθρώποιϲ ὁμιλεῖν κρεϲϲόνων; and Isthm. 7.43 δαίμων δ' ἄϊϲοϲ.Footnote ¹⁴ In each of these examples the verb (normally the copula) must be supplied.

3. 3. The only exceptions I have been able to find where Pindar employs εἰμί in such sentences are Ol. 7.53 ἦν δὲ κλέοϲ βαθύ and Nem. 1.10–11 ἔϲτι δ' ἐν εὐτυχίᾳ | πανδοξίαϲ ἄκρον. In both the verb is emphatically placed at the beginning. Here it is ὄψον that is emphatic.

4. 4. Pindar shows a marked preference for the Doric 3 pers. pl. form ἐντί. I find ten instances of ἐντί and only one of εἰϲί in Pindar.Footnote ¹⁵ This tends to suggest that had Pindar used the copula here he would have been more likely to use ἐντί.

None of these stylistic observations is conclusive, but considered together I maintain that they make Vauvilliers's conjecture rather unlikely.

Instead, I suggest that φθονεροῖϲιν probably started out life as a gloss on φθονέοντι,Footnote ¹⁶ and that the point the gloss sought to clarify was that it is a dative participle used indefinitely (the type of people who are envious). It might be objected that glossing φθονέοντι with a plural adjective like φθονεροῖϲ is unnatural, but in fact it would readily have conveyed the type of people indicated by the indefinite expression and it is easier to write φθονεροῖϲ than φθονερῷ τινι.

A possible trace of the original might be found in the scholia. The scholiast on Nem. 8.35 (= Drachmann 3.143.28–144.4)Footnote ¹⁷ refers to τοῖϲ φθονεροῖϲ and οἱ φθονεροί, whereas the scholiast on Nem. 8.37 (= Drachmann 3.144.5–6) explains the apparent ellipse with the comment ἀπὸ τῶν φθονούντων ἐπὶ τὸν φθόνον μετήγαγε τὸν λόγον (‛[Pindar] has transferred the subject from those who envy to envy itself’). It is possible, I suggest, that the reason for the scholiast's use of a participle (instead of writing ἀπὸ τῶν φθονερῶν) is that the text before him contained a participle and that the plural participle resulted from the scholiast correctly understanding φθονέοντι indefinitely.Footnote ¹⁸

From φθονέοντι in 21 the subject of ἅπτεται in 22 is naturally supplied as φθονέων. The indefinite φθονέων is the opposite of the description of Hieron at Pyth. 3.71 (οὐ φθονέων ἀγαθοῖϲ), or of Damophilus at Pyth. 4.285 (οὐκ ἐρίζων ἀντία τοῖϲ ἀγαθοῖϲ). This also provides what most critics take for granted as present in Nem. 8 but which is actually only implied without being present, namely an express allegation that it was an envious person (Odysseus, perhaps, or the Danaans more generally) who brought about Ajax's downfall.

The singer explains that he wants to leave his children a good reputation after he has died. Some people, he says, pray for gold and others for unlimited land, but he prays to be pleasing to his fellow citizens by praising what should be praised and sowing censure on sinful things. In his Loeb Race translates the words καὶ χθονὶ γυῖα καλύψαι ʻuntil I cover my limbs with earth'.Footnote ¹⁹ But καί does not mean ʻuntil' and this seems a particularly unlikely prayer immediately after he has expressly wished to leave his children a good reputation after his death.

The transmitted text, καλύψαιμ', is certainly corrupt: elision at period-end is a contradiction in terms since what follows period-end is by definition not in synaphaea with what precedes it. In most texts Wackernagel's conjecture is adopted. I think that there are reasons for resisting this. The words καὶ χθονί might be taken with ἀϲτοῖϲ, i.e. ʻbut I pray, having pleased my fellow citizens and country, to hide my bones ...', but this seems unnatural both from the perspective of word order and because καλύψαι (as opposed to, say, θάψαι) requires something like χθονί to explain that burial is meant. If καὶ χθονί is taken with γυῖα καλύψαι, this requires καί to be explained and to do so requires special pleading. Wackernagel's conjecture, while superficially attractive, actually creates more problems than it solves.Footnote ²⁰

I suspect that what Pindar actually wrote was ἁδεῖν ... καλύψαιϲ and that the infinitive and participle were switched because a scribe was confused by the Aeolic form of the participle. Once καλύψαιϲ had been corrupted to καλύψαιμ', the change from ἁδεῖν to ἁδὼν would have been an obvious ʻcorrection'.Footnote ²¹ Ἐγὼ δ' ἀϲτοῖϲ ἁδεῖν καὶ χθονὶ γυῖα καλύψαιϲ gives the sense ʻbut I pray to please my fellow citizens even after hiding my limbs in the earth', the καί being taken with the participial phrase χθονὶ γυῖα καλύψαιϲ.Footnote ²² This way Pindar's wish to leave his children a good reputation after his death is reinforced and the καί has its function restored.