_THE GNOMIC POETS._
Definition of the Term Gnomic.--The Elegiac Metre.--The
Age of the Despots in Greece.--Three Periods in
Elegiac Poetry: the Martial, the Erotic, the
Gnomic.--Callinus.--Tyrtæus.--Mimnermus.--His
Epicurean Philosophy of Life.--Solon.--The
Salaminian Verses.--Doctrine of Hereditary
Guilt.--Greek Melancholy.--Phocylides.--His Bourgeois
Intellect.--Xenophanes.--Theognis.--The Politics
of Megara.--Cyrnus.--Precepts upon Education and
Conduct in Public and Private Life.--The Biography of
Theognis.--Dorian Clubs.--Lamentations over the Decay of
Youth and Beauty.
The term Gnomic, when applied to a certain number of Greek poets,
is arbitrary. There is no definite principle for rejecting some and
including others in the class. It has, however, been usual to apply
this name to Solon, Phocylides, Theognis, and Simonides of Ceos. Yet
there seems no reason to exclude some portions of Callinus, Tyrtæus,
Mimnermus, and Xenophanes. These poets, it will be observed, are
all writers of the elegy. Some of the lyric poets, however, and
iambographers, such as Simonides of Amorgos and Archilochus, have
strong claims for admission into the list. For, as the derivation of
the name implies, gnomic poets are simply those who embody #gnômai#,
or sententious maxims on life and morals, in their verse; and though
we find that the most celebrated masters of this style composed
elegies, we yet may trace the thread of gnomic thought in almost all
the writers of their time. Conversely, the most genuine authors of
elegiac gnomes trespassed upon the domain of lyric poetry, and sang
of love and wine and personal experience no less than of morality. In
fact, the gnomic poets represent a period of Greek literature during
which the old and simple forms of narrative poetry were giving way to
lyrical composition on the one hand, and to meditative writing on the
other; when the epical impulse had become extinct, and when the Greeks
were beginning to think definitely. The elegy, which seems to have
originated in Asia Minor, and to have been used almost exclusively by
poets of the Ionian race for the expression of emotional and reflective
sentiments, lent itself to this movement in the development of the
Greek genius, and formed a sort of midway stage between the impassioned
epic of the Homeric age and the no less impassioned poetry and prose of
the Athenian age of gold.
Viewed in this light, the gnomic poets mark a transition from Homer and
Hesiod to the dramatists and moralists of Attica. The ethical precepts
inherent in the epos received from them a more direct and proverbial
treatment; while they in turn prepared for the sophists, the orators,
and Socrates.
This transitional period in the history of Greek literature,
corresponding, as it does, to similar transitions in politics,
religion, and morality, offers many points of interest. Before Homer,
poetry had no historical past; but after the age of the epic, a long
time elapsed before the vehicle of verse was exchanged for that of
prose. Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles wrote poems upon nature
in hexameters. Solon and Theognis committed their state-craft and
ethics to elegiac couplets. Yet at the same time Heraclitus and the
seven sages were developing the germs of prose, and preparing the way
for Attic historians and philosophers.
Again, whereas Homer introduces us to a Hellas small in its extent, and
scarcely separated from surrounding tribes, we find in the transitional
period that the strength and splendor of the Greek race are dissipated
over distant colonies, Hellenic civilization standing out in definite
relief against adjacent barbarism. The first lyrical and elegiac poets
come from the islands of the Archipelago, or from the shores of Asia
Minor. The first dramatists of note are Sicilian. Italy and Sicily
afford a home to the metaphysical poets, while the philosophers of the
Ionian sect flourish at Ephesus and Miletus.
Corresponding to this change in the distribution of the race, a change
was taking place in the governments of the states. The hereditary
monarchies of Homer's age have disappeared, and, after passing through
a period of oligarchical supremacy, have given place to tyrannies.
The tyrants of Miletus and of Agrigentum, rising from the aristocracy
itself; those of Corinth, Athens, and Megara, owing their power to
popular favor; others, like Cylon, flourishing awhile by force of mere
audacity and skill; others, again, like Pittacus of Mitylene, using
the rights of their dictatorship for the public benefit, had this one
point in common--it was the interest of all of them to destroy the
traditional prejudices of the race, to gather a powerful and splendid
court around them, to patronize art, to cultivate diplomacy, and to
attach men of ability to their persons. As the barons of feudalism
encouraged the romances of the Niebelungen, Carlovingian, and Arthurian
cycles, so the hereditary monarchies had caused the cyclical epos
to flourish. It was not for the interest of the tyrants to revive
Homeric legends, but rather to banish from the State all traces of the
chivalrous past. With this view Cleisthenes of Sicyon put down the
worship of Adrastus, and parodied the heroic names of the three tribes.
Poetry, thus separated from the fabulous past, sought its subjects
in the present--in personal experience, in pleasure, in politics, in
questions of diplomacy, in epigrammatic morality.
Such, then, was the period during which the gnomic poets flourished--a
period of courts and tyrannies, of colonial prosperity, of political
animation, of social intrigue, of intellectual development, of
religious transformation, of change and uncertainty in every
department. Behind them lay primitive Homeric Hellas; before them,
at no great distance, was the time when the Greek genius would find
its home in Athens. Poetry and science were then to be distinguished;
the philosophers, historians, and orators were to make a subtle and
splendid instrument of Greek prose; the dramatists were to develop
the choric and dialectic beauty of the Greek language to its highest
possible perfection; tyrannies were to be abolished, and the political
energies of Hellas to be absorbed in the one great struggle between
the Dorian and Ionian families. But in the age of gnomic poetry these
changes were still future; and though the mutations of Greek history
were accomplished with unparalleled rapidity, we yet may draw certain
lines and say, Here was a breathing-time of indecision and suspense;
this period was the eve before a mighty revolution. I propose,
therefore, to consider the gnomic poets as the representatives, to some
extent, of such an age, and as exponents of the rudimentary, social,
and political philosophy of Greece before Socrates.
Three periods may be marked in the development of the early Greek
elegiac poetry--the Martial, the Erotic, and the Gnomic. Callinus and
Tyrtæus are the two great names by which the first is distinguished.
Mimnermus gave a new direction to this style of composition, fitting
the couplet, which had formerly been used for military and patriotic
purposes, to amatory and convivial strains.[49] In after-years it never
lost the impress of his genius; so that Ovid, Tibullus, and Propertius
may be regarded as the lineal descendants of the Colophonian bard.
Solon at a later date applied the elegiac measure to severer subjects.
He was the first, perhaps, to use it for purely gnomic purposes,
maintaining, however, the martial spirit in his Salaminian verses,
and imitating the example of Mimnermus in his lighter compositions.
Phocylides, to judge by the scanty fragments which we possess of his
poems, was almost wholly gnomic in his character. But Theognis, who is
the latest and most important of the elegiac writers of this period,
combined the political, didactic, and erotic qualities to a remarkable
degree. As a poet, Simonides was greater than any of those whom I have
named; but his claims to rank among the sententious philosophers rest
more upon the fragments of his lyrics than upon the elegiac epitaphs
for which he was so justly famed.
These are the poets of whom I intend to speak in detail. Taken
together with Homer and Hesiod, their works formed the body of a
Greek youth's education at the time when Gorgias and Hippias were
lecturing at Athens. From them the contemporaries of Pericles, when
boys, had learned the rules of good society, of gentlemanly breeding,
of practical morality, of worldly wisdom. Their saws and precepts were
on the lips of the learned and the vulgar; wise men used them as the
theses for subtle arguments or the texts for oratorical discourses.
Public speakers quoted them as Scripture might be quoted in a synod of
the clergy. They pointed remarks in after-dinner conversation or upon
the market-place. Polemarchus, for instance, in Plato's _Republic_,
starts the dialogue on Justice by a maxim of Simonides. Isocrates,
the Rhetor, alludes to them as being "the best counsellors in respect
of human affairs;" and Xenophon terms the gnomes of Theognis "a
comprehensive treatise concerning men." Having been used so commonly
and largely by the instructors of youth, and by men of all conditions,
it was natural that these elegies should be collected into one
compendious form, and that passages of a gnomic tendency should be
extracted from larger poems on different subjects. In this way a body
of sententious poetry grew up and received the traditional authority
of Solon, Phocylides, Simonides, and Theognis. But in the process of
compilation confusion and mistakes of all kinds occurred, so that the
same couplets were often attributed to several authors. To bear this
in mind at the outset is a matter of some moment; for at this distance
of time it is no longer possible to decide the canon of the several
elegists with accuracy. In dealing with them, we must, therefore, not
forget that we are handling masses of heterogeneous materials roughly
assigned to a few great names.
The earliest elegiac poet was Callinus, a native of Ephesus, between
the years 730 and 678 B.C. His poems consist almost exclusively of
exhortations to bravery in battle. "How long will ye lie idle?" he
exclaims; "put on your valor; up to the fight, for war is in the land!"
He discourses in a bold and manly strain upon the certainty of death,
and the glory of facing it in defence of home and country, winding up
with this noble sentiment: "The whole people mourns and sorrows for
the death of a brave-hearted man; and while he lives he is the peer of
demigods." The lines of Tyrtæus, whose prominent part during the second
Messenian war is the subject of a well-known legend, embody the same
martial and patriotic sentiments in even more masculine verse.
It would be alien from my purpose to dwell long upon these military
poems, since the only gnomic character which they display is the
encouragement of a heightened honor, unselfishness, indifference to
gain, devotion to the State, and love of public fame. Yet the moment
in the history of Hellas represented by Tyrtæus, the leader whose
voice in the battle-field was like a clarion to his manly Spartans,
and in the council-chamber was a whisper of Athene quelling strife, is
so interesting that I cannot omit him in this place. "Never," to use
the words of Müller, "was the duty and the honor of bravery impressed
on the youth of a nation with so much beauty and force of language,
by such natural and touching motives." If of a truth it be, as Milton
says, the function of the poet "to inbreed and cherish in a great
people the seeds of virtue and public civility," then Tyrtæus, less
by his specific maxims than by the spirit that his verses breathe,
deserves an honored place among the bards whom Aristotle would have
classed as #êthikôtatoi#, most serviceable for the formation of a
virile and powerful temperament, most suited for the education of Greek
youth. The following translation stands as Thomas Campbell made it from
a martial elegy ascribed to the bard of Lacedæmon:[50]
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand,
In front of battle for their native land!
But oh! what ills await the wretch that yields,
A recreant outcast from his country's fields!
The mother whom he loves shall quit her home,
An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face,
They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed! dishonoring manhood's form,
All ills shall cleave to him: affliction's storm
Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years,
Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name,
And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life-blood where we stand,
To save our children:--fight ye side by side,
And serried close, ye men of youthful pride,
Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might;
Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevell'd in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.[51]
Strangely different are the elegies of Mimnermus, the poet of Colophon,
who flourished towards the end of the seventh century B.C.[52] His
name has passed into a proverb for luxurious verse, saddened by
reflections on the fleeting joys of youth, and on the sure and steady
progress of old age and death. Tyrtæus, though a native of Attica,
wrote for Spartans at war with a strong nation; Mimnermus was born
and lived among Ionian Greeks emasculated by barbarian control and
by contact with the soft Lydians. It was of these Colophonians that
Xenophanes, a native poet, said, "Instructed in vain luxury by the
Lydians, they trailed their robes of purple through the streets, with
haughty looks, proud of their flowing locks bedewed with curious
essences and oils." For such a people the exquisitely soft and
musical verses of Mimnermus, pervaded by a tone of lingering regret,
were exactly suited. They breathe the air of sunny gardens and cool
banquet-rooms, in which we picture to ourselves the poet lingering out
a pensive life, endeavoring to crowd his hours with pleasures of all
kinds, yet ever haunted and made fretful among his roses by the thought
of wrinkles and death. "When your youth is gone," he says, "however
beautiful you may have been, you lose the reverence of your children
and the regard of your friends." "More hideous is old age than death.
It reduces the handsome and the plain man to one level--cares attend
it--the senses and the intellects get deadened--a man is forgotten
and put out of the way." The Greek sentiment of hatred for old age is
well expressed in one epithet which Mimnermus employs--#amorphon#,
_formless_. The Greeks detested the ugliness and loss of grace which
declining years bring with them almost more than weakened powers or
the approach of death. Nay, "when the flower of youth is past," says
Mimnermus, "it is best to die at once." Men are like herbs, which
flourish for a while in sunshine--then comes the winter of old age,
with poverty or disease, or lack of children. His feeling for the
charm of youth was intense; he expressed it in language that reminds
us of the fervency of Sappho: "Down my flesh the sweat runs in rivers,
and I tremble when I see the flower of my equals in age gladsome and
beautiful."
This tender and regretful strain is repeated by Mimnermus with a
monotonous, almost pathetic persistency, as if the one thought of
inevitable age oppressed him like a nightmare day and night. His
delight in the goodliness of youth and manhood is so acute, and his
enjoyment of existence is so exquisite, that he shrinks with loathing
from the doom imposed on all things mortal to decline and wither. "May
I complete my life without disease or cares, and may death strike me
at my sixtieth year!" Such is the prayer he utters, feeling, probably,
that up to sixty the senses may still afford him some enjoyment, and
that, after they are blunted, there is nothing left for man worth
living for. In all this, Mimnermus was true to one type of the Greek
character. I shall have occasion farther on to revert to this subject,
and to dwell again upon the fascination which the flower of youth
possessed for the Greeks, and the horror with which the ugliness of
age inspired them.[53] That some escaped this kind of despair, which
to us appears unmanly, may be gathered from the beautiful discourse
upon old age with which the _Republic_ of Plato opens. Mimnermus,
however, belonged to a class of men different from Cephalus: nowhere in
the whole range of literature can be found a more perfect specimen of
unmitigated _ennui_.[54] In his verse we trace the prostrate tone of
the Oriental, combined with Greek delicacy of intellect and artistic
expression. The following passage may be cited as at once illustrative
of his peculiar lamentation, and also of his poetical merits:
What's life or pleasure wanting Aphrodite?
When to the gold-haired goddess cold am I,
When love and love's soft gifts no more delight me,
Nor stolen dalliance, then I fain would die!
Ah! fair and lovely bloom the flowers of youth;
On men and maids they beautifully smile:
But soon comes doleful eld, who, void of ruth,
Indifferently afflicts the fair and vile:
Then cares wear out the heart; old eyes forlorn
Scarce reck the very sunshine to behold--
Unloved by youths, of every maid the scorn--
So hard a lot God lays upon the old.[55]
We are not surprised to hear that the fragments of Mimnermus belonged
to a series of elegies addressed to a flute-player called Nanno.[56]
They are worthy of such a subject. Nanno, according to one account, did
not return the passion of the poet.
In Mimnermus, however luxurious he may have been, we yet observe
a vein of meditation upon life and destiny which prepares us for
the more distinctly gnomic poets. Considered in the light of Greek
philosophy, Mimnermus anticipates the ethical teaching of the Hedonists
and Epicureans. In other words, he represents a genuine view of life
adopted by the Greeks. Horace refers to him as an authority in these
well-known lines:
Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque
Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque;[57]
on which the scholiast observed that the elegiac poet "agreed with the
sect of the Epicureans."
Next to Mimnermus in point of time is Solon. Perhaps the verses of this
great man were among his least important productions. Yet their value,
in illustrating the history of Athens, would have been inestimable,
had they been preserved to us in a more perfect state. "There is
hardly anything," says Grote, "more to be deplored, amidst the lost
treasures of the Grecian mind, than the poems of Solon; for we see
by the remaining fragments that they contained notices of the public
and social phenomena before him, which he was compelled attentively
to study, blended with the touching expression of his own personal
feelings, in the post, alike honorable and difficult, to which the
confidence of his countrymen had exalted him." The interest of Solon
as a gnomic poet is derived chiefly from the fact that he was reckoned
one of the seven wise men of Greece, that he was one of the two most
distinguished Nomothetæ of Hellas, that he is said to have conversed
familiarly with the great Lydian monarch, and that he endeavored at
Athens to resist the growing tyranny of Pisistratus. Thus Solon bore
a prominent part in all the most important affairs of the period to
which the gnomic poetry belongs. Its politics, diplomacy, and social
theories, its constitutional systems and philosophy, were perfectly
familiar to him, and received a strong impress from his vigorous mind.
It is thought that his poems belong to an early period of his life; yet
they embody the same sentiments as those which Herodotus refers to his
old age, and express in the looser form of elegiac verse the gist of
apothegms ascribed to him as one of the seven sages.
Literature and politics were cultivated together at this period among
the Greeks; philosophy was gained in actual life and by commerce with
men of all descriptions. The part which Tyrtæus, Alcæus, Pythagoras,
Parmenides, Empedocles, and Archilochus played in the history of their
states need not be more than alluded to. Simonides of Amorgos founded a
colony; Theognis represented a large and important party. But Solon, in
a truer sense than any of these men, combined decisive action in public
life with letters. Nor is it, perhaps, necessary to agree with Grote in
depreciating the poetical value of his verses. Some of them are very
fine and forcible. The description, for example, of the storm which
sweeps away the clouds, and leaves a sunny sky (Frag. 13, ed. Bergk),
is full of noble imagery.
The first three fragments of Solon's elegies form part of the ode
recited by him in the market-place of Athens, when he braved the
penalty of death, and urged his fellow-citizens "to rise and fight for
the sweet isle of Salamis." These lines are followed by a considerable
fragment of great importance, describing the misery of ill-governed and
seditious Athens. Among the sayings attributed to Solon (Diog. Laer.,
i. 63) is one that gives the keynote to this poem. When asked what made
an orderly and well-constituted state, he answered, "When the people
obey the rulers, and the rulers obey the laws." The paraphrase which
I subjoin exhibits in strong contrast the difference between Dysnomia
and Eunomia, as conceived by the Athenian lawgiver. Demosthenes, who
used the name of Solon on all occasions with imposing rhetorical
effect, quotes these lines in a celebrated passage of the speech _De
Fals. Leg._, 254: "The citizens seek to overthrow the state by love
of money, by following indulgent and self-seeking demagogues, who
neglect religion and pervert the riches of the temples. Yet justice,
silent but all-seeing, will in time bring vengeance on them for these
things. War, want, civil discord, slavery, are at our gates; and all
these evils threaten Athens because of her lawlessness. Whereas good
laws and government set all the state in order, chain the hands of
evil-doers, make rough places plain, subdue insolence, and blast the
budding flowers of Até, set straight the crooked ways of tortuous law,
root out sedition, quell the rage of strife; under their good influence
all things are fair and wise with men." Thus early and emphatically
was the notion of just balance enunciated among the Greeks. It formed
the ruling principle of their philosophy as well as of their politics;
for the #mêden agan# (nothing overmuch) of Solon corresponded to the
#metron# (measure) of the Ionic speculators, and contained within
itself the germ of Aristotle's ethical system, no less than of the
political philosophy of Plato's _Republic_.
In the fifth and sixth fragments Solon describes the amount of power
he would wish to see intrusted to the Athenian Demus; in the ninth, he
prophesies the advent of a despot: "From storm-clouds descend furious
snow and hail, and thunder is born of bright lightning; so great men
produce the overthrow of states, and into the bondage of a despot's
power the people fall unwittingly. Easy it is to raise the storm, but
hard to curb the whirlwind; yet must we now take thought of all these
things." Fragment the second contains a farther warning on the subject
of impending tyranny. The power of Pisistratus was growing to a head,
and Solon told the Athenians that if he proved despotic, they would
have no one but themselves to blame for it.
The remaining fragments of Solonian poetry are more purely meditative.
"Bright daughters of Memory and Olympian Zeus," he begins, "Pierian
Muses! hear my prayer. Grant me wealth from the blessed gods, and from
all men a good name. May I be sweet to my friend and bitter to my foe;
revered by the one and dreaded by the other. Money I desire, but no
ill-gotten gain: for the wealth that the gods give lasts, and fleets
not away; but the fruits of insolence and crime bring vengeance--sure,
though slow. Zeus seeth all things, and like a wind scattering the
clouds, which shakes the deep places of the sea and rages over the
corn-land, and comes at last to heaven, the seat of gods, and makes a
clear sky to be seen, whereupon the sun breaks out in glory, and the
clouds are gone--so is the vengeance of Zeus. He may seem to forget,
but sooner or later he strikes; perchance the guilty man escapes,
yet his blameless children or remote posterity pay the penalty." Two
points are noticeable in this passage--first, the dread of ill-gotten
gain; and secondly, the conception of implacable justice. There was
nothing which the Greeks more dreaded and detested than wealth procured
by fraud. They were so sensitive upon this point that even Plato and
Aristotle regarded usury as criminal, unnatural, and sure to bring
calamity upon the money-lender. Thus Chilon, the Lacedæmonian sage,
is reported to have said, "Choose loss rather than dishonorable gain;
for the one will hurt you for the moment, the other will never cease
to be a curse." There are few of the seven sages who have not at least
one maxim bearing on this point. It would seem as if the conscience of
humanity were touched at a very early period by superstitious scruples
of this kind. The Jewish law contains warnings similar to those of
Solon; and among our own people it has been commonly believed that
wealth unlawfully acquired, money taken from the devil, or property
wrested from the Church, is disastrous to its owner, and incapable of
being long retained in the possession of his family. Theognis expresses
nearly the same sentiments as Solon in the following verses: "He who
gets wealth from Zeus by just means, and with hands unstained, will
not lose it; but if he acquire it wrongfully, covetously, or by false
swearing, though it may seem at first to bring him gain, at last it
turns to calamity, and the mind of Heaven prevails. But these things
deceive men, for the blessed gods do not always take vengeance on crime
at the moment of its being committed; but one man in his person pays
for a bad deed, another leaves disaster hanging over his own children,
a third avoids justice by death."
Both Solon and Theognis, it will be observed, express emphatically
their belief in a vengeance of Heaven falling upon the children, and
the children's children, of offenders. This conception of doom received
its most splendid illustration at the hands of the tragic poets, and
led philosophers like Empedocles to devise systems of expiation and
purification, by means of which ancestral guilt might be purged away,
and the soul be restored to its pristine blamelessness. Theognis
in another fragment (731-752) discusses the doctrine, and calls in
question its justice. He takes it for granted, as a thing too obvious
to be disputed, that children suffer for their father's sin, and argues
with Zeus about the abstract right and policy of this law, suggesting
that its severity is enough to make men withdraw their allegiance from
such unjust governors. The inequality of the divine rule had appeared
in the same light to Hesiod and Homer (see _Iliad_, xiii. 631; Hesiod,
_Op. et Dies_, 270). But it is in the gnomic poets that we first
discover a tendency to return and reason upon such questions: the wedge
of philosophical scepticism was being inserted into the old beliefs
of the Greek race. In some respects these gnomic poets present even a
more gloomy view of human destinies than the epic poets. Solon says,
"It is fate that bringeth good and bad to men; nor can the gifts of
the immortals be refused;" and in Theognis we find, "No man is either
wealthy or poor, mean or noble, without the help of the gods." ...
"Pray to the gods; naught happens to man of good or ill without the
gods." ... "No one, Cyrnus, is himself the cause of loss and gain; but
of both these the gods are givers."[58] It would be easy to multiply
passages where the same conception of the divine government as that
for which Plato (_Rep._, p. 379) blamed Homer is set forth; but the
gnomic poets go beyond this simple view. They seem to regard Heaven as
a jealous power, and superstitiously believe all changes of fortune
to be produced by the operation of a god anxious to delude human
expectations. This theology lies at the base of the Solonian maxim,
that you ought not to judge of a man's happiness until his death;
"for," in the language of Herodotus, "there are many to whom God has
first displayed good-fortune, and whom he afterwards has rooted up and
overthrown."
Thus Solon moralizes in his elegies upon the vicissitudes of life:
"Danger lies everywhere, nor can a man say where he will end when he
begins; for he who thinks to do well, without fore-thought, comes to
grief; and often when a man is doing ill, Heaven sends him good-luck,
and he ends prosperously." It must, however, be observed that Solon in
no passage of his elegiac poems alludes distinctly to the intervention
of a jealous or malicious destiny. He is rather deeply impressed with
the uncertainty of human affairs--an uncertainty which the events of
his own life amply illustrated, and which he saw displayed in every
town about him. Simonides repeats the same strain of despondency,
dwelling (Frag. 2, ed. Gaisford) upon the mutabilities of life, and
exclaiming with a kind of horror: "One hideous Charybdis swallows all
things--wealth and mighty virtue."
At this period in Greece the old simplicity of life was passing away,
and philosophy had not yet revealed her broader horizons, her loftier
aims, and her rational sources of content. We have seen how Mimnermus
bemoaned the woes of old age. Solon, whose manliness contrasts in every
other respect with the effeminacy and languor of the Colophonian poet,
gave way to the same kind of melancholy when he cried, "No mortal man
is truly blessed; but all are wretched whom the sun beholds." What can
be more despairing than the lamentations of Simonides?--"Few and evil
are our days of life; but everlasting is the sleep which we must sleep
beneath the earth." ... "Small is the strength of man, and invincible
are his sorrows; grief treads upon the heels of grief through his short
life; and death, which no man shuns, hangs over him at last: to this
bourn come the good and bad alike." In the midst of this uncertainty
and gloom Theognis cannot find a rule of right conduct. "Nothing," he
says, "is defined by Heaven for mortals, nor any way by which a man
may walk and please immortal powers." Nor can we point to any more
profoundly wretched expression of misery than the following elegy of
the same poet: "It is best of all things for the sons of earth not to
be born, nor to see the bright rays of the sun, or else after birth
to pass as soon as possible the gates of death, and to lie deep down
beneath a weight of earth." This sentiment is repeated by Bacchylides,
and every student of Greek tragedy knows what splendid use has been
made of it by Sophocles in one of the choruses of _Oedipus Coloneüs_.
Afterwards it passed into a commonplace. Two Euripidean fragments
embody it in words not very different from those of Theognis, and
Cicero is said to have translated it. When we consider the uneasy
and uncertain view of human life expressed in these passages, it
seems wonderful that men, conscious of utter ignorance, and believing
themselves, like Herodotus, to be the sport of almost malignant
deities, could have grown so nobly and maintained so high a moral
standard as that of the Greek race.[59]
The remaining fragments of Solon contain the celebrated lines upon
the Life of Man, which he divided into ten periods of seven years. He
rebuked Mimnermus for wishing to make sixty the term of human life,
and bade him add another decade. We also possess some amorous verses
of questionable character, supposed to have been written in his early
youth. The prudes of antiquity were scandalized at Solon, a lawgiver
and sage, for having penned these couplets. The libertines rejoiced
to place so respectable a name upon their list of worthies. To the
student of history they afford, in a compact form, some insight into
the pursuits and objects of an Athenian man of pleasure. Plato quotes
one couplet in the _Lysis_, and the author of the dialogue #peri
erôtôn# (On Loves), attributed to Lucian, makes use of the same verses
to prove that Solon was not exempt from the passion for which he is
apologizing. Apuleius mentions another as "lascivissimus ille versus."
It should be added that the most considerable of these elegies has also
been ascribed to Theognis. The doubt of authorship which hangs over all
the gnomic fragments warns us, therefore, to be cautious in ascribing
them to Solon. At the same time there is no strong external or internal
argument against their authenticity. Solon displays no asceticism in
his poetry, or in anything that is recorded of his life or sayings.[60]
It is probable that he lived as a Greek among Greeks, and was not
ashamed of any of their social customs.
Passing from Solon to Phocylides, we find a somewhat different tone
of social philosophy. Phocylides was a native of Miletus who lived
between 550 and 490 B.C. If Mimnermus represents the effeminacy of
the Asiatic Greeks, Phocylides displays a kind of prosaic worldly
wisdom, for which the Ionians were celebrated. He is thoroughly
_bourgeois_, to use a modern phrase; contented with material felicity,
shrewd, safe in his opinions, and gifted with great common-sense.
Here are some of his maxims: "First get your living, and then think
of getting virtue." ... "What is the advantage of noble birth, if
favor follow not the speech and counsel of a man?" ... "The middle
classes are in many ways best off; I wish to be of middle rank in
the State." Aristotle (_Pol._, iv. 9, 7) quotes the last of these
sayings with approbation. It is a thoroughly Ionian sentiment. Two
of his genuine fragments contain the germ of Greek ideas afterwards
destined to be widely developed and applied by the greatest thinkers
of Greece. One of these describes the Greek conception of a perfect
State: "A small city, set upon a rock, and well governed, is better
than all foolish Nineveh." We here recognize the practical wisdom and
thorough solidity of Greek good-sense. Wealth, size, and splendor
they regarded as stumbling-blocks and sources of weakness. To be
compact and well governed expressed their ideal of social felicity.
Plato in the _Republic_, and Aristotle in the _Politics_, carry the
thought expressed in this couplet of Phocylides to its utmost logical
consequences. Again he says, "In justice the whole of virtue exists
entire." This verse, which has also been incorporated into the elegies
of Theognis, was probably the common property of many early moralists.
Aristotle quotes it in the fifth book of the _Ethics_, with the
preface, #Dio kai paroimiazomenoi phamen# (wherefore in a proverb too
we say). It might be placed as a motto on the first page of Plato's
_Republic_, for justice is the architectonic virtue which maintains the
health and safety of the State.
Phocylides enjoyed a high reputation among the ancients. Though few
genuine fragments of his sayings have been handed down to us, there is
a long and obviously spurious poem which bears his name. Some moralist
of the Christian period has endeavored to claim for his half-Jewish
precepts the sanction of a great and antique authority. The greater
number of those which we may with safety accept as genuine are prefaced
by the words #kai toge Phôkylideô# (and this too of Phocylides),
forming an integral part of a hexameter. Phocylides was author of an
epigram in imitation of one ascribed to Demodocus, which is chiefly
interesting as having furnished Porson with the model of his well-known
lines on Hermann. He also composed an epigrammatic satire on women,
in which he compares them to four animals, a dog, a bee, a pig, and a
horse, in the style of the poem by Simonides of Amorgos.
Xenophanes, a native of Colophon, and the founder of the Eleatic school
of philosophy, has left some elegies of a gnomic character, which
illustrate another point in the Ionian intellect. While Phocylides
celebrated the superiority of comfort and the solid goods of life,
Xenophanes endeavored to break down the prejudice in favor of mere
physical advantages, and to assert the absolute pre-eminence of
intellectual power. In his second fragment (ed. Bergk) he says, "You
give all kinds of honors--precedence at festivals, pensions, and public
maintenance--to runners, boxers, pentathletes, wrestlers, pancratists,
and charioteers, who bear away the prize at Olympia; yet these men are
not so worthy of reward as I am; for better than the strength of men or
horses is our wisdom. What is the use of all this muscular development?
It will not improve the constitution of the State or increase the
revenue."[61] In this paraphrase, I have, for the sake of brevity,
modernized the language of Xenophanes, while seeking to preserve the
meaning of an elegy which admirably illustrates the principles of the
Ionian race, and of Athens in particular, as contrasted with those
of the Dorians. Plato, Aristotle, and all the political moralists
of Greece blamed Sparta and Thebes for training mere soldiers and
gymnasts, to the exclusion of intellectual culture; thus retarding
the growth of their constitutions and forcing them to depend in all
emergencies upon brute force. Had all Ionians been like Solon and
Xenophanes, had there been nothing of Mimnermus or Phocylides in their
character, then the Athenians might have avoided the contrary charge of
effeminacy and ignobility of purpose and merely æsthetical superiority
with which they have been taxed.
Contemporary with Phocylides was Theognis, a poet of whose gnomic
elegies nearly fourteen hundred lines are still extant. Some of these
are identical with verses of Solon, and of other writers; yet we need
not suppose that Theognis was himself an imitator. It is far more
probable that all the gnomic poets borrowed from the same sources, or
embodied in their couplets maxims of common and proverbial wisdom. That
Aristotle so regarded one of their most important aphorisms on the
architectonic supremacy of justice, we have already seen. Besides, it
is not certain on what principle the elegies which bear the names of
different poets were assigned to them. Theognis covers more ground than
any of his predecessors, and embraces a greater variety of subjects. It
has never been imagined that the fragments we possess formed part of an
elaborate and continuous poem. They rather seem to have been written as
occasion served, in order to express the thoughts of the moment; while
not a few included in the canon of Theognis belong probably to other
poets. Many of them contain maxims of political wisdom, and rules for
private conduct in the choice of friends; others seem to have been
composed for the lyre, in praise of good society, or wine, or beauty;
again we find discussions of moral questions, and prayers to the gods,
mixed up with lamentations on the miseries of exile and poverty; a few
throw light upon the personal history of Theognis; in all cases the
majority are addressed to one person, called Cyrnus.[62]
Theognis was a noble, born at Megara about the middle of the sixth
century B.C. His city, though traditionally subject to the yoke
of Corinth, had under the influence of its aristocracy acquired
independence. In course of time Theagenes, a demagogue, gained for
himself despotical supremacy, and exiled the members of the old
nobility from Megara. He, too, succumbed to popular force, and for many
years a struggle was maintained between the democratic party, whom
Theognis persistently styles #kakoi# and #deiloi# (bad and cowardly),
and the aristocracy, whom he calls #agathoi# and #esthloi# (good and
stanch). Theognis himself, as far as we can gather from the fragments,
spent a long portion of his life in exile from Megara; but before
the period of his banishment he occupied the position of friend and
counsellor to Cyrnus, who, though clearly younger than himself, seems
to have been in some sense leader of the Megarian aristocracy. A large
number of the maxims of Theognis on State-government are specially
addressed to him.
Before proceeding to examine these elegies in detail, we may touch
upon the subject of the friendship of Theognis for Cyrnus, which has
been much misunderstood. It must be remembered that Theognis was the
only Doric poet of the gnomic class--all those who have been hitherto
mentioned belonging without exception to the Ionian family of the
Greek race. We are not, therefore, surprised to find some purely
Dorian qualities in the poetry of Theognis. Such, for instance, are
the invocations to Phoebus and Artemis, with which our collection of
fragments opens; but such, in a far more characteristic sense, is the
whole relation of the poet to his friend. From time immemorial it had
been the custom among the Dorian tribes for men distinguished in war or
State-craft to select among the youths one comrade, who stood to them
in the light of pupil and squire. In Crete this process of election was
attended with rites of peculiar solemnity, and at Sparta the names of
#eispnêlês# and #aïtês#, or "in-breather" and "listener," were given
to the pair. They grew up together, the elder teaching the younger
all he knew, and expecting to receive from him in return obedience
and affection. In manhood they were not separated, but fought and sat
in the assembly side by side, and were regarded in all points as each
other's representatives. Thus a kind of chivalry was formed, which,
like the modern chivalry of love and arms, as long as it remained
within due limits, gave birth to nothing but honorable deeds and noble
friendships, but which in more degenerate days became the curse and
reproach of Hellas. There is every reason to believe that Theognis
was united to Cyrnus in the purest bonds of Doric chivalry; and it
is interesting to observe the kind of education which he gives his
friend (see 1049-1054, Theogn., ed. Bergk). Boys in the Doric States
were so soon separated from their home, and from the training of the
family, that some substitute for the parental discipline and care
was requisite. This the institution to which I have briefly alluded
seems to have to some extent supplied. A Spartan or Cretan settlement
resembled a large public school, in which the elder boys choose their
fags, and teach them and protect them, in return for duty, service, and
companionship.
Lines 87-100 describe the sincere and perfect affection, the
truthfulness and forbearance, which the poet requires from Cyrnus. In
another passage (1259-1270) he complains of the changeable character of
the youth, and compares him to a skittish horse. One of his longest,
and, in point of poetry, most beautiful elegies, celebrates the
immortality which his songs will confer on Cyrnus (237-254). He tells
his friend that he has given him wings to fly with over land and sea,
that fair young men at festivals will sing of him to sweetly sounding
pipes, and that even Hades shall not prevent him from wandering on
wings of fame about the isles and land of Hellas so long as earth and
sun endure. The lofty enthusiasm and confidence of these promises
remind us of Shakespear's most pompous sonnets. Again, he bewails the
difficulties and dangers of this kind of friendship (1353 and 1369),
or entreats Cyrnus not to let malicious slanders interrupt their
intimacy. In some cases we cannot acquit Theognis any more than Solon
of licentiousness in the expression of his love. But the general tone
of his language addressed to Cyrnus is so dignified and sober that we
are inclined to think his looser verses may refer to another and more
scandalous attachment.
The first elegy of great importance (43-69) describes the state of
Megara when under the control of a democracy. It expresses the
bitter hatred and contempt which the Greek nobles in a Dorian state
felt for the Perioeci, or farmers of the neighboring country, whom
they strove to keep beneath them, and to exclude from all political
rights: "Cyrnus, this city is still a city, but the people are all
changed, who some time since knew neither law nor justice, but wore
goatskins, and dwelt like deer beyond the walls. Now they are noble,
son of Polypas; and the brave of heretofore are base. Who can endure
to look upon these things?" Again he says (1109-1114), "The nobles
of old days are now made base, and the base are noble, ... a man of
birth takes his bride from a low man's house." In another place he
complains that the rabble rule the State with monstrous laws, that the
sense of shame has perished, and that impudence and insolence lord it
over the land (289-292). In these perilous times he compares the State
to a ship managed by incompetent and unruly mariners: the waves are
breaking over her, but the sailors prevent the good pilot from guiding
her helm, while they make pillage of the common good (667-682). This
simile bears a striking resemblance to the passage of the _Republic_
in which Plato compares a state possessed by demagogues and the mob to
an ill-governed ship. Lastly, says Theognis, "Porters rule, and the
nobles are subject to the base." In this state of disorder the very
principles of Dorian society are neglected. Money is regarded as the
charter of nobility, and no attempts are made to maintain a generous
breed of citizens. "We are careful," he says (183-196), "to select the
best race of horses and the like, but a noble man doubts not about
marrying a mean woman if she bring him money; nor does a woman reject
the suit of a mean man if he be rich. Wealth is honored; wealth has
confused our blood." This passage has great interest, both as showing
the old prejudices of the Dorian aristocracy, and also as proving that
a new order of things was beginning in Greece. Even the Dorian States
could not resist the progress of commerce and republican institutions;
and little Megara, situated between mercantile Corinth and democratic
Athens, had but small strength to stem the tide. But the party of
Theognis were not always out of power. When Cyrnus and his friends
held sway in Megara, he gives them this advice (847-850): "Trample on
the empty-headed rabble; strike them with the stinging goad; and put a
galling yoke upon their neck; for never shall you find so despot-loving
a demus in the whole earth." That he had frequent cause to apprehend
the rising of some tyrant from the body of the people may be noticed in
the fragments. Among the earliest of these in our arrangement (39-42)
occurs this elegy: "Cyrnus, this city is pregnant; but I fear that it
will bring forth a man to chastise our evil violence." He then proceeds
to lay down the axioms of the oligarchical State theory: the nobility,
he says, never ruined a city; it is only when base leaders get the
upper-hand, and wrest justice in order to indulge the populace and make
their own gain, that civil dissension and ruin ensue. Tyrants were as
hateful to the true oligarchs as a democracy, and Theognis in one place
actually advises tyrannicide: "To lay low a despot who consumes the
people is no sin, and will not be punished by the gods" (1181). This
sentiment corresponds with the couplet of Simonides on Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, and with the apothegms of several of the sages.
Theognis, seeing Cyrnus environed with political difficulties, thought
fit to furnish him with rules of conduct. He was very particular
about the choice of proper friends. One elegy (31-38), in which he
discourses on the desirability of consorting with none but the best
company, and of avoiding the contagion of low comrades, attained a
wide celebrity among the Greeks. So much of their life was spent in
public, and so much of their education depended on society, that the
question of social intercourse was one of paramount importance. Plato
in the _Meno_, Xenophon in his _Memorabilia_, and Aristotle in the
ninth book of the _Ethics_, all make use of these verses: "Come not
into the company of bad men, but cling always to the good; eat and
drink with them; sit with them, and seek to please those who have great
power. For from the noble you will learn what is noble; but if you
mix with base men you will lose the wits you have." It must always be
borne in mind that by #esthloi# and #agathoi# Theognis meant the men
of his own party. The "good" and "noble" were men of birth, wealth,
breeding, and power, on whom, by prejudice and habit, he conferred
these moral titles. In course of time, however, as the words acquired
a more ethical significance, the philosophers were able to appropriate
maxims of worldly prudence to their own more elevated purposes; nor
were they even in the times of Theognis other than ambiguous, for
the identification of aristocratic position and moral worth was so
conventionally complete that words which were intended to be taken
in the one sense had an equal application in the other. In another
elegy (305-308) Theognis repeats this advice, when he observes that
no one is born utterly bad by nature, but that he contracts habits of
depravity from his associates. Here it is obvious how much of ethical
meaning the words "good" and "bad" involved, even in the times of the
Megarian poet, and how vastly important he considered the society of
well-bred companions to be in the formation of character. A different
view of moral habits seems to be taken in another fragment (429-438),
where Theognis attributes more influence to nature than to training:
"To beget and rear a child," he says, "is easier than to instil good
principles. No one ever devised means for making fools wise, or bad
men good. If Heaven had given to the sons of Æsculapius the gift of
healing wickedness and folly, great fees would they have earned. If you
could fashion or insert what minds you liked, good men would never have
bad sons. But no amount of teaching will make a bad man good." These
verses are quoted both by Plato and Aristotle, with whose inquiries
on the subject of Education _versus_ Nature, of #trophê# as opposed to
#physis#, they had, of course, considerable correspondence.
In connection with this subject of moral habits and companionship,
Theognis thought fit to give his pupil advice about his deportment at
the public dinners of the Dorians. At these social meetings there was
ample scope for political intrigue; and hence it followed that a public
man was forced to be particular about his associates. The poet devotes
a series of couplets (61-82) to this point, recommending Cyrnus to be
reticent, and not to communicate the whole of his plans even to his
friends. He warns him how difficult it is to get a faithful friend. You
could not find, he says (83-86), one shipload of really trustworthy
and incorruptible men upon the face of the world. Moreover, nothing
requires more skill than to discover the insincerity of a hypocrite
(117-128). You may test gold and silver, but there are no means of
getting at the thoughts of men. This sentiment, together with the
metaphor of pinchbeck metal, is used by Euripides in _Medea_ (line
515). Aristotle also quotes the passage in his Eudemian _Ethics_ (vii.
2). Time, however, says Theognis (963-970), and experience and calamity
are the true tests of friendship. If a man will bear misfortune with
you, or will help you in a serious undertaking, you may then, but not
till then, rely upon his expressions of attachment. This suspicious
temper recalls the social philosophy of Machiavelli; indeed, Greek
politics in no respect resembled those of modern Italy more closely
than in the diplomatic footing upon which all the relations of
society were placed. There are two very curious passages (213-218 and
1071-1074) in which Theognis bids his friend be as much as possible all
things to all men. "Turn a different side of your character," he says,
"to different men, and mix part of their temper with your own. Get the
nature of the cuttlefish, which looks exactly like the rock it clings
to: be versatile, and show a variety of complexions." Again, he boasts
that "among madmen I am exceeding mad; but among the just no man is
more just than I am." Nor is this subtlety to be confined to friendly
relations merely. In one most Jesuitical couplet (363) Theognis urges
his friend "to beguile his foe with fair words; but when he has him in
his power, to take full vengeance and to spare not." As to the actual
events of the life of Cyrnus, we know nothing except what is told us in
one of the elegies (805--810), that he went as a theorus to the shrine
of Delphi. We may gather from some expressions of the poet that he was
of a rash and haughty and unconciliatory temper.
Passing now to the personal history of Theognis, we are struck with
his frequent lamentations over poverty and the wretchedness of exile.
"Miserable poverty!" he cries, "go elsewhere; prithee stay not with
a host that hates thee." "Poverty breaks the spirit of a noble man
more than anything, more even than age or ague. The poor man is gagged
and bound; he cannot speak or act.... Poverty comes not to the market
or the lawsuits; everywhere she is laughed and scoffed at, and hated
by all men, ... mother she is of helplessness; she breaks the spirit
of a man within his breast, so that he suffers shame and wrong in
silence, and learns to lie and cheat and do the sin his soul abhors....
Wretched want, why, seated on my shoulders, dost thou debase body and
mind alike" (267, 351, 385, 173-182, 649). Wealth, on the other hand,
he cries with bitterness, is omnipotent (1117): "O wealth! of gods
the fairest and most full of charm! with thy help, though I am a mean
man, I am made noble." "Every one honors a rich man and slights a poor
man: the whole world agrees upon this point." But the finest and most
satirical of all his poems on this subject is one (699-718) in which he
says: "Most men have but one virtue, and that is wealth; it would do
you no good if you had the self-control of Rhadamanthus himself, or if
you knew more wiles than Sisyphus, or if you could turn falsehood into
truth with the tongue of a Nestor, or if you were more fleet of foot
than the children of Boreas. You must fix your mind on wealth--wealth
alone. Wealth is almighty." It was poverty that gave its bitterness
to exile. My friends, he says, pass me by; "no one is the friend or
faithful comrade of an exile. This is the sting of exile." "I have
suffered what is as bad as death, and worse than anything besides. My
friends have refused me the assistance which they owed, and I am forced
to try my foes" (811-814). Hope, which has always been the food and
sustenance of exiles, alone remained to him. There is one beautiful
elegy (1135-1150) in which he imitates Hesiod, singing how faith and
temperance and the graces have left the earth, how oaths are broken
and religion is neglected, how holiness hath passed away; yet, if a
pious man remain, let him wait on Hope, to Hope pray always, to Hope
sacrifice first and last.
Verses 825-830 and 1197-1202 describe his condition while living as a
poor man, stripped of his paternal farms, in Megara. The voice of the
harvest-bird brings him sorrow, for he knows that other men will reap
his fields. How can he pipe or sing, when from the market-place he sees
his own land made the prey of revellers? The same sense of the _res
angusta domi_ is expressed in the welcome to Clearistus. We gather from
another elegy (261-266) that Theognis had lost not only his land, but
also a girl to whom he was betrothed. Her parents gave her in marriage
to a man less noble and less worthy than himself. Nor do we fail to get
some insight into his domestic circumstances. Mr. Frere explains one
fragment (271-278), full of Lear's indignation, by conjecturing that
Theognis had left a wife and children behind him at Megara during his
wanderings, and had returned to find them estranged and thankless. He
translates the fragment thus:
One single evil, more severe and rude
Than age or sickness or decrepitude,
Is dealt unequally, for him that rears
A thankless offspring; in his latter years,
Ungratefully requited for his pains,
A parsimonious life and thrifty gains,
With toil and care acquired for their behoof;
And no return! but insolent reproof;
Such as might scare a beggar from the gate,
A wretch unknown, poor and importunate!
To be reviled, avoided, hated, curst;
This is the last of evils, and the worst!
The same kind of ingenious conjecture supplies us with a plausible
explanation of some obscure couplets (1211-1216), in which it appears
that Theognis, having been taunted by a female slave, replied by
making most sarcastic remarks on the servile physiognomy, and by
boasting that among all his miseries he had remained a free man and a
noble-minded gentleman. He often bids his soul be strong and bear bad
fortune, like Ulysses when he cried, #tetlathi dê kradiê kai kynteron
allo pot' etlês#.[63] Nor does he fail to ease his heart by praying
for vengeance, and indulging the hope that he may live to drink the
blood of his foes (349), and to divide their property among his friends
(562). That he was kindly entertained in the various states he visited,
he tells us; and it is thought that he received the citizenship of
Hyblæan Megara. Sicily, Euboea, and Sparta (783-788) are specially
mentioned by him as his homes in exile. Wherever he went he carried
with him fame, and found a welcome. "Yet," says the poet, "no joy of
those fair lands entered my soul, so far was anything from seeming
dearer than my native land."
Among the elegies of general interest attributed to Theognis, none is
more beautiful than the following hymn to the goddesses of Song and
Beauty, which has been very elegantly rendered into English verse:
Muses and Graces! daughters of high Jove,
When erst you left your glorious seats above
To bless the bridal of that wondrous pair,
Cadmus and Harmonia fair,
Ye chanted forth a divine air:
"What is good and fair
Shall ever be our care."
Thus the burden of it rang:
"That shall never be our care
Which is neither good nor fair."
Such were the words your lips immortal sang.[64]
The very essence of the Greek feeling for the beautiful is expressed
in these simple lines. Beauty, goodness, and truth were to the Greeks
almost convertible terms; and the nearest approach which Plato made
to the conception of a metaphysical deity was called by him the #idea
tou kalou#. Not less Greek is the sentiment expressed in the following
lines (1027): "Easy among men is the practice of wickedness, but hard,
friend Cyrnus, is the method of goodness." Theognis here expresses very
prosaically what Hesiod and Simonides have both enunciated in noble
verse (_Op. et Dies_, 285-290, and Simonides, Frag. 15, ed. Gaisford).
It is noticeable that in his couplet #to agathon# is used instead of
#aretê#. The thought, however, is the same; nor does it differ widely
from that which is contained in the Aristotelian "Hymn to Virtue,"
where we see that what the Greeks meant by this word included not only
moral rectitude, but also the labor of a Hercules, and all noble or
patriotic deeds which implied self-devotion to a great cause.
The occasions for which the elegies of this class were composed by
Theognis seem to have been chiefly banquets and drinking-parties. In
the Dorian States of Greece it was customary for men to form select
clubs, which met together after the public meals for the purpose of
drinking, conversing, and enjoying music. These friendly societies
formed an appendix to the national #pheiditia#, or public tables.
Great care was taken in the selection of members, who were admitted by
ballot; and in time the clubs acquired political importance. Periander
is said (Aris. _Pol._, v. 9, 2) to have abolished them in Corinth
because they proved favorable to aristocracy--no doubt by keeping
up the old Doric traditions which he took pains to break down. In
the verses of Theognis we are introduced to many members of his club
by name--Onomacritus, Clearistus, Demonax, Democles, Timagoras, and
doubtless Cyrnus. Of course these customs were not confined to Doric
cities; on the contrary, the Symposia and Erani of the Athenians are
more celebrated for their wit and humor, while readers of Thucydides
remember how large a part the clubs played in the history of the 8th
book. But the custom was systematized, like everything else, with
greater rigor among Dorians. It appears that, after having eaten,
the cups were filled and libations were made to the Doric patron
Phoebus (cf. Theogn., Frag. 1); then came the Comus, or drinking-bout:
flute-players entered the room, and some of the guests sang to the
lyre, or addressed an elegy to the company at large, or to some
particular person. These facts may be gathered from different fragments
of Theognis (997, 757); but if we wish to gain a complete picture of
one of these parties, we may seek it in an elegy of Xenophanes, which
is so fresh and pretty that I feel inclined to paraphrase it at length:
"Now the floor is cleanly swept; the hands of all the guests
are washed; the cups shine brightly on the board. Woven wreaths
and fragrant myrrh are carried round by the attendants,
and in the middle stands a bowl full of that which maketh
glad the heart of man. Wine, too, is ready in reserve, wine
inexhaustible, honey-sweet in jars, smelling of flowers.
Frankincense breathes forth its perfume among the revellers,
and cold water, sweet and pure, waits at their side. Loaves,
fresh and golden, stand upon the table, which groans with
cheese and rich honey. In the midst is an altar hung about
with flowers, and singing and merriment resound throughout the
house. First must merry-making men address the gods with holy
songs and pure words; libations must they pour, and pray for
strength to act justly; then may they drink as much as a man
can carry home without a guide--unless he be far gone in years.
This also is right, to speak of noble deeds and virtue over our
cups; not to tell tales of giants or Titans or the Centaurs,
mere fictions of our grandfathers, and foolish fables."
It was customary at these banquets to sing the praises of youth and
to lament old age, ringing endless changes on the refrain "Vivamus
atque amemus," which antiquity was never weary of repeating. Very sad
and pathetic is the tone of these old songs, wherein the pæan mingles
with the dirge; for youth and the grave are named in the same breath,
and while we smell the roses we are reminded that they will wither.
Then comes the end--the cold and solitary tomb, eternal frost and
everlasting darkness, to which old age, the winter and night of life,
is but a melancholy portal. _Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus._
To pleasure, in life's bloom, yield we our powers,
While yet to be and to enjoy are ours;
For swift as thought our glorious youth goes by,
Swift as the coursers that to battle fly,
Bearing the chief with quivering spear in hand,
Madly careering o'er the rich corn-land--
so sings Theognis (977), and with even more of pathos he exclaims--
Ah me! my youth! alas for eld's dark day:
This comes apace, while that fleets fast away.
The same idea is repeated in many other elegies, always with the same
sad cadence: "No man, as soon as the earth covers him, and he goes
down to Erebus, the home of Persephone, takes any pleasure in the
sound of the lyre, or the voice of the flute-player, or in the sweet
gifts of Dionysus" (973-976). At another time he reckons up the ills
of life: "When I am drinking I take no heed of soul-consuming poverty
or of enemies who speak ill of me; but I lament delightful youth
which is forsaking me, and wail for grim old age who cometh on apace"
(1129-1132). Their tone reminds us of Mimnermus, who said the utmost
when he cried--
Zeus to Tithonus gave a grievous ill--
Undying age, than death more horrible!
To multiply more elegies of this description would be useless. We may,
however, allude to a poem of Simonides (Frag. 100, ed. Gaisford),
which combines the sweetness of Mimnermus and the energy of Theognis:
"Nothing human endures for aye. Well said the bard of Chios, that
like the leaves so is the race of men: yet few who hear this keep it
in their mind; for hope is strong within the breast of youth. When
the flower of youth lasts, and the heart of a man is light, he nurses
idle thoughts, hoping he never will grow old or die; nor does he
think of sickness in good health. Fools are they who dream thus, nor
know how short are the days of youth and life. But learn thou this,
and live thy life out, cheering thy soul with good things." The tone
of these elegies pervades a great many monuments of Greek sculpture.
Standing before the Genius of Eternal Repose, or the so-called Genius
of the Vatican, we are moved almost to tears by the dumb sadness with
which their perfect beauty has been chastened. Like the shade of
young Marcellus in Virgil, they seem to carry round them a cloud of
gloom, impalpable, yet overshadowing their youth with warnings and
anticipations of the tomb.
With Theognis the list of gnomic poets, strictly so called, may be
said to close. Simonides, from whom I have adduced some passages in
illustration of the elder elegiac writers, survived the bard of Megara,
and attained a far greater reputation than he enjoyed, at the Syracusan
and Athenian courts. How highly his maxims were valued by the moralists
of the succeeding age is known by every reader of the _Protagoras_
and _Republic_ of Plato. But a more detailed analysis of his verses
would be out of place, when we consider that his chief fame rests upon
epitaphs, patriotic epigrams, and lyrical fragments--none of them
strictly gnomic in their character.
To modern readers the philosophy of the poets whom we have considered
will perhaps seem trite, their inspiration tame, their style
pedestrian. But their contemporaries were far from arriving at this
criticism. To obtain concise and abstract maxims upon the ethics of
society, politics, and education was to them a new and inestimable
privilege. In the gnomic poets the morality which had been merely
implicit in Homer and Hesiod received separate treatment and
distinct expression. The wisdom which had been gradually collecting
for centuries in the Greek mind was tersely and lucidly condensed
into a few pregnant sentences. These sentences formed the data for
new syntheses and higher generalizations, the topics for enlarged
investigation, the "middle axioms" between the scattered facts of life
and the unity of philosophical system. _We_ may regard the gnomic
poets with interest, partly on account of the real, if rare, beauty
of some of their fragments; partly on account of their historical
and illustrative value; partly because all efforts of the human mind
in its struggle for emancipation, and all stages in its development,
are worthy of attentive study. To the sophists, to the orators, to
Socrates and his friends, to the tragic writers, to educated men at
large in Hellas, they were authorities on moral questions; and their
maxims, which the progress of the centuries has rendered commonplace,
appeared the sentences of weightiest wisdom, oracles almost, and
precepts inspired by more than human prudence.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] This seems to have been recognized by the ancients, as is proved
by the lines quoted from Hermesianax in _Athenæus_, xiii. 597, where
the epithet #malachos#, assigned to his pentameter, is meant to be
emphatic. Mimnermus gave it a luxurious and tender quality.
[50] Without attempting to discuss the vexed question whether Tyrtæus
was a native Spartan, or, according to the ancient tale, an Athenian
naturalized in Sparta, his self-identification with the people he
inspired justifies the phrase that I have used above.
[51] The sentiment of these last lines is not only ethically spirited,
but it is also singularly, exquisitely Greek. The æsthetic tact of
the Greek race felt the plastic charm of a youth's form dead upon the
battle-field. Like a statue marbled by the frost of death he lies,
the perfection of life-moulded clay; and his red wounds are the lips
of everlasting praise. Not so the elder man. Nakedness and mutilation
bring no honor to him; he has no loveliness of shape to be revealed
and heightened by the injuries of war; for him the flowing beard and
the robes of reverend eld are a majestic covering, to be withdrawn by
no hand seeking to unveil secluded beauties. His lot is cast no longer
in those fields, intense and passionate of art and love, where death,
cropping the bloom unset, confers a crown of immortality. Cf. _Iliad_,
xxii. 71. An echo of this Greek feeling for the beautiful young dead
may be traced in David's picture of the drummer-boy at Avignon, in Walt
Whitman, and in Lord Albemarle's "Recollections of Waterloo."
[52] The birthplace of Mimnermus is not very certain. Fragment 9 in
Bergk's _Collection_ would seem to justify the opinion that he was a
native of Smyrna colonized from Colophon.
[53] Notice particularly the couplets of Theognis beginning #ômoi egôn
hêbês# and #aphrones anthrôpoi#, Bergk, vol. ii. pp. 420, 550.
[54] Fragment 9 in Bergk's _Collection_ might seem to express a manlier
spirit, if we could suppose that it referred to personal exploits
of the poet. It forms, however, part of a description of the early
colonization of Smyrna from Pylos; when Mimnermus alludes to martial
deeds, he does so with a tone of regret, as one who has no share in
them, and lives his own life in political stagnation.
[55] _Miscellanies_, by the late John Addington Symonds, M.D.
(Macmillan & Co., 1871), p. 410.
[56] Strabo quotes "the Nanno" as Athenæus quotes "the Leontion" of
Hermesianax, another Colophonian amourist.
[57] _Epistles_, bk. i. 6. Translated thus by Conington: "If, as
Mimnermus tells you, life is flat with naught to love, devote yourself
to that."
[58] The well-known passage in the _Iliad_ (xxiv. 527) which describes
the two casks at the threshold of the house of Zeus contains the germ
of this belief. But after Homer there arose a darker sense of the
jealousy of the gods, accompanied in speculative minds by a tendency to
call the principles of the divine rule in question.
[59] This subject will be resumed in the introduction to my chapter on
Euripides, where I attempt to show how the Herodotean notion of divine
jealousy was moralized at the time of the Persian war into the idea of
Nemesis.
[60] See the passage quoted from _Philemon_ by Athenæus, xiii. 569,
where the institution of public _lupanaria_ is ascribed to Solon.
[61] We may compare with this fragment a passage preserved from the
_Autolycus_ of Euripides, translated by me below in the chapter on the
Fragments of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
[62] very ingenious attempt was made by Mr. Hookham Frere to
reconstruct the life of Theognis from his elegies. It would be too
much to assert that his conjectures are always successful. Indeed,
he often introduces foreign matter and modern sentiment, while he
neglects the peculiarly Greek relations of the poet to his friend.
Those who are curious about such works of hypercriticism would do well
to study his _Theognis Restitutus_. (Frere's Works, vol. ii.) In doing
so, they must, however, bear in mind, as already observed above, that
a great many of the couplets and short poems ascribed to Theognis
by the later Greeks were not really his own. Theognis, like Hesiod,
Solon, and Phocylides, was credited with more proverbial wisdom than
he can be held responsible for. Contradictory utterances are therefore
not unfrequent in his elegies, and this fact renders a trustworthy
restoration of his biography and body of opinion almost impossible.
[63] "Be stout, O heart of mine: ere now thou hast endured even more
grimly grief than this."
[64] _Miscellanies_, by the late John Addington Symonds, M.D., p. 411.