CHAPTER XXI.

_THE ANTHOLOGY._

The History of its Compilation.--Collections of Meleager,

Philippus, Agathias, Cephalas, Planudes.--The Palatine

MS.--The Sections of the Anthology.--Dedicatory

Epigrams.--Simonides.--Epitaphs: Real and

Literary.--Callimachus.--Epigrams on Poets.--Antipater

of Sidon.--Hortatory Epigrams.--Palladas.--Satiric

Epigrams.--Lucillius.--Amatory Epigrams.--Meleager,

Straton, Philodemus, Antipater, Rufinus, Paulus

Silentiarius, Agathias, Plato.--Descriptive Epigrams.

The Anthology may from some points of view be regarded as the most

valuable relic of antique literature which we possess. Composed

of several thousand short poems, written for the most part in the

elegiac metre, at different times and by a multitude of authors, it is

coextensive with the whole current of Greek history, from the splendid

period of the Persian war to the decadence of Christianized Byzantium.

Many subjects of interest in Greek life, which would otherwise have had

to be laboriously illustrated from the historians or the comic poets,

are here fully and melodiously set forth. If we might compare the study

of Greek literature to a journey in some splendid mountain region,

then we might say with propriety that from the sparkling summits where

Æschylus and Sophocles and Pindar sit enthroned we turn in our less

strenuous moods to gather the meadow flowers of Meleager, Palladas,

Callimachus. Placing them between the leaves of the book of our memory,

we possess an everlasting treasure of sweet thoughts, which will serve

in after-days to remind us of those scenes of Olympian majesty through

which we travelled. The slight effusions of these minor poets are

even nearer to our hearts than the masterpieces of the noblest Greek

literature. They treat with a touching limpidity and sweetness of the

joys and fears and hopes and sorrows that are common to all humanity.

They introduce us to the actual life of a bygone civilization, stripped

of its political or religious accidents, and tell us that the Greeks

of Athens or of Sidon thought and felt exactly as we feel. Even the

_Graffiti_ of Pompeii have scarcely more power to reconstruct the past

and summon as in dreams the voices and the forms of long-since-buried

men. There is yet another way in which the Anthology brings us

closer to the Greeks than any other portion of their literature.

The lyrists express an intense and exalted mood of the race in its

divine adolescence. The tragedians exhibit the genius of Athens in its

maturity. The idyllists utter a rich nightingale note from the woods

and fields of Sicily. But the Anthology carries us through all the

phases of Hellenic civilization upon its uninterrupted undercurrent

of elegiac melody. The clear fresh light of the morning, the splendor

of noonday, the mellow tints of sunset, and the sad gray hues of

evening are all there. It is a tree which bears the leaves and buds

and blossoms and fruitage of the Greek spirit on its boughs at once.

Many intervals in the life of the nation which are represented by no

other portion of its literature--the ending, for example, of the first

century before Christ--here receive a brilliant illustration. Again,

there is no more signal proof of the cosmopolitan nature of the later

Greek culture than is afforded by the Anthology. From Rome, Alexandria,

Palestine, Byzantium, no less than from the isles and continent of

Greece, are recruited the poets, whose works are enshrined in this

precious golden treasury of fugitive pieces.

The history of the Anthology is not without interest. By a gradual

process of compilation and accretion it grew into its present form

from very slight beginnings. The first impulse to collect epigrams

seems to have originated in connection with archæology. From the very

earliest the Greeks were in the habit of engraving sentences, for the

most part in verse, upon their temples, statues, trophies, tombs, and

public monuments of all kinds. Many of these inscriptions were used

by Herodotus and Thucydides as authorities for facts and dates. But

about 200 B.C. one Polemon made a general collection of the authentic

epigrams to be found upon the public buildings of the Greek cities.

After him Alcetas copied the dedicatory verses at Delphi. Similar

collections are ascribed to Mnestor and Apellas Ponticus. Aristodemus

is mentioned as the compiler of the epigrams of Thebes. Philochorus

performed the same service for Athens. Neoptolemus of Paros and the

philosopher Euhemerus are also credited with similar antiquarian

labors. So far, the collectors of epigrams had devoted themselves

to historical monuments; and of their work, in any separate form at

least, no trace exists. But Meleager of Gadara (B.C. 60) conceived the

notion of arranging in alphabetical order a selection of lyric and

erotic poetry, which he dedicated to his friend Diocles. He called

this compilation by the name of #stephanos#, or wreath, each of the

forty-six poets whom he admitted into his book being represented by

a flower. Philip of Thessalonica, in the time of Trajan, following

his example, incorporated into the garland of Meleager those epigrams

which had acquired celebrity in the interval. About the same time or

a little later, Straton of Sardis made a special anthology of poems

on one class of subjects, which is known as the #mousa paidikê#, and

into which, besides ninety-eight of his own epigrams, he admitted

many of the compositions of Meleager, Philip, and other predecessors.

These collections belong to the classical period of Greek literature.

But the Anthology, as we possess it, had not yet come into existence.

It remained for Agathias, a Byzantine Greek of the age of Justinian,

to undertake a comprehensive compilation from all the previous

collections. After adding numerous poems of a date posterior to

Straton, especially those of Paulus Silentiarius, Macedonius, Rufinus,

and himself, he edited his #kyklos epigrammatôn#, divided into seven

books. The first book contained dedicatory epigrams, the second

descriptive poems, the third epitaphs, the fourth reflections on the

various events of life, the fifth satires, the sixth erotic verses,

the seventh exhortations to enjoyment. Upon the general outline of

the Anthology as arranged by Agathias two subsequent collections were

founded. Constantinus Cephalas, in the tenth century, at Byzantium,

and in the reign of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, undertook a complete

revision and recombination of all pre-existing anthologies. With the

patience of a literary bookworm, to whom the splendid libraries of the

metropolis were accessible, he set about his work, and gave to the

Greek anthology that form which it now bears. But the vicissitudes of

the Anthology did not terminate with the labors of Cephalas. Early

in the fourteenth century a monk, Planudes, set to work upon a new

edition. It appears that he contented himself with compiling and

abridging from the collection of Cephalas. His principal object was to

expurgate it from impurities and to supersede it by what he considered

a more edifying text. Accordingly he emended, castrated, omitted,

interpolated, altered, and remodelled at his own sweet will: "non

magis disposuit quam mutilavit et ut ita dicam castravit hunc librum,

detractis lascivioribus epigrammatis, ut ipse gloriatur," says Lascaris

in the preface to his edition of the Planudean Anthology.[163] He

succeeded, however, to the height of his desire; for copies ceased to

be made of the Anthology of Cephalas; and when Europe in the fifteenth

century awoke to the study of Greek literature, no other collection

but that of Planudes was known. Fortunately for this most precious

relic of antiquity, there did exist one exemplar of the Anthology

of Cephalas. Having escaped the search of Poggio, Aurispa, Filelfo,

Poliziano, and of all the emissaries whom the Medici employed in

ransacking the treasure-houses of Europe, this unique manuscript was at

last discovered in 1606 by Claude de Saumaise, better known as Milton's

antagonist Salmasius, in the Palatine Library at Heidelberg. A glance

at this treasure assured the young scholar--for Saumaise was then aged

only twenty-two--that he had made one of the most important discoveries

which remained within the reach of modern students. He spent years in

preparing a critical edition of its text; but all his work was thrown

away, for the Leyden publishers to whom he applied refused to publish

the Greek without a Latin version, and death overtook him before he had

completed the requisite labor. Meanwhile the famous Palatine MS. had

been transferred, after the sack of Heidelberg in 1623, to the Vatican,

as a present to Pope Gregory XV. Isaac Voss, the rival of Saumaise,

induced one Lucas Langermann to undertake a journey to Rome, in order

that he might make a faithful transcript of the MS. and publish it,

to the annoyance of the great French scholar. But Saumaise dying in

1653, the work, undertaken from motives of jealousy, was suspended.

The MS. reposed still upon the shelves of the Vatican Library; and in

1776 the Abbé Giuseppe Spalletti completed a trustworthy copy of its

pages, which was bought by Ernest, Duke of Gotha and Altenburg, for his

library. In the year 1797 the MS. itself was transferred to Paris after

the treaty of Tolentino; and in 1815 it was restored to Heidelberg,

where it now reposes. Meanwhile Brunck had published, from copies of

this MS., the greater portion of the Anthology in his _Analecta Veterum

Poetarum Græcorum_; and Jacobs, between 1794 and 1814, had edited the

whole collection with minutest accuracy upon the faith of the Abbé

Spalletti's exemplar. The edition of Didot, to which I shall refer

in my examination of the Anthology,[164] is based not only on the

labors of Brunck and Jacobs, but also upon the MSS. of the unfortunate

Chardon de la Rochette, who, after spending many years of his life in

the illustration of the Anthology of Cephalas, was forced in old age

to sell his collections for a small sum. They passed in 1836 into the

possession of the (then) Imperial Library.

The Palatine MS., which is our sole authority for the Anthology as

arranged by Cephalas, is a 4to parchment of 710 pages. It has been

written by different hands, at different times, and on different plans

of arrangement. The index does not always agree with the contents, but

seems to be that of an older collection, of which the one we possess

is an imperfect copy. Yet Cephalas is often mentioned, and always with

affectionate reverence, by the transcribers of the MS. In one place he

is called #ho makarios kai aeimnêstos kai tripothêtos anthrôpos#, "the

blessed man, who is ever to be held in thrice affectionate and longing

recollection," the sentiment of which words we in the middle of this

nineteenth century may most cordially echo.

The first section of the Anthology is devoted to Christian epigrams

upon the chief religious monuments and statues of Byzantium. However

these may interest the ecclesiastical student, they have no value for

a critic of Greek poetry. The second section consists of a poem in

hexameters upon the statues which adorned the gymnasium of Zeuxippus.

Some conception may be formed, after the perusal of this very

pedestrian composition, of the art treasures which Byzantium contained

in the fifth century. Authentic portraits of the great poets and

philosophers of Greece, as well as works of imagination illustrative

of the _Iliad_ and the Attic tragedies, might then be studied in one

place of public resort. Byzantium had become a vast museum for the

ancient world. The third section is devoted to mural inscriptions from

the temple of Apollonis in Cyzicus. The fourth contains the prefaces

of Meleager, Philip, and Agathias, to their several collections. The

fifth, which includes 309 epigrams, is consecrated to erotic poetry.

The sixth, which numbers 358, consists of a collection of inscriptions

from temples and public monuments recording the illustrious actions of

the Greeks or votive offerings of private persons. In the seventh we

read 748 epitaphs of various sorts. The eighth carries us again into

the dismal region of post-pagan literature: it contains nothing but 254

poems from the pen of Saint Gregory the Theologian. The 827 epigrams

of the ninth section are called by their collector #epideiktika#;

that is to say, they are composed in illustration of a variety of

subjects, anecdotical, rhetorical, and of general interest. Perhaps

this part of the whole Anthology has been the favorite of modern

imitators and translators. Passing to the tenth section, we find 126

semi-philosophical poems, most of which record the vanity of human

life and advise mortals to make the best of their brief existence by

enjoyment. The eleventh is devoted to satire. It is here that the

reflex influence of Latin on Greek literature is most perceptible. The

twelfth section bears the name of Straton, and exhibits in its 258

epigrams the morality of ancient Hellas under the aspect which has

least attraction for modern readers. The thirteenth embraces a few

epigrams in irregular metres. The fourteenth is made up of riddles and

oracles. The fifteenth, again, has half a century of poems which could

not well be catalogued elsewhere. The sixteenth contains that part

of the Planudean collection which does not occur in our copy of the

Anthology of Cephalas. It may be mentioned in conclusion that, with

one or two very inconsiderable exceptions, none of the poems of the

early Greek lyrists and Gnomic writers are received into the so-called

Anthology.

To the student of Greek history and Greek customs no section of the

Anthology is more interesting than that which includes the #epigrammata

anathêmatika#, the record of the public and the private votive

offerings in Hellas. Here, as in a scroll spread out before us, in the

silver language of the great Simonides,[165] may be read the history

of the achievements of the Greeks against Xerxes and his hosts. The

heroes of Marathon, the heroes of Thermopylæ, Megistias the soothsayer,

Leonidas the king, Pausanias the general, the seamen of Salamis, the

Athenian cavalry, the Spartans of Platæa--all receive their special

tribute of august celebration at the hands of the poet who best knew

how to suit simple words to splendid actions. Again, the #stêlê# which

commemorated in Athens the patriotic tyrannicide of Aristogeiton, the

statue of Pan which Miltiades after Marathon consecrated in honor of

his victory, the trophies erected by Pausanias at Delphi to Phoebus,

the altar to Zeus Eleutherios dedicated in common by all the Greeks,

the tripod sent to Delphi by Gelon and the other tyrants of Sicily

after their victory over the Carthaginians, for each and all of these

Simonides was called on to compose imperishable verse. Our heart

trembles even now when we read such lines as these:

#ô xein' angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têide

keimetha tois keinôn rhêmasi peithomenoi.#[166]

And who does not feel that the grandeur of the occasion exalts above

all suspicion of prosiness the frigid simplicity of the following?

#tonde poth' Hellênes rhômêi cheros, ergôi Arêos,

eutolmôi psychês lêmati peithomenoi,

Persas exelasantes, eleutheron Helladi kosmon

hidrysanto Dios bômon Eleutheriou.#[167]

But it is not merely within the sphere of world-famous history that the

dedicatory epigrams are interesting. Multitudes of them introduce us

to the minutest facts of private life in Greece. We see the statues of

gods hung round with flowers and scrolls, the shrines filled with waxen

tablets, wayside chapels erected to Priapus or to Pan, the gods of the

shore honored with dripping clothes of mariners, the Paphian home of

Aphrodite rich with jewels and with mirrors and with silks suspended by

devout adorers of both sexes. A fashionable church in modern Italy--the

Annunziata at Florence, for example, or St. Anthony at Padua--is not

more crowded with pictures of people saved from accidents, with silver

hearts and waxen limbs, with ribbons and artificial flowers, with

rosaries and precious stones, and with innumerable objects that only

tell their tale of bygone vows to the votary who hung them there, than

were the temples of our Lady of Love in Cneidos or in Corinth. In the

epigrams before us we read how hunters hung their nets to Pan, and

fishermen their gear to Poseidon; gardeners their figs and pomegranates

to Priapus; blacksmiths their hammers and tongs to Hephæstus. Stags

are dedicated to Artemis and Phoebus, and corn-sheaves to Demeter, who

also receives the plough, the sickle, and the oxen of farmers. A poor

man offers the produce of his field to Pan; the first-fruits of the

vine are set aside for Bacchus and his crew of satyrs; Pallas obtains

the shuttle of a widow who resolves to quit her life of care and turn

to Aphrodite; the eunuch Alexis offers his cymbals, drums, flutes,

knife, and golden curls to Cybele. Phoebus is presented with a golden

cicada, Zeus with an old ash spear that has seen service, Ares with

a shield and cuirass. A poet dedicates roses to the maids of Helicon

and laurel-wreaths to Apollo. Scribes offer their pens and ink and

pumice-stone to Hermes; cooks hang up their pots and pans and spits to

the Mercury of the kitchen. Withered crowns and revel-cups are laid

upon the shrine of Lais; Anchises suspends his white hair to Aphrodite,

Endymion his bed and coverlet to Artemis, Daphnis his club to Pan.

Agathias inscribes his _Daphniaca_ to the Paphian queen. Prexidike has

an embroidered dress to dedicate. Alkibie offers her hair to Here,

Lais her mirror to Aphrodite, Krobylus his boy's curls to Apollo,

Charixeinos his long tresses to the nymphs. Meleager yields the lamp of

his love-hours to Venus; Lucillius vows his hair after shipwreck to the

sea-gods; Evanthe gives her thyrsus and stag's hide to Bacchus. Women

erect altars to Eleithuia and Asclepius after childbirth. Sophocles

dedicates a thanksgiving shrine for poetic victories. Simonides

and Bacchylides record their triumphs upon votive tablets. Gallus,

saved from a lion, consecrates his hair and vestments to the queen

of Dindymus. Prostitutes abandon their ornaments to Kupris on their

marriage. The effeminate Statullion bequeaths his false curls and

flutes and silken wardrobe to Priapus. Sailors offer a huge cuttlefish

to the sea-deities. An Isthmian victor suspends his bit, bridle, spurs,

and whip to Poseidon. A boy emerging into manhood leaves his petasos

and strigil and chlamys to Hermes, the god of games. Phryne dedicates

winged Eros as the first-fruits of her earnings. Hadrian celebrates the

trophies erected by Trajan to Zeus. Theocritus writes inscriptions for

Uranian Aphrodite in the house of his friend Amphicles, for the Bacchic

tripod of Damomenes, and for the marble muse of Xenocles. Erinna

dedicates the picture of Agatharkis. Melinna, Sabæthis, and Mikythus

are distinguished by poems placed beneath their portraits. There is

even a poem on the picture of a hernia dedicated apparently in some

Asclepian shrine; and a traveller erects the brazen image of a frog in

thanksgiving for a draught of wayside water. Cleonymus consecrates the

statues of the nymphs:

#hai tade benthê

ambrosiai rhodeois steibete possin aei.#

Ambrosial nymphs, who always tread these watery deeps with

roseate feet.

It will be seen by this rapid enumeration that a good many of the

dedicatory epigrams are really epideictic or rhetorical; that is to

say, they are written on imaginary subjects. But the large majority

undoubtedly record such votive offerings as were common enough in

Greece with or without epigrams to grace them.

What I have just said about the distinction between real and literary

epigrams composed for dedications applies still more to the epitaphs.

These divide themselves into two well-marked classes: 1. Actual

sepulchral inscriptions or poems written immediately upon the death of

persons contemporary with the author; and, 2. Literary exercises in the

composition of verses appropriate to the tombs of celebrated historical

or mythical characters. To the first class belong the beautiful

epitaphs of Meleager upon Clearista (i. 307), upon Heliodora (i. 365),

upon Charixeinos, a boy twelve years old (i. 363), upon Antipater of

Sidon (i. 355), and the three which he designed for his own grave (i.

352). Callimachus has left some perfect models in this species of

composition. The epitaph on Heracleitus, a poet of Halicarnassus, which

has been exquisitely translated by the author of _Ionica_, has a grace

of movement and a tenderness of pathos that are unsurpassed:

#eipe tis, Hêrakleite, teon moron, es de me dakry

êgagen, emnêsthên d' hossakis amphoteroi

hêlion en leschêi katedysamen; alla sy men pou,

xein' Halikarnêseu, tetrapalai spodiê;

hai de teai zôousin aêdones, hêisin ho pantôn

harpaktês Aïdês ouk epi cheira balei.#[168]

His epitaph on the sea-wrecked Sopolis (i. 325), though less touching,

opens with a splendid note of sorrow:

#ôphele mêd' egenonto thoai nees; ou gar an hêmeis

paida Diokleidou Sôpolin estenomen;

nyn d' ho men ein hali pou pheretai nekys; anti d' ekeinou

ounoma kai keneon sêma parerchometha.#[169]

The following couplet upon Saon (i. 360) is marked by its perfection of

brevity:

#tâide Saôn ho Dikônos Akanthios hieron hypnon

koimatai; thnaskein mê lege tous agathous.#[170]

Among the genuine epitaphs by the greatest of Greek authors, none is

more splendid than Plato's upon Aster (i. 402):

#Astêr prin men elampes eni zôoisin Heôios;

nyn de thanôn lampeis Hesperos en phthimenois.#[171]

To Plato is also ascribed a fine monumental epigram upon the Eretrian

soldiers who died at Ecbatana (i. 322):

#hoide pot' Aigaioio barybromon oidma lipontes

Ekbatanôn pediôi keimeth' eni mesatôi.

chaire klytê pote patris Eretria; chairet' Athênai

geitones Euboiês; chaire thalassa philê.#[172]

Erinna's epitaph on Baucis (i. 409) deserves quotation, because it

is one of the few pieces accepted by the later Greeks, but probably

without due cause, as belonging to a girl whose elegiacs were rated by

the ancients above Sappho's:

#stalai kai Seirênes emai kai penthime krôsse

hostis echeis Aïda tan oligan spodian,

tois emon erchomenoisi par' êrion eipate chairein,

ait' astoi telethônt' aith' heteras polios;

chôti me nymphan eusan echei taphos eipate kai to;

chôti patêr m' ekalei Baukida chôti genos

Tênia, hôs eidônti; kai hotti moi ha synetairis

Êrinn' en tymbôi gramm' echaraxe tode.#[173]

Sappho herself has left the following lament for the maiden Timas (i.

367):

#Timados hade konis, tan dê pro gamoio thanousan

dexato Phersephonas kyaneos thalamos,

has kai apophthimenas pasai neothagi sidarôi

halikes himertan kratos ethento koman.#[174]

In each of these epitaphs the untimely fading of a flower-like maiden

in her prime has roused the deepest feeling of the poetess. This,

indeed, is the chord which rings most truly in the sepulchral lyre of

the Greeks. Their most genuine sorrow is for youth cut off before the

joys of life were tasted. This sentiment receives, perhaps, its most

pathetic though least artistic expression in the following anonymous

epitaph on a young man. The mother's love and anguish are set forth

with a vividness which we should scarcely have expected from a Greek

(i. 336):

#nêlees ô daimon, ti de moi kai phengos edeixas

eis oligôn eteôn metra minynthadia?

ê hina lypêsêis di' emên biotoio teleutên

mêtera deilaiên dakrysi kai stonachais,

hê m' etech' hê m' atitêle kai hê poly meizona patros

phrontida paideiês ênysen hêmeterês?

hos men gar tytthon te kai orphanon en megaroisi

kallipen; hê d' ep' emoi pantas etlê kamatous.

ê men emoi philon êen eph' hagnôn hêgemonêôn

emprepemen mythois amphi dikaspolias;

alla moi ou genyôn epedexato kourimon anthos

hêlikiês eratês, ou gamon, ou daïdas;

ouch hymenaion aeise periklyton, ou tekos eide,

dyspotmos, ek geneês leipsanon hêmeterês,

tês polythrênêtou; lypei de me kai tethneôta

mêtros Pôlittês penthos aexomenon,

Phrontônos goerais epi phrontisin, hê teke paida

ôkymoron, keneon charma philês patridos.#$1

The common topic of consolation in these cases of untimely death is

the one which Shakespeare has expressed in the dirge for Fidele, and

D'Urfey in his dirge for Chrysostom by these four lines:

Whilst we that pine in life's disease,

Uncertain-blessed, less happy are.

Lucian, speaking of a little boy who died at five years of age (i.

332), makes him cry:

#alla me mê klaiois; kai gar biotoio meteschon

paurou kai paurôn tôn biotoio kakôn.#

A little girl in another epitaph (i. 366) says to her father:

#ischeo lypas,

Theiodote; thnatoi pollaki dystychees.#

A young man, dying in the prime of life, is even envied by Agathias (i.

384):

#empês olbios houtos, hos en neotêti marantheis

ekphyge tên biotou thasson alitrosynên.#

But it is not often that we hear in the Greek Anthology a strain of

such pure and Christian music as this apocryphal epitaph on Prote:

#ouk ethanes, Prôtê, metebês d' es ameinona chôron,

kai naieis makarôn nêsous thaliêi eni pollêi,

entha kat' Êlysiôn pediôn skirtôsa gegêthas

anthesin en malakoisi, kakôn ektosthen hapantôn;

ou cheimôn lypei s', ou kaum', ou nousos enochlei,

ou peinêis, ou dipsos echei s'; all' oude potheinos

anthrôpôn eti soi biotos; zôeis gar amemptôs

augais en katharaisin Olympou plêsion ontos.#[176]

Death at sea touched the Greek imagination with peculiar vividness.

That a human body should toss, unburied, unhonored, on the waves,

seemed to them the last indignity. Therefore the epitaphs on Satyrus

(i. 348), who exclaims,

#keinôi dinêenti kai atrygetôi eti keimai

hydati mainomenôi memphomenos Boreêi,#

and on Lysidike (i. 328), of whom Zenocritus writes,

#chaitai sou stazousin eth' halmyra dysmore kourê

nauêge phthimenês ein hali Lysidikê,#

and on the three athletes who perished by shipwreck (i. 342), have a

mournful wail of their own. Not very different, too, is the pathos of

Therimachus struck by lightning (i. 306):

#automatai deilêi poti taulion hai boes êlthon

ex oreos pollêi niphomenai chioni;

aiai, Thêrimachos de para dryï ton makron heudei

hypnon; ekoimêthê d' ek pyros ouraniou.#[177]

It is pleasant to turn from these to epitaphs which dwell more upon the

qualities of the dead than the circumstances of their death. Here is

the epitaph of a slave (i. 379):

#Zôsimê hê prin eousa monôi tôi sômati doulê

kai tôi sômati nyn heuren eleutheriên.#[178]

Here is a buffoon (i. 380):

#Nêleiês Aïdês; epi soi d' egelasse thanonti,

Tityre, kai nekyôn thêke se mimologon.#[179]

Perhaps the most beautiful of all the sepulchral epigrams is one by an

unknown writer, of which I here give a free paraphrase (_Anth. Pal._

vii. 346):

Of our great love, Parthenophil,

This little stone abideth still

Sole sign and token:

I seek thee yet, and yet shall seek,

Though faint mine eyes, my spirit weak

With prayers unspoken.

Meanwhile, best friend of friends, do thou,

If this the cruel fates allow

By death's dark river,

Among those shadowy people, drink

No drop for me on Lethe's brink:

Forget me never!

Of all the literary epitaphs, by far the most interesting are those

written for the poets, historians, and philosophers of Greece.

Reserving these for separate consideration, I pass now to mention a few

which belong as much to the pure epigram as to the epitaph. When, for

example, we read two very clever poems on the daughters of Lycambes

(i. 339), two again on a comically drunken old woman (i. 340, 360),

and five on a man who has been first murdered and then buried by his

murderer (i. 340), we see that, though the form of the epitaph has been

adopted, clever rhetoricians, anxious only to display their skill, have

been at work in rivalry. Sardanapalus, the eponym of Oriental luxury,

furnishes a good subject for this style of composition. His epitaph

runs thus in the Appendix Planudea (ii. 532):

#eu eidôs hoti thnêtos ephys, ton thymon aexe

terpomenos thaliêisi; thanonti soi outis onêsis;

kai gar egô spodos eimi, Ninou megalês basileusas.

toss' echô hoss' ephagon kai ephybrisa, kai met' erôtos

terpn' edaên; ta de polla kai olbia keina leleiptai.

hêde sophê biotoio parainesis anthrôpoisin.#[180]

We find only the fourth and fifth lines among the sepulchral epigrams

of the Anthology of Cephalas (i. 334), followed by a clever parody

composed by the Theban Crates. Demetrius, the Spartan coward, is

another instance of this rhetorical exercise. Among the two or three

which treat of him I quote the following (i. 317):

#hanik' apo ptolemou tressanta se dexato matêr,

panta ton hoplistan kosmon olôlekota,

auta toi phonian, Damatrie, autika lonchan

eipe dia plateôn ôsamena lagonôn;

katthane, mêd' echetô Sparta psogon; ou gar ekeina

êmplaken, ei deilous toumon ethrepse gala.#[181]

Agathias writes a very characteristic elegy on Lais (i. 315):

#herpôn eis Ephyrên taphon edrakon amphi keleuthon

Laïdos archaiês, hôs to charagma legei;

dakry d' epispeisas, chairois gynai, ek gar akouês;

oikteirô se g', ephên, hên paros ouk idomên;

a poson êïtheôn noon êkaches; all' ide Lêthên

naieis, aglaïên en chthoni katthemenê.#[182]

An epitaph on the inutility of epitaphs is an excellent novelty,

especially when the witty poet (Paulus Silentiarius) has the humor to

make the ghost eager to speak while the wayfarer is inattentive (i.

332):

#ounoma moi. ti de touto? patris de moi. es ti de touto?

kleinou d' eimi genous. ei gar aphaurotatou?

zêsas d' endoxôs elipon bion. ei gar adoxôs?

keimai d' enthade nyn. tis tini tauta legeis?#[183]

The value of the epitaphs on poets and great men of Greece is

this--that, besides being in many cases of almost perfect beauty,

they contain the quintessence of ancient criticism. Every epithet is

carefully so chosen as to express what the Greeks thought peculiar and

appropriate to the spirit and the works of their heroes.

Orpheus is the subject of the following exquisite elegy by Antipater of

Sidon (i. 274):

#ouketi thelgomenas, Orpheu, dryas, ouketi petras

axeis, ou thêrôn autonomous agelas;

ouketi koimaseis anemôn bromon, ouchi chalazan,

ou niphetôn syrmous ou patageusan hala.

ôleo gar; se de polla katôdyranto thygatres

Mnamosynas, matêr d' exocha Kalliopa;

ti phthimenois stonacheumen eph' hyiasin, hanik' alalkein

tôn paidôn Aïdên oude theois dynamis?#[184]

Sophocles receives a gift of flowers and ivy, and quiet sleep from

Simmias the Theban (i. 277):

#êrem' hyper tymboio Sophokleos, êrema, kisse,

herpyzois, chloerous ekprocheôn plokamous,

kai petalon pantê thalloi rhodon, hê te philorrhôx

ampelos, hygra perix klêmata cheuamenê,

heineken euepiês pinytophronos, hên ho melichros

êskêsen Mouseôn ammiga kak Charitôn.#[185]

Among the nine epitaphs on Euripides none is more delicate than the

following by Ion (i. 282):

#chaire melampetalois, Euripidê, en gyaloisi;

Pierias ton aei nyktos echôn thalamon;

isthi d' hypo chthonos ôn, hoti soi kleos aphthiton estai

ison Homêreiais aenaois charisin.#[186]

Where could a poet be better lulled to rest than among the black-leaved

hollows of Pieria? But the most touching tribute to Euripides is from

the pen of a brother dramatist, the comic poet Philemon (ii. 94):

#ei tais alêtheiaisin hoi tethnêkotes

aisthêsin eichon, andres hôs phasin tines,

apênxamên an hôst' idein Euripidên.#[187]

Aristophanes is praised by Antipater of Thessalonica (ii. 37) as the

poet who laughed and hated rightly:

#kômike kai styxas axia kai gelasas.#

His plays are characterized as full of fearful graces, #phoberôn

plêthomenoi charitôn#. Over the grave of Anacreon, who receives more

tributes of this kind than any other poet, roses are to bloom, and wine

is to be poured, and the thoughts of Smerdies, Bathyllus, and Megistias

are to linger. Antipater of Sidon in particular paid honor to his grave

(i. 278):

#thalloi tetrakorymbos, Anakreon, amphi se kissos

habra te leimônôn porphyreôn petala;

pêgai d' arginoentos anathlibointo galaktos,

euôdes d' apo gês hêdy cheoito methy,

ophra ke toi spodiê te kai ostea terpsin arêtai,

ei dê tis phthimenois chrimptetai euphrosyna,

ô to philon sterxas, phile, barbiton, ô syn aoidâi

panta diaplôsas kai syn erôti bion.#[188]

The same poet begins another epitaph thus:

#tymbos Anakreiontos; ho Têïos enthade kyknos

heudei chê paidôn zôrotatê maniê.#

Less cheerful are the sepulchres of the satirists. We are bidden not to

wake the sleeping wasp upon the grave of Hipponax (i. 350):

#ô xeine, pheuge ton chalazepê taphon

ton phrikton Hippônaktos, houte cha tephra

iambiazei Boupaleion es stygos,

mê pôs egeirêis sphêka ton koimômenon,

hos oud' en hâidêi nyn kekoimiken cholon,

skazousi metrois ortha toxeusas epê.#[189]

The same thought is repeated with even more of descriptive energy in an

epitaph on Archilochus (i. 287):

#sêma tod' Archilochou parapontion, hos pote pikrên

mousan echidnaiôi prôtos ebapse cholôi,

haimaxas Helikôna ton hêmeron; oide Lykambês

myromenos trissôn hammata thygaterôn;

êrema dê parameipson, hodoipore, mê pote toude

kinêsêis tymbôi sphêkas ephezomenous.#[190]

Diogenes offers similar opportunities for clever writing. The best of

his epitaphs is this well-known but anonymous dialogue (i. 285):

#eipe, kyon, tinos andros ephestôs sêma phylasseis?

tou kynos. alla tis ên houtos anêr ho Kyôn?

Diogenês. genos eipe. Sinôpeus. hos pithon ôikei?

kai mala; nyn de thanôn asteras oikon echei.#[191]

The epitaphs on Erinna, who died when she was only nineteen, are

charged with the thought which so often recurs when we reflect on

poets, like Chatterton, untimely slain--what would not they have done,

if they had lived? (i. 275):

#ho glykys Êrinnês houtos ponos, ouchi polys men

hôs an parthenikas enneakaideketeus,

all' heterôn pollôn dynatôteros; ei d' Aïdas hoi

mê tachys êlthe, tis an talikon esch' onoma?#[192]

Sappho rouses a louder strain of celebration (i. 276):

#Sapphô toi keutheis chthôn Aioli tan meta Mousais

athanatais thnatan Mousan aeidomenan,

han Kypris kai Erôs syn ham' etraphon, has meta Peithô

eplek' aeizôon Pieridôn stephanon,

Helladi men terpsin, soi de kleos; ô trielikton

Moirai dineusai nêma kat' êlakatas,

pôs ouk eklôsasthe panaphthiton êmar aoidôi

aphthita mêsamena dôr' Helikôniadôn?#[193]

This is the composition of Antipater of Sidon, who excels in this

special style. Without losing either the movement or the passion of

poetry, he is always delicate and subtle in his judgments. His epigrams

on Pindar are full of fire (i. 280):

#Pierikan salpinga, ton euageôn baryn hymnôn

chalkeutan, katechei Pindaron hade konis,

hou melos eisaïôn phthenxaio ken, hôs pote Mousôn

en Kadmou thalamois smênos aneplasato.#[194]

The very quintessence of criticism is contained in the phrases

#salpinx#, #chalkeutas#. The Appendix Planudea (ii. 590) contains

another epitaph on Pindar by Antipater, which for its beautiful

presentation of two legends connected with his life deserves to be

quoted:

#nebreiôn hoposon salpinx hyperiachen aulôn,

tosson hyper pasas ekrage seio chelys;

oude matên hapalois peri cheilesin esmos ekeinos

eplase kêrodeton, Pindare, seio meli.

martys ho Mainalios keroeis theos hymnon aeisas

ton seo kai nomiôn lêsamenos donakôn.#[195]

It is impossible to do justice to all these utterances on the early

poets. Æschylus (i. 281):

#ho tragikon phônêma kai ophryoessan aoidên

pyrgôsas stibarêi prôtos en euepiêi.#

Alcman (i. 277):

#ton charient' Alkmana, ton hymnêtêr' hymenaiôn

kyknon, ton Mousôn axia melpsamenon.#

Stesichorus (ii. 36):

#Homêrikon hos t' apo rheuma

espasas oikeiois, Stêsichor', en kamatois.#

Ibycus (ii. 36):

#hêdy te Peithous,

Ibyke, kai paidôn anthos amêsamene.#

Enough has been quoted to show the delicate and appreciative criticism

of the later and lighter Greek poets for the earlier and grander. It is

also consolatory to find that almost no unknown great ones are praised

in these epigrams; whence we may conclude that the masterpieces of

Greek literature are almost as numerous now as they were in the age of

Nero. The philosophers receive their due meed of celebration. Plato can

boast of two splendid anonymous epitaphs (i. 285):

#gaia men en kolpois kryptei tode sôma Platônos,

psychê d' athanaton taxin echei makarôn.#

And--

#aiete, tipte bebêkas hyper taphon? ê tinos, eipe,

asteroenta theôn oikon aposkopeeis?

psychês eimi Platônos apoptamenês es Olympon

eikôn; sôma de gê gêgenes Atthis echei.#[196]

It is curious to find both Thucydides (ii. 119) and Lycophron (ii. 38)

characterized by their difficulty.

Closely allied in point of subject to many of the epitaphs are the

so-called hortatory epigrams, #epigrammata protreptika#. These consist

partly of advice to young men and girls to take while they may the

pleasures of the moment, partly of wise saws and maxims borrowed from

the Stoics and the Cynics, from Euripides and the comic poets. Lucian

and Palladas are the two most successful poets in this style. Palladas,

whose life falls in the first half of the fifth century, a pagan, who

regarded with disgust the establishment of Christianity, attained

by a style of "elegant mediocrity" to the perfection of proverbial

philosophy in verse. When we remember that the works of Euripides,

Menander, Philemon, Theophrastus, and the Stoics were mines from which

to quarry sentiments about the conduct of life, we understand the

general average of excellence below which he rarely falls and above

which he never rises. Yet in this section, as in the others of the

Anthology, some of the anonymous epigrams are the best. Here is one

(ii. 251):

#eis aïdên itheia katêlysis, eit' ap' Athênôn

steichois, eite nekys, niseai ek Meroês;

mê se g' aniatô patrês apotêle thanonta;

pantothen heis ho pherôn eis aïdên anemos.#[197]

Here is another, which repeats the old proverb of the cup and the lip

(ii. 257):

#polla metaxy pelei kylikos kai cheileos akrou.#

And another, on the difference between the leaders and the followers in

the pomp of life (ii. 270):

#polloi toi narthêkophoroi pauroi de te bakchoi.#

Equally without author's name is the following excellent prayer (ii.

271):

#Zeu basileu ta men esthla kai euchomenois kai aneuktois

ammi didou; ta de lygra kai euchomenôn aperykois.#[198]

Lucian gives the following good advice on the use of wealth (ii. 256):

#hôs tethnêxomenos tôn sôn agathôn apolaue,

hôs de biôsomenos pheideo sôn kteanôn;

esti d' anêr sophos houtos hos amphô tauta noêsas

pheidoi kai dapanêi metron ephêrmosato.#[199]

Agathias asks why we need fear death (ii. 264):

#ton thanaton ti phobeisthe, ton hêsychiês genetêra,

ton pauonta nosous kai peniês odynas?

mounon hapax thnêtois paraginetai, oude pot' auton

eiden tis thnêtôn deuteron erchomenon;

hai de nosoi pollai kai poikilai, allot' ep' allon

erchomenai thnêtôn kai metaballomenai.#[200]

The remainder of my quotations from this section will all be taken from

Palladas. Here is his version of the proverb attributed to Democritus

that life's a stage (ii. 265):

#skênê pas ho bios kai paignion; ê mathe paizein

tên spoudên metatheis ê phere tas odynas.#[201]

Here, again, is the old complaint that man is Fortune's plaything (ii.

266):

#paignion esti tychês meropôn bios, oiktros, alêtês,

ploutou kai peniês messothi rhembomenos.

kai tous men katagousa palin sphairêdon aeirei,

tous d' apo tôn nephelôn eis aïdên katagei.#[202]

Here again, but cadenced in iambics, is the Flight of Time (ii. 266):

#ô tês bracheias hêdonês tês tou biou;

tên oxytêta tou chronou penthêsate;

hêmeis kathezomestha kai koimômetha,

mochthountes ê tryphôntes; ho de chronos trechei,

trechei kath' hêmôn tôn talaipôrôn brotôn,

pherôn hekastou tôi biôi katastrophên.#[203]

The next epigram is literally bathed in tears (ii. 267):

#dakrycheôn genomên kai dakrysas apothnêskô;

dakrysi d' en pollois ton bion heuron holon.

ô genos anthrôpôn polydakryton, asthenes, oiktron,

phainomenon kata gês kai dialyomenon.#[204]

When he chooses to be cynical, Palladas can present the physical

conditions of human life with a crude brutality which is worthy of a

monk composing a chapter _De contemptu humanæ miseriæ_. It is enough

to allude to the epigrams upon the birth (ii. 259) and the breath (ii.

265) of man. To this had philosophy fallen in the death of Greece. One

more quotation from Palladas has a touch of pathos. The old order has

yielded to the new: Theodosius has closed the temples: the Greeks are

in ashes: their very hopes remain among the dead (ii. 268):

#Hellênes esmen andres espodômenoi,

nekrôn echontes elpidas tethammenas;

anestraphê gar panta nyn ta pragmata.#

With this wail the thin, lamentable voice of the desiccated rhetorician

ceases.

Akin to these hortatory epigrams, in their tone of settled melancholy,

are some of the satiric and convivial. It is necessary, when we think

of the Greeks as the brightest and sunniest of all races, to remember

what songs they sang at their banquets, and to comfort ourselves with

the reflection that between their rose-wreaths and the bright Hellenic

sky above them hung for them, no less than for ourselves, the cloud of

death.

What more dismal drinking-song can be conceived than this? (i. 337):

#ouden hamartêsas genomên para tôn me tekontôn;

gennêtheis d' ho talas erchomai eis Aïdên;

ô mixis goneôn thanatêphoros; ômoi anankês

hê me prospelasei tôi stygerôi thanatôi;

ouden eôn genomên; palin essomai hôs paros ouden;

ouden kai mêden tôn meropôn to genos;

leipon moi to kypellon apostilbôson, hetaire,

kai lypês akonên ton Bromion pareche.#[205]

The good sense of Cephalas placed it among the epitaphs; for, in truth,

it is the quintessence of the despair of the grave. Yet its last

couplet forces us to drag it from the place of tombs, and put it into

the mouth of some late reveller of the decadence of Hellas. It has to

my ear the ring of a drinking-song sung in a room with closed shutters,

after the guests have departed, by some sad companion who does not

know that the dawn has gone forth and the birds are aloft in the air.

The shadow of night is upon him. Though Christ be risen and the sun of

hope is in the sky, he is still as cheerless as Mimnermus. If space

sufficed, it would be both interesting and profitable to compare this

mood of the epigrammatists with that expressed by Omar Khayyám, the

Persian poet of Khorassan, in whose quatrains philosophy, melancholy,

and the sense of beauty are so wonderfully mingled that to surpass

their pathos is impossible in verse.[206] Here is another of the same

tone (ii. 287):

#êôs ex êous parapempetai, eit' amelountôn

hêmôn exaiphnês hêxei ho porphyreos,

kai tous men têxas, tous d' optêsas, enious de

physêsas axei pantas es hen barathron.#[207]

And another with a more delicate ring of melancholy in the last couplet

(ii. 289):

#hypnôeis ô 'taire; to de skyphos auto boâi se;

egreo, mê terpou moiridiêi meletêi;

mê pheisêi Diodôre; labros d' eis Bakchon olisthôn

achris epi sphalerou zôropotei gonatos;

esseth' hot' ou piomestha, polys polys; all' ag' epeigou.

hê synetê krotaphôn haptetai hêmeterôn.#[208]

And yet another (ii. 294), which sounds like the Florentine Carnival

Song composed by Lorenzo de' Medici--

Chi vuol esser lieto sia;

Di doman non è certezza--

#pine kai euphrainou; ti gar aurion ê ti to mellon

oudeis ginôskei; mê treche, mê kopia;

hôs dynasai, charisai, metados, phage, thnêta logizou;

to zên tou mê zên ouden holôs apechei;

pas ho bios toiosde rhopê monon; an prolabêis sou

an de thanêis heterou panta; sy d' ouden echeis.#[209]

But the majority of the #epigrammata skôptika#, or jesting epigrams,

are not of this kind. They are written for the most part, in Roman

style, on ugly old women, misers, stupid actors, doctors to dream of

whom is death, bad painters, poets who kill you with their elegies,

men so light that the wind carries them about like stubble, or so thin

that a gossamer is strong enough to strangle them; vices, meannesses,

deformities of all kinds. Lucillius, a Greek Martial of the age of

Nero, is both best and most prolific in this kind of composition.

But of all the sections of the Anthology this is certainly the least

valuable. The true superiority of Greek to Latin literature in all

its species is that it is far more a work of pure beauty, of unmixed

poetry. In Lucillius the Hellenic muse has deigned for once to assume

the Roman toga, and to show that if she chose she could rival the

hoarse-throated satirists of the empire on their own ground. But she

has abandoned her lofty eminence, and descended to a lower level. The

same may be said in brief about the versified problems and riddles

(ii. pp. 467-490), which are not much better than elegant acrostics

of this or the last century. It must, however, be remarked that the

last-mentioned section contains a valuable collection of Greek oracles.

Of all the amatory poets of the Anthology, by far the noblest is

Meleager. He was a native of Gadara in Palestine, as he tells us in an

epitaph composed in his old age:

#patra de me teknoi

Atthis en Assyriois naiomena, Gadara.#[210]

It is curious to think of this town, which from our childhood we have

connected with the miracle of the demoniac and the swine, as a Syrian

Athens, the birthplace of the most mellifluous of all erotic songsters.

Meleager's date is half a century or thereabouts before the Christian

era. He therefore was ignorant of the work and the words of One who

made the insignificant place of his origin world-famous. Of his history

we know really nothing more than his own epigrams convey; the two

following couplets from one of his epitaphs record his sojourn during

different periods of his life at Tyre and at Ceos:

#hon theopais êndrôse Tyros Gadarôn th' hiera chthôn;

Kôs d' eratê Meropôn presbyn egêrotrophei.

All' ei men Syros essi, Salam; ei d' oun syge Phoinix,

Naidios; ei d' Hellên, chaire; to d' auto phrason.#[211]

This triple salutation, coming from the son of Gadara and Tyre and

Ceos, brings us close to the pure humanity which distinguished

Meleager. Modern men, judging him by the standard of Christian

morality, may feel justified in flinging a stone at the poet who

celebrated his Muiscos and his Diocles, his Heliodora and his

Zenophila, in too voluptuous verse. But those who are content to

criticise a pagan by his own rule of right and wrong will admit that

Meleager had a spirit of the subtlest and the sweetest, a heart of the

tenderest, and a genius of the purest that has been ever granted to

an elegist of earthly love. While reading his verse, it is impossible

to avoid laying down the book and pausing to exclaim: How modern

is the phrase, how true the passion, how unique the style! Though

Meleager's voice has been mute a score of centuries, it yet rings

clear and vivid in our ears; because the man was a real poet, feeling

intensely, expressing forcibly and beautifully, steeping his style in

the fountain of tender sentiment which is eternal. We find in him none

of the cynicism which defiles Straton, or of the voluptuary's despair

which gives to Agathias the morbid splendor of decay, the colors of

corruption. All is simple, lively, fresh with joyous experience in his

verse.

The first great merit of Meleager as a poet is limpidity. A crystal

is not more transparent than his style; but the crystal to which we

compare it must be colored with the softest flush of beryl or of

amethyst. Here is a little poem in praise of Heliodora (i. 85):

#plexô leukoïon, plexô d' hapalên hama myrtois

narkisson, plexô kai ta gelônta krina,

plexô kai krokon hêdyn; epiplexô d' hyakinthon

porphyreên, plexô kai philerasta rhoda,

hôs an epi krotaphois myrobostrychou Hêliodôras

euplokamon chaitên anthobolêi stephanos.#[212]

Nothing can be more simple than the expression, more exquisite than

the cadence of these lines. The same may be said about the elegy on

Cleariste (i. 307):

#ou gamon all' Aïdan epinymphidion Klearista

dexato, parthenias hammata lyomena;

arti gar hesperioi nymphas epi diklisin acheun

lôtoi kai thalamôn eplatageunto thyrai;

êôioi d' ololygmon anekragon, ek d' Hymenaios

sigatheis goeron phthegma metharmosato;

hai d' autai kai phengos edâidouchoun para pastôi

peukai, kai phthimenâi nerthen ephainon hodon.#[213]

The thought of this next epigram recalls the song to Ageanax in

Theocritus's seventh idyl (ii. 402):

#ourios empneusas nautais Notos, ô dyserôtes,

hêmisy meu psychas harpasen Andragathon;

tris makares naes, tris d' olbia kymata pontou,

tetraki d' eudaimôn paidophorôn anemos;

eith' eiên delphis hin' emois bastaktos ep' ômois

porthmeutheis esidêi tan glykypaida Rhodon.#[214]

These quotations are sufficient to set forth the purity of Meleager's

style, though many more examples might have been borrowed from his

epigrams on the cicada, on the mosquitoes who tormented Zenophila, on

Antiochus, who would have been Eros if Eros had worn the boy's petasos

and chlamys. The next point to notice about him is the suggestiveness

of his language, his faculty of creating the right epithets and turning

the perfect phrase that suits his meaning. The fragrance of the second

line in this couplet is undefinable but potent:

#ô dyserôs psychê pausai pote kai di' oneirôn

eidôlois kalleus kôpha chliainomenê.#[215]

It is what all day-dreamers and castle-builders, not to speak of the

dreamers of the night, must fain cry out in their despair. The common

motive of a lover pledging his absent mistress is elevated to a region

of novel beauty by the passionate repetition of words in this first

line:

#enchei kai palin eipe palin palin Hêliodôras.#[216]

In the same way a very old thought receives new exquisiteness the last

couplet of the epitaph on Heliodora:

#alla se gounoumai Ga pantrophe tan panodyrton

êrema sois kolpois mater enankalisai.#[217]

The invocation to Night, which I will next quote, has its own beauty

derived from the variety of images which are subtly and capriciously

accumulated:

#hen tode pammêteira theôn litomai se philê Nyx

nai litomai kômôn symplane potnia Nyx.#[218]

But Meleager's epithets for Love are, perhaps, the triumphs of his

verbal coinage:

#esti d' ho pais glykydakrys aeilalos ôkys atarbês

sima gelôn pteroeis nôta pharetrophoros.#[219]

Again he calls him #habropedilos erôs# (delicate-sandalled Love) and

fashions words like #psychapatês#, #hypnapatês# (soul-cheating and

sleep-cheating), to express the qualities of the treacherous god. In

some of his metaphorical descriptions of passion he displays a really

fervid imagination. To this class of creation belong the poem on the

Soul's thirst (ii. 414), on the memory of beauty that lives like a

fiery image in the heart (ii. 413), and the following splendid picture

of the tyranny of Love. He is addressing his Soul, who has once again

incautiously been trapped by Eros:

#ti matên eni desmois

spaireis? autos erôs ta ptera sou dedeken,

kai s' epi pyr estêse, myrois d' errane lipopnoun,

dôke de dipsôsêi dakrya therma piein.#[220]

Surely a more successful marriage of romantic fancy to classic form was

never effected even by a modern poet. This line again contains a bold

and splendid metaphor:

#kômazô d' ouk oinon hypo phrena pyr de gemistheis.#[221]

Meleager had a soul that inclined to all beautiful and tender things.

Having described the return of spring in a prolonged chant of joy, he

winds up with words worthy of a troubadour on Minnesinger in the April

of a new age:

#pôs ou chrê kai aoidon en eiari kalon aeisai?#[222]

The cicada, #droserais stagonessi methystheis# (drunken with

honey-drops of dew), the #autophyes mimêma lyras# (nature's own

mimic of the lyre)--a conceit, by the way, in the style of Marini

or of Calderon--the bee whom he addresses as #anthodiaite melissa#

(flower-pasturing bee), and all the flowers for which he has found

exquisite epithets, the #philombros narkissos# (narcissus that loves

the rain of heaven), the #philerasta rhoda# (roses to lovers dear),

the #ouresiphoita krina# (lilies that roam the mountain-sides), and

again #ta gelônta krina# (laughing lilies), testify to the passionate

love and to the purity of heart with which he greeted and studied

the simplest beauties of the world.[223] In dealing with flowers he

is particularly felicitous. Most exquisite are the lines in which he

describes his garland of the Greek poets and assigns to each some

favorite of the garden or the field, and again those other couplets

which compare the boys of Tyre to a bouquet culled by love for

Aphrodite. #Baia men alla rhoda# (slight things perhaps, but roses):

these are the words in which Meleager describes the too few but

precious verses of Sappho, and for his own poetry they have a peculiar

propriety. #Teai zôousin aêdones#, (thy nightingales still live) we may

say, quoting Callimachus, when we take leave of him. His poetry has the

sweetness and the splendor of the rose, the rapture and full-throated

melody of the nightingale.

Next in artistic excellence to Meleager among the amatory poets is

Straton, a Greek of Sardis, who lived in the second century. But

there are few readers who, even for the sake of his pure and perfect

language, will be prepared to put up with the immodesty of his

subject-matter. Straton is not so delicate and subtle in style as

Meleager; but he has a masculine vigor and _netteté_ of phrase peculiar

to himself. It is not possible to quote many of his epigrams. He

suffers the neglect which necessarily obscures those men of genius who

misuse their powers. Yet the story of the garland-weaver (ii. 396), and

the address to schoolmasters (ii. 219), are too clever to be passed by

without notice. The following epigram on a picture of Ganymede gives a

very fair notion of Straton's style (ii. 425):

#steiche pros aithera dion, apercheo paida komizôn

aiete, tas diphyeis ekpetasas pterygas,

steiche ton habron echôn Ganymêdea, mêde metheiês

ton Dios hêdistôn oinochoon kylikôn;

pheideo d' haimaxai kouron gampsônychi tarsôi

mê Zeus algêsêi touto barynomenos.#[224]

To this may be added an exhortation to pleasure in despite of death

(ii. 288).[225]

Callimachus deserves mention as a third with Meleager and Straton. His

style, drier than that of Meleager, more elevated than Straton's, is

marked by a frigidity of good scholarship which only at intervals warms

into the fire of passionate poetry. In writing epigrams Callimachus was

careful to preserve the pointed character of the composition. He did

not merely, as is the frequent wont of Meleager, indite a short poem in

elegiacs. This being the case, his love poems, though they are many,

are not equal to his epitaphs.

To mention all the poets of the amatory chapters would be impossible.

Their name is legion. Even Plato the divine, by right of this epigram

to Aster:

#asteras eisathreis astêr emos; eithe genoimên

ouranos hôs pollois ommasin eis se blepô--#[226]

and of this to Agathon:

#tên psychên Agathôna philôn epi cheilesin eschon;

êlthe gar hê tlêmôn hôs diabêsomenê--#[227]

takes rank in the erotic cycle. Yet we may touch in passing on the

names of Philodemus and Antipater, the former a native of Gadara, the

latter a Sidonian, whose epitaph was composed by Meleager. Their poems

help to complete the picture of Syrian luxury and culture in the cities

of North Palestine, which we gain when reading Meleager. Of Philodemus

the liveliest epigram is a dialogue, which seems to have come straight

from the pages of some comedy (i. 68); but the majority of his verses

belong to that class of literature which finds its illustration in the

Gabinetto Segreto of the Neapolitan Museum. Occasionally he strikes a

true note of poetry, as in this invocation to the moon:

#nykterinê dikerôs philopannyche phaine selênê,

phaine di' eutrêtôn ballomenê thyridôn;

augaze chryseên Kallistion; es ta phileuntôn

erga katopteuein ou phthonos athanatêi.

olbizeis kai tênde kai hêmeas oida selênê;

kai gar sên psychên ephlegen Endymiôn.#[228]

Antipater shines less in his erotic poems than in the numerous epigrams

which he composed on the earlier Greek poets, especially on Anacreon,

Erinna, Sappho, Pindar, Ibycus. He lived at a period when the study of

the lyrists was still flourishing, and each of his couplets contains a

fine and thoughtful piece of descriptive criticism.

Another group of amatory poets must be mentioned. Agathias, Macedonius,

and Paulus Silentiarius, Greeks of Byzantium about the age of

Justinian, together with Rufinus, whose date is not quite certain,

yield the very last fruits of the Greek genius, after it had been

corrupted by the lusts of Rome and the effeminacy of the East. Very

pale and hectic are the hues which give a sort of sickly beauty to

their style. Their epigrams vary between querulous lamentations over

old age and death and highly colored pictures of self-satisfied

sensuality. Rufinus is a kind of second Straton in the firmness of

his touch, the cynicism of his impudicity. The complaint of Agathias

to the swallows that twittered at his window in early dawn (i. 102),

his description of Rhodanthe and the vintage feast (ii. 297),[229] and

those lines in which he has anticipated Jonson's lyric on the kiss

which made the wine within the cup inebriating (i. 107), may be quoted

as fair specimens of his style. Of Paulus Silentiarius I do not care

to allude to more than the poem in which he describes the joy of two

lovers (i. 106). What Ariosto and Boiardo have dwelt on in some of

their most brilliant episodes, what Giorgione has painted in the eyes

of the shepherd who envies the kiss given by Rachel to Jacob, is here

compressed into eighteen lines of great literary beauty. But a man

need be neither a prude nor a Puritan to turn with sadness and with

loathing from these last autumnal blossoms on the tree of Greek beauty.

The brothel and the grave are all that is left for Rufinus and his

contemporaries. Over the one hangs the black shadow of death; the other

is tenanted by ghosts of carnal joy:

When lust,

By unchaste looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,

But most by lewd and lavish acts of sin,

Lets in defilement to the inward parts,

The soul grows clotted by contagion,

Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose

The divine property of her first being.

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp

Oft seen in charnel-vaults and sepulchres,

Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,

As loath to leave the body that it loved,

And linked itself by carnal sensuality

To a degenerate and degraded state.[230]

Before taking leave of the erotic poets of the Anthology, I shall

here insert a few translations made by me from Meleager, Straton, and

some anonymous poets. The first epigram illustrates the Greek custom

of going at night, after drinking, with lighted torches to the house

of the beloved person, and there suspending garlands on the door. It

is not easy to find an equivalent for the characteristic Greek word

#kômarein#. I have tried to deal with it by preserving the original

allusion to the revel:

The die is cast! Nay, light the torch!

I'll take the road! Up, courage, ho!

Why linger pondering in the porch?

Upon Love's revel we will go!

Shake off those fumes of wine! Hang care

And caution! What has Love to do

With prudence? Let the torches flare!

Quick, drown the doubts that hampered you!

Cast weary wisdom to the wind!

One thing, but one alone, I know:

Love bent e'en Jove and made him blind!

Upon Love's revel we will go!

The second, by Meleager, turns upon the same custom; but it is here

treated with the originality of imagination distinctive of his style:

I've drunk sheer madness! Not with wine

But old fantastic tales I'll arm

My heart in heedlessness divine,

And dare the road nor dream of harm!

I'll join Love's rout! Let thunder break,

Let lightning blast me by the way!

Invulnerable Love shall shake

His ægis o'er my head to-day.

In a third, Meleager recommends hard drinking as a remedy for the pains

of love:

Drink, luckless lover! Thy heart's fiery rage

Bacchus who gives oblivion shall assuage:

Drink deep, and while thou drain'st the brimming bowl,

Drive love's dark anguish from thy fevered soul.

Two of these little compositions deal with the old comparison between

love and the sea. In the first, the lover's journey is likened to a

comfortless voyage, where the house of the beloved will be for him safe

anchorage after the storm:

Cold blows the winter wind: 'tis Love,

Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears,

That bears me to thy doors, my love,

Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears.

Cold blows the blast of aching Love;

But be thou for my wandering sail,

Adrift upon these waves of love,

Safe harbor from the whistling gale!

In the second, love itself is likened to the ocean, always shifting,

never to be trusted:

My love is like an April storm

Upon a false and fickle sea:

One day you shine, and sunny warm

Are those clear smiles you shower on me;

Next day from cloudy brows you rain

Your anger on the ruffled main.

Around me all the deeps are dark;

I whirl and wander to and fro,

Like one who vainly steers his bark

Mid winds that battle as they blow:--

Then raise the flag of love or hate,

That I at last may know my fate!

The peculiar distinction of Meleager's genius gives its special quality

to the following dedication, in which the poet either is, or feigns

himself to be, made captive by Love upon first landing in a strange

country:

The Lady of desires, a goddess, gave

My soul to thee;

To thee soft-sandalled Love hath sent, a slave,

Poor naked me:

A stranger on a stranger's soil, tight-bound

With bands of steel:--

I do but pray that we may once be found

Firm friends and leal!

Yet thou dost spurn my prayers, refuse my love,

Still stern and mute;

Time will not melt thee, nor the deeds that prove

How pure my suit.

Have pity, king, have pity! Fate hath willed

Thee god and lord:

Life in thy hands and death, to break or build,

For me is stored!

The next specimen is an attempt to render into English stanzas one of

Meleager's most passionate poems:

Did I not tell you so, and cry:

"Rash soul, by Venus, you'll be caught!

Ah, luckless soul, why will you fly

So near the toils that Love had wrought?"

Did I not warn you? Now the net

Has tangled you, and in the string

You vainly strive, for Love hath set

And bound your pinions, wing to wing;

And placed you on the flames to pine,

And rubbed with myrrh your panting lip,

And when you thirsted given you wine

Of hot and bitter tears to sip.

Ah, weary soul, fordone with pain!

Now in the fire you burn, and now

Take respite for a while again,

Draw better breath and cool your brow!

Why weep and wail? What time you first

Sheltered wild Love within your breast,

Did you not know the boy you nursed

Would prove a false and cruel guest?

Did you not know? See, now he pays

The guerdon of your fostering care

With fire that on the spirit preys,

Mixed with cold snow-flakes of despair!

You chose your lot. Then cease to weep:

Endure this torment: tame your will:

Remember, what you sowed, you reap:

And, though it burns, 'tis honey still!

Here, lastly, is an Envoy, slightly altered in the English translation

from Straton's original:

It may be in the years to come

That men who love shall think of me,

And reading o'er these verses see

How love was my life's martyrdom.

Love-songs I write for him and her,

Now this, now that, as Love dictates;

One birthday gift alone the Fates

Gave me, to be Love's scrivener.

One large section of the Anthology remains to be considered. It

contains what are called the #epigrammata epideiktika#, or poems upon

various subjects chosen for their propriety for rhetorical exposition.

These epigrams, the favorites of modern imitators, display the Greek

taste in this style of composition to the best advantage. The Greeks

did not regard the epigram merely as a short poem with a sting in its

tail--to quote the famous couplet:

Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi:

Sint sua mella: sit et corporis exigui.[231]

True to the derivation of the word, which means an inscription or

superscription, they were satisfied if an epigram were short and gifted

with the honey-dews of Helicon.[232] Meleager would have called his

collection a beehive, and not a flower-garland, if he had acknowledged

the justice of the Latin definition which has just been cited. The

epigrams of which I am about to speak are simply little occasional

poems, fugitive pieces, _Gelegenheitsgedichte_, varying in length from

two to twenty lines, composed in elegiac metre, and determined, as to

form and treatment, by the exigencies of the subject. Some of them, it

is true, are noticeable for their point; but point is not the same as

sting. The following panegyric of Athens, for example, approximates to

the epigram as it is commonly conceived (ii. 13):

#gêi men ear kosmos polydendreos, aitheri d' astra,

Helladi d' hêde chthôn, hoide de têi poleï.#[233]

The same may be said about the lines upon the vine and the goat (ii.

15; compare 20):

#kên me phagêis epi rhizan homôs eti karpophorêsô

hosson epispeisai soi trage thyomenôi#:[234]

and the following satire, so well known by the parody of Porson (ii.

325):

#pantes men Kilikes kakoi aneres; en de Kilixin

heis agathos Kinyrês, kai Kinyrês de Kilix.#[235]

Again the play of words in the last line of this next epigram (ii. 24)

gives a sort of pungency to its conclusion:

#atthi kora melithrepte, lalos lalon harpaxasa

tettiga ptanois daita phereis tekesin,

ton lalon ha laloessa, ton eupteron ha pteroessa,

ton xenon ha xeina, ton therinon therina?

kouchi tachos rhipseis? ou gar themis oude dikaion

ollysth' hymnopolous hymnopolois stomasin.#[236]

The Greek epigram has this, in fact, in common with all good poems,

that the conclusion should be the strongest and most emphatic portion.

But in liberty of subject and of treatment it corresponds to the

Italian sonnet. Unquestionably of this kind is the famous poem of

Ptolemy upon the stars (ii. 118), which recalls to mind the saying of

Kant, that the two things which moved his awe were the stars of heaven

above him and the moral law within the soul of man:

#oid' hoti thnatos egô kai ephameros; all' hotan astrôn

masteuô pykinas amphidromous helikas,

ouket' epipsauô gaiês posin, alla par' autôi

Zêni theotrepheos pimplamai ambrosiês.#[237]

The poem on human life, which has been attributed severally to

Poseidippus and to Plato Comicus, and which Bacon thought worthy of

imitation, may take rank with the most elevated sonnets of modern

literature (ii. 71):

#poiên tis biotoio tamêi tribon? ein agorêi men

neikea kai chalepai prêxies; en de domois

phrontides; en d' agrois kamatôn halis; en de thalassêi

tarbos; epi xeinês d', ên men echêis ti, deos;

ên d' aporêis, aniêron; echeis gamon? ouk amerimnos;

esseai; ou gameeis? zêis et' erêmoteros;

tekna ponoi, pêrôsis apais bios; hai neotêtes

aphrones, hai poliai d' empalin adranees;

ên ara toin dissoin henos hairesis, ê to genesthai

mêdepot' ê to thanein autika tiktomenon.#[238]

The reverse of this picture is displayed with much felicity and

geniality, but with less force, by Metrodorus (ii. 72):

#pantoiên biotoio tamois tribon; en agorêi men

kydea kai pinytai prêxies; en de domois

ampaum'; en d' agrois physios charis; en de thalassêi

kerdos; epi xeinês, ên men echêis ti, kleos;

ên d' aporêis monos oidas; echeis gamon? oikos aristos

essetai; ou gameeis? zêis et' elaphroteros;

tekna pothos, aphrontis apais bios; hai neotêtes

rhômaleai, poliai d' empalin eusebees;

ouk ara tôn dissôn henos hairesis, ê to genesthai

mêdepot' ê to thanein; panta gar esthla biôi.#[239]

Some of the epigrams of this section are written in the true style of

elegies. The following splendid threnody by Antipater of Sidon upon the

ruins of Corinth, which was imitated by Agathias in his lines on Troy,

may be cited as perfect in this style of composition (ii. 29):

#pou to periblepton kallos seo, Dôri Korinthe?

pou stephanoi pyrgôn, pou ta palai kteana,

pou nêoi makarôn, pou dômata, pou de damartes

Sisyphiai, laôn th' hai pote myriades?

oude gar oud' ichnos, polykammore, seio leleiptai,

panta de symmarpsas exephagen polemos;

mounai aporthêtoi Nêrêïdes, Ôkeanoio

kourai, sôn acheôn mimnomen halkyones.#[240]

It is a grand picture of the queen of pleasure in her widowhood and

desolation mourned over by the deathless daughters of the plunging

sea. Occasionally the theme of the epigram is historical. The finest,

perhaps, of this sort is a poem by Philippus on Leonidas (ii. 59):

#pouly Leônideô katidôn demas autodaïkton

Xerxês echlainou phareï porphyreôi;

kêk nekyôn d' êchêsen ho tas Spartas polys hêrôs;

ou dechomai prodotais misthon opheilomenon;

aspis emoi tymbou kosmos megas; aire ta Persôn

chêxô keis aïdên hôs Lakedaimonios.#[241]

Few, however, of the epigrams rise to the altitude of those I have been

lately quoting. Their subjects are for the most part simple incidents,

or such as would admit of treatment within the space of an engraved

gem. The story of the girls who played at dice upon the house-roof is

told very prettily in the following lines (ii. 31):

#hai trissai pote paides en allêlaisin epaizon

klêrôi, tis proterê bêsetai eis aïdên;

kai tris men cheirôn ebalon kybon, êlthe de pasôn

es mian; hê d' egela klêron opheilomenon;

ek tegeos gar aelpton epeit' ôlisthe pesêma

dysmoros, es d' aïdên êlythen, hôs elachen;

apseudês ho klêros hotôi kakon; es de to lôion

out' euchai thnêtois eustochoi oute cheres.#[242]

Not the least beautiful are those which describe natural objects. The

following six lines are devoted to an oak-tree (ii. 14):

#klônes apêiorioi tanaês dryos, euskion hypsos

andrasin akrêton kauma phylassomenois,

eupetaloi, keramôn steganôteroi, oikia phattôn,

oikia tettigôn, endioi akremones,

kême ton hymeteraisin hypoklinthenta komaisin

rhysasth', aktinôn hêeliou phygada.#[243]

Here again is a rustic retreat for lovers, beneath the spreading

branches of a plane (ii. 43):

#ha chloera platanistos id' hôs ekrypse phileuntôn

orgia, tan hieran phyllada teinomena;

amphi d' ar' akremonessin heois kecharismenos hôrais

hêmeridos larês botrys apokrematai;

houtôs, ô plataniste, phyois; chloera d' apo seio

phyllas aei keuthoi tous Paphiês oarous.#[244]

Of the same sort is this invitation (ii. 529):

#hypsikomon para tande kathizeo phônêessan

phrissousan pykinois kônon hypo Zephyrois,

kai soi kachlazousin emois para namasi syrinx

thelgomenôn axei kôma kata blepharôn.#[245]

And this plea from the oak-tree to the woodman to be spared (ii. 63):

#ôner tan balanôn tan matera pheideo koptein,

pheideo; gêralean d' ekkeraïze pityn,

ê peukan, ê tande polystelechon paliouron,

ê prinon, ê tan aualean komaron;

têlothi d' ische dryos pelekyn; kokyai gar elexan

hamin hôs proterai materes enti dryes.#[246]

Among the epigrams which seem to have been composed in the same spirit

as those exquisite little _capricci_ engraved by Greek artists upon

gems, few are more felicitous than the three following. The affection

of the Greeks for the grasshopper is one of their most charming

_naïvetés_. Everybody knows the pretty story Socrates tells about these

#Mousôn prophêtai#, or Prophets of the Muses, in the _Phædrus_--how

they once were mortals who took such delight in the songs of the Muses

that, "Singing always, they never thought of eating and drinking,

until at last they forgot and died: and now they live again in the

grasshoppers, and this is the return the Muses make to them--they

hunger no more, neither thirst any more, but are always singing from

the moment that they are born, and never eating or drinking." Thus

the grasshoppers were held sacred in Greece, like storks in Germany

and robins in England. Most of the epigrams about them turn on

this sanctity. The following is a plea for pity from an imprisoned

grasshopper to the rustics who have caught him (ii. 76):

#tipte me ton philerêmon anaideï poimenes agrêi

tettiga droserôn helket' ap' akremonôn,

tên Nymphôn paroditin aêdona, kêmati messôi

ouresi kai skierais xoutha laleunta napais?

ênide kai kichlên kai kossyphon, ênide tossous

psaras, arouraiês harpagas euporiês;

karpôn dêlêtêras elein themis; ollyt' ekeinous;

phyllôn kai chloerês tis phthonos esti drosou?#[247]

Another epigram on the same page tells how the poet found a grasshopper

struggling in a spider's web and released it with these words: "Go safe

and free with your sweet voice of song!" But the prettiest of all is

this long story (ii. 119):

#Eunomon, ôpollon, sy men oistha me, pôs pot' enikôn

Spartin ho Lokros egô; peuthomenois d' enepô.

aiolon en kitharâi nomon ekrekon, en de meseusâi

ôidâi moi chordan plaktron apekremasen;

kai moi phthongon hetoimon hopanika kairos apêitei,

eis akoas rhythmôn tôtrekes ouk enemen;

kai tis ap' automatô kitharas epi pêchyn epiptas

tettix eplêrou toullipes harmonias;

neura gar hex etinasson; hoth' hebdomatas de meloiman

chordas, tan toutô gêryn ekichrametha;

pros gar eman meletan ho mesambrinos ouresin ôidos

têno to poimenikon phthegma methêrmosato,

kai men hote phthengoito, syn apsychois toka neurais

tôi metaballomenôi summetepipte throôi;

touneka symphônôi men echô charin; hos de typôtheis

chalkeos hameteras hezeth' hyper kitharas.#[248]

So friendly were the relations of the Greeks with the grasshoppers. We

do not wonder when we read that the Athenians wore golden grasshoppers

in their hair.

Baths, groves, gardens, houses, temples, city-gates, and works of art

furnish the later epigrammatists with congenial subjects. The Greeks of

the Empire exercised much ingenuity in describing--whether in prose,

like Philostratus, or in verse, like Agathias--the famous monuments of

the maturity of Hellas. In this style the epigrams on statues are at

once the most noticeable and the most abundant. The cow of Myron has at

least two score of little sonnets to herself. The horses of Lysippus,

the Zeus of Pheidias, the Rhamnusian statue of Nemesis, the Praxitelean

Venus, various images of Eros, the Niobids, Marsyas, Ariadne,

Herakles, Alexander, poets, physicians, orators, historians, and all

the charioteers and athletes preserved in the museums of Byzantium or

the groves of Altis, are described with a minuteness and a point that

enable us to identify many of them with the surviving monuments of

Greek sculpture. Pictures also come in for their due share of notice. A

Polyxena of Polycletus, a Philoctetes of Parrhasius, and a Medea, which

may have been the original of the famous Pompeian fresco, are specially

remarkable. Then again cups engraved with figures in relief of Tantalus

or Love, seals inscribed with Phoebus or Medusa, gems and intaglios of

all kinds, furnish matter for other epigrams. The following couplet on

the amethyst turns upon an untranslatable play of words (ii. 149):

#hê lithos est' amethystos, egô d' ho potês Dionysos;

peisatô ê nêphein m', ê mathetô methyein.#

Amid this multitude of poems it is difficult to make a fair or

representative selection. There are, however, four which I cannot well

omit. The first is written by Poseidippus on a lost statue of Lysippus

(ii. 584):

#tis pothen ho plastês? Sikyônios; ounoma dê tis?

Lysippos. sy de tis? Kairos ho pandamatôr;

tipte d' ep' akra bebêkas? aei trochaô. ti de tarsous

possin echeis diphyeis? hiptam' hypênemios;

cheiri de dexiterêi ti phereis xyron? andrasi deigma

hôs akmês pasês oxyteros telethô.

hê de komê ti kat' opsin? hypantiasanti labesthai.

nê Dia taxopithen d' eis ti phalakra pelei?

ton gar hapax ptênoisi parathrexanta me possin

outis eth' himeirôn draxetai exopithen.

tounech' ho technitês se dieplasen? heineken hymôn,

xeine; kai en prothyrois thêke didaskaliên.#[249]

The second describes the statue of Nemesis erected near Marathon by

Pheidias--that memorable work by which the greatest of sculptors

recorded the most important crisis in the world's history (ii. 573):

#chioneên me lithon palinauxeos ek periôpês

laotypos tmêxas petrotomois akisi

Mêdos epontoporeusen, hopôs andreikela teuxêi,

tês kat' Athênaiôn symbola kammoniês;

hôs de daïzomenois Marathôn antektype Persais

kai nees hygroporoun cheumasin haimaleois,

exesan Adrêsteian aristôdines Athênai,

daimon' hyperphialois antipalon meropôn;

antitalanteuô tas elpidas; eimi de kai nyn

Nikê Erechtheidais, Assyriois Nemesis.#[250]

The third celebrates the Aphrodite of Praxiteles in Cnidos, whose

garden has been so elegantly described by Lucian (ii. 560):

#hê Paphiê Kythereia di' oidmatos es Knidon êlthe

boulomenê katidein eikona tên idiên;

pantê d' athrêsasa periskeptôi eni chôrôi,

phthenxato: pou gymnên eide me Praxitelês?#[251]

The fourth is composed with much artifice of style upon a statue of

Love bound by his arms to a pillar (ii. 567):

#klaie dysekphyktôs sphinchtheis cheras, akrite daimon,

klaie mala, stazôn psychotakê dakrya,

sôphrosynas hybrista, phrenoklope, lêista logismou,

ptanon pyr, psychas traum' aoraton, Erôs;

thnatois men lysis esti goôn ho sos, akrite, desmos;

hôi sphinchtheis kôphois pempe litas anemois;

hon de brotois aphylaktos enephleges en phresi pyrson

athrei nyn hypo sôn sbennymenon dakryôn.#[252]

In bringing this review of the Anthology to a close, I feel that I have

been guilty of two errors. I have wearied the reader with quotations;

yet I have omitted countless epigrams of the purest beauty. The very

riches of this flower-garden of little poems are an obstacle to its

due appreciation. Each epigram in itself is perfect, and ought to be

carefully and lovingly studied. But it is difficult for the critic

to deal in a single essay with upwards of four thousand of these

precious gems. There are many points of view which with adequate space

and opportunity might have been taken for the better illustration of

the epigrams. Their connection with the later literature of Greece,

especially with the rhetoricians, Philostratus, Alciphron, and

Libanius, many of whose best compositions are epigrams in prose--as

Jonson knew when he turned them into lyrics; their still more intimate

æsthetic harmony with the engraved stones and minor bass-reliefs, which

bear exactly the same relation to Greek sculpture as the epigrams to

the more august forms of Greek poetry; the lives of their authors; the

historical events to which they not unfrequently allude--all these are

topics for elaborate dissertation.

Perhaps, however, the true secret of their charm is this: that in their

couplets, after listening to the choric raptures of triumphant public

art, we turn aside to hear the private utterances, the harmoniously

modulated whispers of a multitude of Greek poets telling us their

inmost thoughts and feelings. The unique melodies of Meleager, the

chaste and exquisite delicacy of Callimachus, the clear dry style of

Straton, Plato's unearthly subtlety of phrase, Antipater's perfect

polish, the good sense of Palladas, the fretful sweetness of Agathias,

the purity of Simonides, the gravity of Poseidippus, the pointed

grace of Philip, the few but mellow tones of Sappho and Erinna, the

tenderness of Simmias, the biting wit of Lucillius, the sunny radiance

of Theocritus--all these good things are ours in the Anthology. But

beyond these perfumes of the poets known to fame is yet another. Over

very many of the sweetest and the strongest of the epigrams is written

the pathetic word #adespoton#--without a master. Hail to you, dead

poets, unnamed, but dear to the Muses! Surely with Pindar and with

Anacreon and with Sappho and with Sophocles the bed of flowers is

spread for you in those "black-petalled hollows of Pieria" where Ion

bade farewell to Euripides.

FOOTNOTES:

[163] He mutilated and, so to speak, castrated this book quite as

much as he arranged its contents, by withdrawing the more lascivious

epigrams according to his own boast.

[164] Paris, 1864-1872. The translations quoted by me are taken

principally from the collections of Wellesley (_Anthologia Polyglotta_)

and Burgess (Bohn's Series), and from the Miscellanies of the late J.

A. Symonds, M.D. The versions contributed by myself have no signature.

[165] I have spoken of these compositions of Simonides as though they

all belonged to the dedicatory epigrams. A large number of them are,

however, incorporated among the epitaphs proper.

[166]

To those of Lacedæmon, stranger, tell,

That, as their laws commanded, here we fell.

JOHN STERLING.

There is no very good translation of this couplet. The difficulty lies

in the word #rhêmasi#. Is this equivalent to #rhêtrais#, as Cicero, who

renders it by _legibus_, seems to think? Or is it the same as _orders_?

[167]

What time the Greeks with might and warlike deed,

Sustained by courage in their hour of need,

Drove forth the Persians, they to Zeus that frees

This altar built, the free fair pride of Greece.

[168]

They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead;

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.

I wept, as I remembered how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake,

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

[169]

Would that swift ships had never been; for so

We ne'er had wept for Sopolis: but he

Dead on the waves now drifts; while we must go

Past a void tomb, a mere name's mockery.

[170]

Here lapped in hallowed slumber Saon lies,

Asleep, not dead; a good man never dies.

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[171]

Thou wert the morning star among the living,

Ere thy fair light had fled;

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus giving

New splendor to the dead.

SHELLEY.

[172]

We who once left the Ægean's deep-voiced shore,

Lie 'neath Ecbatana's champaign, where we fell.

Farewell Eretria, thou famed land of yore,

And neighbor Athens, and loved sea, farewell.

[173]

Pillars of death, carved sirens, tearful urns,

In whose sad keeping my poor dust is laid,

To him, who near my tomb his footsteps turns,

Stranger or Greek, bid hail; and say a maid

Rests in her bloom below; her sire the name

Of Baucis gave; her birth and lineage high;

And say her bosom friend Erinna came

And on this tomb engraved her elegy.

ELTON.

[174]

This is the dust of Timas, whom unwed

Persephone locked in her darksome bed:

For her the maids who were her fellows shore

Their curls and to her tomb this tribute bore.

Sleep, poor youth, sleep in peace,

Relieved from love and mortal care;

[175]

Merciless heaven! why didst thou show me light

For so few years and speedy in their flight?

Was it to vex by my untimely death

With tears and wailings her who gave me breath?

Who bore me, and who reared me, and who wrought

More for my youth with many a careful thought

Than my dead sire: he left me in his hall

An orphan babe: 'twas she alone did all.

My joy it was beneath grave men of laws,

Just pleas to urge and win approved applause;

But from my cheek she never plucked the flower

Of charming youth, nor dressed my bridal bower,

Nor sang my marriage hymn, nor saw, ah me!

My offspring shoot upon our ancient tree,

That now is withered. Even in the tomb

I wail Politta's woe, the gloom on gloom

That swells her grief for Phronton; since a boy

In vain she bore, his country's empty joy.

[176]

Thou art not dead, my Prote! thou art flown

To a far country better than our own;

Thy home is now an island of the blest;

There 'mid Elysian meadows take thy rest:

Or lightly trip along the flowery glade,

Rich with the asphodels that never fade!

Nor pain, nor cold, nor toil shall vex thee more,

Nor thirst, nor hunger on that happy shore;

Nor longings vain (now that blest life is won)

For such poor days as mortals here drag on;

To thee for aye a blameless life is given

In the pure light of ever-present Heaven.

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[177]

Home to their stalls at eve the oxen came

Down from the mountain through the snow-wreaths deep;

But ah! Therimachus sleeps the long sleep

'Neath yonder oak, lulled by the levin-flame.

[178]

She who was once but in her flesh a slave

Hath for her flesh found freedom in the grave.

[179]

Hades is stern; but when you died, he said,

Smiling, "Be jester still among the dead."

[180]

Know well that thou art mortal: therefore raise

Thy spirit high with long luxurious days.

When thou art dead, thou hast no pleasure then.

I too am earth, who was a king of men

O'er Nineveh. My banquets and my lust

And love-delights are mine e'en in the dust;

But all those great and glorious things are flown.

True doctrine for man's life is this alone.

[181]

When homeward cowering from the fight you ran

Without or sword or shield, a naked man,

Your mother then, Demetrius, through your side

Plunged her blood-drinking spear, nor wept, but cried:

Die; let not Sparta bear the blame; but she

Sinned not, if cowards drew their life from me!

[182]

Travelling to Ephyre, by the road-side

The tomb and name of Lais I espied:

I wept and said: "Hail, queen, the fame of thee,

Though ne'er I saw thee, draws these tears from me;

How many hearts for thee were broken, how

By Lethe lustreless thou liest now!"

[183]

My name, my country--what are they to thee?

What, whether base or proud my pedigree?

Perhaps I far surpassed all other men;

Perhaps I fell below them all; what then?

Suffice it, stranger! that thou seest a tomb;

Thou know'st its use; it hides--no matter whom.

W. COWPER.

[184]

Orpheus! No more the rocks, the woods no more,

Thy strains shall lure; no more the savage herds,

Nor hail, nor driving clouds, nor tempest's roar,

Nor chafing billows list thy lulling words;

For thou art dead: and all the Muses mourn,

But most Calliope, thy mother dear.

Shall we then, reft of sons, lament forlorn,

When e'en the gods must for their offspring fear?

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[185]

Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade,

Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid;

Sweet ivy, wind thy boughs, and intertwine

With blushing roses and the clustering vine:

Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung,

Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung;

Whose soul, exalted like a god of wit,

Among the muses and the graces writ.--_Anon._

[186]

Hail, dear Euripides, for whom a bed

In black-leaved vales Pierian is spread:

Dead though thou art, yet know thy fame shall be,

Like Homer's, green through all eternity.

[187]

If it be true that in the grave the dead

Have sense and knowledge, as some men assert,

I'd hang myself to see Euripides.

[188]

Around the tomb, O bard divine!

Where soft thy hallowed brow reposes,

Long may the deathless ivy twine,

And summer pour his waste of roses!

And many a fount shall there distil,

And many a rill refresh the flowers;

But wine shall gush in every rill,

And every fount yield milky showers.

Thus, shade of him whom nature taught

To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure,

Who gave to love his warmest thought,

Who gave to love his fondest measure;

Thus, after death, if spirits feel,

Thou mayest, from odors round thee streaming,

A pulse of past enjoyment steal,

And live again in blissful dreaming.

T. MOORE.

[189]

Stranger, beware! This grave hurls words like hail:

Here dwells the dread Hipponax, dealing bale.

E'en 'mid his ashes, fretful, poisonous,

He shoots iambics at slain Bupalus.

Wake not the sleeping wasp: for though he's dead,

Still straight and sure his crooked lines are sped.

[190]

Here sleeps Archilochus by the salt sea;

Who first with viper's gall the muse did stain,

And bathed mild Helicon with butchery.

Lycambes weeping for her daughters three

Learned this. Pass then in silence: be not fain

To stir the wasps that round his grave remain.

[191]

Tell me, good dog, whose tomb you guard so well?

The Cynic's. True: but who that Cynic, tell.

Diogenes, of fair Sinope's race.

What! He that in a tub was wont to dwell?

Yes: but the stars are now his dwelling-place.

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[192]

These are Erinna's songs: how sweet, though slight!--

For she was but a girl of nineteen years:--

Yet stronger far than what most men can write:

Had Death delayed, whose fame had equalled hers?

[193]

Does Sappho then beneath thy bosom rest,

Æolian earth? that mortal Muse confessed

Inferior only to the choir above,

That foster-child of Venus and of Love;

Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came,

Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name?

O ye, who ever twine the threefold thread,

Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead

That mighty songstress, whose unrivalled powers

Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers?

FRANCIS HODGSON.

[194]

Piera's clarion, he whose weighty brain

Forged many a hallowed hymn and holy strain,

Pindar, here sleeps beneath the sacred earth:

Hearing his songs a man might swear the brood

Of Muses made them in their hour of mirth,

What time round Cadmus' marriage-bed they stood.

[195]

As the war-trumpet drowns the rustic flute,

So when your lyre is heard all strings are mute:

Not vain the labor of those clustering bees

Who on your infant lips spread honey-dew;

Witness great Pan who hymned your melodies,

Pindar, forgetful of his pipes for you.

[196]

Earth in her breast hides Plato's dust: his soul

The gods forever 'mid their ranks enroll.

And--

Eagle! why soarest thou above the tomb?

To what sublime and starry-paven home

Floatest thou?

I am the image of swift Plato's spirit,

Ascending heaven: Athens does inherit

His corpse below.

SHELLEY.

[197]

Straight is the way to Acheron,

Whether the spirit's race is run

From Athens or from Meroë:

Weep not, far off from home to die;

The wind doth blow in every sky,

That wafts us to that doleful sea.

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[198]

God, grant us good, whether or not we pray;

But e'en from praying souls keep bad away.

[199]

Your goods enjoy, as if about to die;

As if about to live, use sparingly.

That man is wise, who, bearing both in mind,

A mean, befitting waste and thrift, can find.

BURGESS.

[200]

Why shrink from Death, the parent of repose,

The cure of sickness and all human woes?

As through the tribes of men he speeds his way,

Once, and but once, his visit he will pay;

Whilst pale diseases, harbingers of pain,

Close on each other crowd--an endless train.

W. SHEPHERD.

[201]

All life's a scene, a jest: then learn to play,

Dismissing cares, or bear your pains alway.

[202]

This wretched life of ours is Fortune's ball;

'Twixt wealth and poverty she bandies all:

These, cast to earth, up to the skies rebound;

These, tossed to heaven, come trembling to the ground.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

[203]

Oh for the joy of life that disappears!--

Weep then the swiftness of the flying years:

We sit upon the ground and sleep away,

Toiling or feasting; but time runs for aye,

Runs a fell race against poor wretched man,

Bringing for each the day that ends his span.

[204]

Tears were my birthright; born in tears,

In tears too must I die;

And mine has been, through life's long years,

A tearful destiny.

Such is the state of man; from birth

To death all comfortless:

Then swept away beneath the earth

In utter nothingness.

EDWARD STOKES.

[205]

My sire begat me; 'twas no fault of mine:

But being born, in Hades I must pine:

O birth-act that brought death! O bitter fate

That drives me to the grave disconsolate!

To naught I turn, who nothing was ere birth;

For men are naught and less than nothing worth.

Then let the goblet gleam for me, my friend;

Pour forth care-soothing wine, ere pleasures end.

[206] See Fitzgerald's faultless translation of the _Rubáiyát_ of Omar

Khayyám, published by Quaritch.

[207]

Morn follows morn; till while we careless play

Comes suddenly the darksome king, whose breath

Or wastes or burns or blows our life away,

But drives us all down to one pit of death.

[208]

Thou sleepest, friend: but see, the beakers call!

Awake, nor dote on death that waits for all.

Spare not, my Diodorus, but drink free

Till Bacchus loose each weak and faltering knee.

Long will the years be when we can't carouse--

Long, long: up then ere age hath touched our brows.

[209]

Drink and be merry. What the morrow brings

No mortal knoweth: wherefore toil or run?

Spend while thou mayst, eat, fix on present things

Thy hopes and wishes: life and death are one.

One moment: grasp life's goods; to thee they fall:

Dead, thou hast nothing, and another all.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

[210] The country that gave birth to me is Gadara, an Attic city on

Assyrian shores.

[211] Who grew to man's estate in Tyre and Gadara, and found a fair

old age in Cos. If then thou art a Syrian, Salaam! if a Phoenician,

Naidios! if a Hellene, Hail!

[212]

I'll twine white violets, and the myrtle green;

Narcissus will I twine, and lilies sheen;

I'll twine sweet crocus, and the hyacinth blue;

And last I twine the rose, love's token true:

That all may form a wreath of beauty meet

To deck my Heliodora's tresses sweet.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

[213]

Poor Cleariste loosed her virgin zone

Not for her wedding, but for Acheron;

'Twas but last eve the merry pipes were swelling,

And dancing footsteps thrilled the festive dwelling;

Morn changed those notes for wailings loud and long,

And dirges drowned the hymeneal song;

Alas! the very torches meant to wave

Around her bridal couch, now light her to the grave!

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[214]

Fair blows the breeze: the seamen loose the sail:--

O men that know not love, your favoring gale

Steals half my soul, Andragathos, from me!

Thrice lucky ships, and billows of the sea

Thrice blessed, and happiest breeze that bears the boy!

Oh would I were a dolphin, that my joy,

Here on my shoulders ferried, might behold

Rhodes, the fair island thronged with boys of gold!

[215] "O soul too loving, cease at length from even in dreams thus idly

basking in the warmth of Beauty's empty shapes."

[216] "Pour forth; and again cry, again, and yet again, 'to Heliodora!'"

[217] "I pray thee, Earth, all-nourishing, in thy deep breast, O

mother, to enfold her tenderly, for whom my tears must flow for aye."

[218] "This one boon I ask of thee, great mother of all gods, beloved

Night! Nay, I beseech thee, thou fellow wanderer with Revelry, O holy

Night!"

[219] "The boy is honey-teared, tireless of speech, swift, without

sense of fear, with laughter on his roguish lips, winged, bearing

arrows in a quiver on his shoulders."

[220] "Why vainly in thy bonds thus pant and fret? Love himself bound

thy wings and set thee on a fire, and rubbed thee, when thy breath grew

faint with myrrh, and when thou thirstedst gave thee burning tears to

drink."

[221] "A reveller I go freighted with fire not wine beneath the region

of my heart."

[222] "How could it be that poet also should not sing fair songs in

spring?"

[223] Those who on the shores of the Mediterranean have traced out beds

of red tulips or anemones or narcissus from terrace to terrace, over

rocks and under olive-branches, know how delicately true to nature is

the thought contained in the one epithet #ouresiphoita#--roaming like

nymphs along the hills, now single and now gathered into companies, as

though their own sweet will had led them wandering.

[224]

Soar upward to the air divine:

Spread broad thy pinions aquiline:

Carry amid thy plumage him

Who fills Jove's beaker to the brim:

Take care that neither crookèd claw

Make the boy's thigh or bosom raw;

For Jove will wish thee sorry speed

If thou molest his Ganymede.

[225]

Drink now, and love, Democrates; for we

Shall not have wine and boys eternally:

Wreathe we our heads, anoint ourselves with myrrh,

Others will do this to our sepulchre:

Let now my living bones with wine be drenched;

Water may deluge them when I am quenched.

[226]

Gazing at stars, my star? I would that I were the welkin,

Starry with infinite eyes, gazing forever at thee!

FREDERICK FARRAR.

[227]

Kissing Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it--

For the poor thing had wandered thither,

To follow where the kiss should guide it,

Oh cruel I to intercept it!

SHELLEY.

[228]

Shine forth, night-wandering, horned, and vigilant queen,

Through the shy lattice shoot thy silver sheen;

Illume Callistion: for a goddess may

Gaze on a pair of lovers while they play.

Thou enviest her and me, I know, fair moon,

For thou didst once burn for Endymion.

[229]

We trod the brimming wine-press ankle-high,

Singing wild songs of Bacchic revelry:

Forth flowed the must in rills; our cups of wood

Like cockboats swam upon the honeyed flood:

With these we drew, and as we filled them, quaffed,

With no warm Naiad to allay the draught:

But fair Rhodanthe bent above the press,

And the fount sparkled with her loveliness:

We in our souls were shaken; yea, each man

Quaked beneath Bacchus and the Paphian.

Ah me! the one flowed at our feet in streams--

The other fooled us with mere empty dreams!

[230] _Comus_, 463, etc.

[231]

Three things must epigrams, like bees, have all;

A sting and honey and a body small.

RILEY.

[232] A certain Cyril gives this as his definition of a good epigram

(ii. 75; compare No. 342 on p. 69):

#pankalon est' epigramma to distichon; ên de parelthêis

tous treis, rhapsôideis kouk epigramma legeis.#

Two lines complete the epigram--or three:

Write more; you aim at epic poetry.

Here the essence of this kind of poetry is said to be brevity. But

nothing is said about a sting. And on the point of brevity, the Cyril

to whom this couplet is attributed is far too stringent when judged by

the best Greek standards. The modern notion of the epigram is derived

from a study of Martial, whose best verses are satirical and therefore

of necessity stinging.

[233]

Spring with her waving trees

Adorns the earth: to heaven

The pride of stars is given:

Athens illustrates Greece:

She on her brows doth set

Of men this coronet.

[234]

Though thou shouldst gnaw me to the root,

Destructive goat, enough of fruit

I bear, betwixt my horns to shed,

When to the altar thou art led.

MERIVALE.

[235]

The Germans at Greek

Are sadly to seek,

Not five in five-score,

But ninety-five more;

All--save only Hermann;

And Hermann's a German.

PORSON.

[236]

Attic maid! with honey fed,

Bear'st thou to thy callow brood

Yonder locust from the mead,

Destined their delicious food?

Ye have kindred voices clear,

Ye alike unfold the wing,

Migrate hither, sojourn here,

Both attendant on the spring.

Ah! for pity drop the prize;

Let it not with truth be said,

That a songster gasps and dies,

That a songster may be fed.

W. COWPER.

[237]

Though but the being of a day,

When I yon planet's course survey,

This earth I then despise;

Near Jove's eternal throne I stand,

And quaff from an immortal hand

The nectar of the skies.

PHILIP SMYTH.

[238] Bacon's version, "The world's a bubble, and the life of man--,"

is both well known and too long to quote. The following is from the pen

of Sir John Beaumont:

What course of life should wretched mortals take?

In courts hard questions large contention make:

Care dwells in houses, labor in the field,

Tumultuous seas affrighting dangers yield.

In foreign lands thou never canst be blessed;

If rich, thou art in fear; if poor, distressed.

In wedlock frequent discontentments swell;

Unmarried persons as in deserts dwell.

How many troubles are with children born;

Yet he that wants them counts himself forlorn.

Young men are wanton, and of wisdom void;

Gray hairs are cold, unfit to be employed.

Who would not one of these two offers choose,

Not to be born, or breath with speed to lose?

[239]

In every way of life true pleasure flows:

Immortal fame from public action grows:

Within the doors is found appeasing rest;

In fields the gifts of nature are expressed.

The sea brings gain, the rich abroad provide

To blaze their names, the poor their wants to hide:

All household's best are governed by a wife;

His cares are light, who leads a single life:

Sweet children are delights which marriage bless;

He that hath none disturbs his thoughts the less.

Strong youth can triumph in victorious deeds;

Old age the soul with pious motions feeds.

All states are good, and they are falsely led

Who wish to be unborn or quickly dead.

SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.

[240]

Where, Corinth, are thy glories now,

Thy ancient wealth, thy castled brow,

Thy solemn fanes, thy halls of state,

Thy high-born dames, thy crowded gate?

There's not a ruin left to tell

Where Corinth stood, how Corinth fell.

The Nereids of thy double sea

Alone remain to wail for thee.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

[241]

Seeing the martyred corpse of Sparta's king

Cast 'mid the dead,

Xerxes around the mighty limbs did fling

His mantle red.

Then from the shades the glorious hero cried:

"Not mine a traitor's guerdon. 'Tis my pride

This shield upon my grave to wear.

Forbear

Your Persian gifts; a Spartan I will go

To Death below."

[242]

One day three girls were casting lots in play,

Which first to Acheron should take her way;

Thrice with their sportive hands they threw, and thrice

To the same hand returned the fateful dice;

The maiden laughed when thus her doom was told:

Alas! that moment from the roof she rolled!

So sure is Fate whene'er it bringeth bale,

While prayers and vows for bliss must ever fail.

J. A. SYMONDS. M.D.

[243]

Aerial branches of tall oak, retreat

Of loftiest shade for those who shun the heat,

With foliage full, more close than tiling, where

Dove and cicada dwell aloft in air,

Me, too, that thus my head beneath you lay,

Protect, a fugitive from noon's fierce ray.

GOLDWIN SMITH.

[244]

Wide-spreading plane-tree, whose thick branches meet

To form for lovers an obscure retreat,

Whilst with thy foliage closely intertwine

The curling tendrils of the clustered vine,

Still mayst thou flourish, in perennial green,

To shade the votaries of the Paphian queen.

W. SHEPHERD.

[245]

Come sit you down beneath this towering tree,

Whose rustling leaves sing to the zephyr's call;

My pipe shall join the streamlet's melody,

And slumber on your charmèd eyelids fall.

J. A. SYMONDS, M.D.

[246]

Spare the parent of acorns, good wood-cutter, spare!

Let the time-honored fir feel the weight of your stroke,

The many-stalked thorn, or acanthus worn bare,

Pine, arbutus, ilex--but touch not the oak!

Far hence be your axe, for our grandams have sung

How the oaks are the mothers from whom we all sprung.

MERIVALE.

[247]

Why, ruthless shepherds, from my dewy spray

In my lone haunt, why tear me thus away?

Me, the Nymphs' wayside minstrel, whose sweet note

O'er sultry hill is heard and shady grove to float?

Lo! where the blackbird, thrush, and greedy host

Of starlings fatten at the farmer's cost!

With just revenge those ravages pursue;

But grudge not my poor leaf and sip of grassy dew.

WRANGHAM.

[248]

Phoebus, thou know'st me--Eunomus, who beat

Spartis: the tale for others I repeat;

Deftly upon my lyre I played and sang,

When 'mid the song a broken harp-string rang,

And seeking for its sound, I could not hear

The note responsive to my descant clear.

Then on my lyre, unasked, unsought, there flew

A grasshopper, who filled the cadence due;

For while six chords beneath my fingers cried,

He with his tuneful voice the seventh supplied:

The midday songster of the mountains set

His pastoral ditty to my canzonet;

And when he sang, his modulated throat

Accorded with the lifeless strings I smote.

Therefore I thank my fellow-minstrel: he

Sits on a lyre in brass, as you may see.

[249]

The sculptor's country? Sicyon. His name?

Lysippus. You? Time, that all things can tame.

Why thus a-tiptoe? I have halted never.

Why ankle-winged? I fly like wind forever.

But in your hand that razor? 'Tis a pledge

That I am keener than the keenest edge.

Why falls your hair in front? For him to bind

Who meets me. True: but then you're bald behind?

Yes, because when with winged feet I have passed

'Tis vain upon my back your hands to cast.

Why did the sculptor carve you? For your sake

Here in the porch I stand; my lesson take.

[250]

My snowy marble from the mountain rude

A Median sculptor with sharp chisel hewed,

And brought me o'er the sea, that he might place

A trophied statue of the Greeks' disgrace.

But when the routed Persians heard the roar

Of Marathon, and ships swam deep in gore,

Then Athens, nurse of heroes, sculptured me

The queen that treads on arrogance to be:

I hold the scales of hope: my name is this--

Nike for Greece, for Asia Nemesis.

[251]

Bright Cytherea thought one day

To Cnidos she'd repair,

Gliding across the watery way

To view her image there.

But when, arrived, she cast around

Her eyes divinely bright,

And saw upon that holy ground

The gazing world's delight,

Amazed, she cried--while blushes told

The thoughts that swelled her breast--

Where did Praxiteles behold

My form? or has he guessed?

J. H. MERIVALE.

[252]

Weep, reckless god; for now your hands are tied:

Weep, wear your soul out with the flood of tears,

Heart-robber, thief of reason, foe to pride,

Winged fire, thou wound unseen the soul that sears!

Freedom from grief to us these bonds of thine,

Wherein thou wailest to the deaf winds, bring:

Behold! the torch wherewith thou mad'st us pine,

Beneath thy frequent tears is languishing!