Di madre in figlio: fuoco, punizione e riti nella Pitica III di Pindaro

This paper is focused on the myths of Coronis and her son Asclepius in Pindar’s Pythian Ode 3, where the image of fire is particularly emphasised as a main link between them. Born – thanks to his father Apollo – through the fire that burns his mother’s corpse on the funeral pyre, and struck by Zeus’ lightenings after he had tried to bring a dead man back to life, Asclepius’ life-cycle – before divinization – seems to replicate Coronis’ one. In fact, she lies in bed with a mortal man while she is pregnant of Asclepius, Apollo’s son, and also breaks the human law of the wedding rites. Therefore Apollo causes her death, through the intervention of his sister Artemis. The goddess is said to be ‘furious’ (θύοισα), thus recalling the role of Dionysism in Delphi.Coronis’ fate is counterpointed by the image of fire, both as blaze that punishes and annihilates, and as light that divinely shines, and illuminates the rites she has neglected. On the contrary, for people who respect the gods and are aware of the limits of their human condition, fire and light are evocative of the gods and their gifts to mankind, as the Dionysiac rites and the myth of Dionysos show, offering to Hieron, the recipient of the ode, the hope of a life after death in the memory of pos-terity, thanks to his participation in Mystic rites.