Editing Pindar (section)

====Structure====
Pindar's odes typically begin with an invocation to a god or the Muses, followed by praise of the victor and often of his family, ancestors and home-town. Then follows a narrated myth, usually occupying the central and longest section of the poem, which exemplify a moral, while aligning the poet and his audience with the world of gods and heroes.<ref>Bowie, p. 108</ref> The ode usually ends in more eulogies, for example of trainers (if the victor is a boy), and of relatives who have won past events, as well as with prayers or expressions of hope for future success.<ref name="Geoffrey S. Conway 1972">Pindar (1972)</ref> The event where the victory was gained is never described in detail, but there is often some mention of the hard work needed to bring the victory about.

A lot of modern criticism tries to find hidden structure or some unifying principle within the odes. 19th century criticism favoured 'gnomic unity' i.e. that each ode is bound together by the kind of moralizing or philosophic vision typical of archaic [[Gnomic poetry]]. Later critics sought unity in the way certain words or images are repeated and developed within a particular ode. For others, the odes are just celebrations of men and their communities, in which the elements such as myths, piety, and ethics are stock themes that the poet introduces without much real thought. Some conclude that the requirement for unity is too modern to have informed Pindar's ancient approach to a traditional craft.<ref name="Douglas E. Gerber 1997 page 255"/>

The great majority of the odes are triadic in structure{{spaced ndash}}i.e., stanzas are grouped together in three's as a lyrical unit. Each triad comprises two stanzas identical in length and meter (called 'strophe' and 'antistrophe') and a third stanza (called an 'epode'), differing in length and meter but rounding off the lyrical movement in some way. The shortest odes comprise a single triad, the largest (''Pythian 4'') comprises thirteen triads. Seven of the odes however are monostrophic (i.e., each stanza in the ode is identical in length and meter). The monostrophic odes seem to have been composed for victory marches or processions, whereas the triadic odes appear suited to choral dances.<ref name="Geoffrey S. Conway 1972"/> Pindar's metrical rhythms are nothing like the simple, repetitive rhythms familiar to readers of English verse{{spaced ndash}}typically the rhythm of any given line recurs infrequently (for example, only once every ten, fifteen or twenty lines). This adds to the aura of complexity that surrounds Pindar's work. In terms of meter, the odes fall roughly into two categories{{spaced ndash}}about half are in [[Greek prosody#Dactylo-epitrite|dactylo-epitrite]]s (a meter found for example in the works of [[Stesichorus]], Simonides and Bacchylides) and the other half are in [[Aeolic verse#Choral Aeolics|Aeolic metres]] based on iambs and choriambs.<ref name="Douglas E. Gerber 1997 page 255"/>