ROBERT PINSKY: The original Olympics of ancient Greece included familiar events like footraces and wrestling, as well as races in horsedrawn chariots and mule cars. The poet Pindar wrote many odes in 476 B.C. Pindar compares the games to the elements:
Water is supreme, and gold
Like fire at night stands out
Among all the subtances that heighten human pride--
But if you want to celebrate
Greatness in games, O my soul, you'll find
No brighter star in the vastness of space
Than the sun, no contest more glorious
Than Olympia--
http://www.rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/PindarOlympia.htm
http://www.olympic.org/uk/utilities/...&MediaType=vid
English translation (literal)
ANTHEM OF THE GAMES
Ancient immortal Spirit, pure father
of beauty, of greatness and of truth,
descend, reveal yourself as lightning here
within the glory of your own earth and sky.
At running and wrestling and at throwing
illuminate in the noble Games
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