most ingenious man.
He overpowers with cunning the animal
that roams in the mountains at night,
the wild-maned neck of the steed.
and the never-tamed bull,
fitting them with wood,
he forces under the yoke

2nd strophe

And into the sounding of the word
and swift understanding of all
he has found his way, even into courageous
governance of the towns.
And he has pondered how to flee
exposure to the arrows
of unpropitious weather and its frosts.
Everywhere venturing forth underway, experienceless without any way out
he comes to nothing.
The singular onslaught of death he can
by no flight ever prevent,
even if in the face of dire infirmity he achieves
most skillful avoidance.

2nd antistrophe

Craftiness too, as the work
of his ability, he masters beyond expectation,
and if he falls on bad times
other valiant things succeed for him.
Between the ordinance of the earth and the
order ordained by the gods he ventures:
Towering high above the site. forfeiting the site
is he for whom non-beings always are
for the sake of risk.
Such shall not be entrusted to my hearth.
nor share their delusion with my knowing.
who put such a thing to work.

That an adequate interpretation of this choral ode- even disregarding the constraints already named — is beyond our capabilities in all respects. requires no further elaboration. Here too. remarks must suffice. What is now to be mentioned specifically for the sake of clarification has been extracted from the whole of the choral ode and is therefore, if one may say so. one-sided. Yet the "sides" to be clarified here are not arbitrary. They already have their distinctive significance in the way in which the song hinges together. The four parts that have been extracted attune, in their belonging together. the concealed lineaments of the song, and they concern