"Cleon" expresses the approach of Greek thought at the time of
Christ towards the idea of immortality as made known by Cleon, a
Greek poet writing in reply to a Greek patron whose princely gifts
and letter asking comment on the philosophical significance of death
have just reached him. The important conclusions reached by Cleon
in his answer are that the composite mind is greater than the minds
of the past, because it is capable of accomplishing much in many
lines of activity, and of sympathizing with each of those simple
great minds that had reached the highest possible perfection "at one
point." It is, indeed, the necessary next step in development,
though all classes of mind fit into the perfected mosaic of life, no
one achievement blotting out any other. This soul and mind
development he deduces from the physical development he sees about
him. But since with the growth of human consciousness and the
increase of knowledge comes greater capability to the soul for joy
while the failure of physical powers shuts off the possibility of
realizing joy, it would have been better had man been left with
nothing higher than mere sense like the brutes. Dismissing the idea
of immortality through one's works as unsatisfactory to the
individual, he finally concludes that a long and happy life is all
there is to be hoped for, since, had the future life which he has
sometimes dared to hope for been possible, Zeus would long before
have revealed it. He dismisses the preaching of one Paulus as
untenable.
"As certain also of your own poets have said": this motto hints that
Paul's speech at Athens (Acts 17.22-28) suggests and justifies
Browning's conception of such Greek poets as Cleon seeking "the
Lord, if haply they might feel after him." Paul's quotation, "For
we are also his offspring," is from the "Phoenomena" by Aratus, a
Greek poet of his own town of Tarsus.
1. Sprinkled isles: probably the Sporades, so named because they
were scattered, and in opposition to the Cyclades, which formed a
circle around Delos.
51. Phare: light-house. The French authority, Allard, says that
though there is no mention in classical writings of any light-house
in Greece proper, it is probable that there was one at the port of
Athens as well as at other points in Greece. There were certainly
several along both shores of the Hellespont, besides the famous
father of all light-houses, on the island of Pharos, near
Alexandria. Hence the French name for light-house, phare.
53. Poecile: the portico at Athens painted with battle pictures by
Polygnotus the Thasian.
60. Combined the moods: in Greek music the scales were called moods
or modes, and were subject to great variation in the arrangement of
tones and semitones.
83. Rhomb . . . lozenge . . . trapezoid: all four-sided forms, but
differing as to the parallel arrangement of their sides and the
obliquity of their angles.
140. Terpander: musician of Lesbos (about 650 B. C.), who added
three strings to the four-stringed Greek lyre.
141. Phidias: the Athenian sculptor (about 430 B. C.) --and his
friend: Pericles, ruler of Athens (444-429 B.C.). Plutarch speaks
of their friendship in his Life of Pericles.
304. Sappho: poet of Lesbos, supreme among lyricists (about 600
B. C.). Only fragments of her verse remain.
305. AEschylus: oldest of the three great Athenian dramatists
(525-472 B. C.).
340. Paulus; we have have heard his fame: Paul's mission to the
Gentiles carried him to many of the islands in the AEgean Sea as
well as to Athens and Corinth (Acts 13-21).