It has always been a pleasing office of criticism, to observe how often
an excellent thought, having sprung from some master mind, or from some
inferior mind in a happy moment, has been used by succeeding writers.
Homer,
"à quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis,"
has, in _Il._ v. 406. _et seq._, the following lines:
"[Greek: Nêpios, oude to oide kata phrena Tydeos hyios
Hotti mal' ou dênaios, hos athanatoisi machoito,
Oude ti min paides poti gounasi pappazousin,
Elthont' ek polemoio kai ainês dêïotêtos]."
"The son of Tydeus is foolish and rash, nor is aware that he who fights
with the immortals is not long-lived, and that _no children, as he
returns from war and strife, gather round his knees to call him
father_."
The idea of children saluting their parent at his knees, has been
adopted, and accompanied with various additions, by several subsequent
authors. Among the writers in Homer's language, however, we find no
imitation of it, unless the following lines of Callimachus can be
regarded as taken from it:
"[Greek: Patros ephezomenê gonatessi
Pais eti kourizousa, tade proseeipe gonêa,
Dos moi partheniên aiônion, appa, phylassein]."
"She (_Diana_), yet a child, sitting sportively on the knees of her
father, said to him, Allow me, dear parent, to preserve a perpetual
virginity."
In the Latin writers the thought occurs several times. The first in whom
it is found is Lucretius:
"At jam non domus adcipiet te læta, neque uxor
Optuma, nec dulces obcurrent oscula natei
Præripere, et tacitâ pectus dulcedine tangent."