Chapter XX: The Idyllists (2)

Several poems of Theocritus are written on the theme of Doric chivalry, and illustrate the heroic age of Greece. They may be compared to the _Idyls of the King_, for their excellence consists in the consummate art with which episodes from the legendary cycles of a bygone age are wrought into polished pictures by a cultivated poet. The thirteenth idyl is especially remarkable for the exquisite finish of its style and also for the light it throws on the mutual relations of knight and squire in early Greek warfare. Theocritus chooses for the subject of this poem an episode in the life of Herakles, the Dorian hero, when he and other foremost men of Hellas, #theios aôtos hêrôôn#, followed Jason in the Argo to the Colchian shores, and he took young Hylas with him; "for even," says Theocritus, "the brazen-hearted son of Amphitryon, who withstood the fierceness of the lion, loved a youth, the charming Hylas, and taught him like a father everything by which he might become a good and famous man; nor would he leave the youth at dawn or noon or evening, but sought continually to fashion him after his own heart, and to make him a right yoke-fellow with him in mighty deeds." How he lost Hylas on the Cianian shore, and in the wildness of his sorrow let Argo sail without him, and endured the reproach of desertion, is well known. Theocritus has wrought the story with more than his accustomed elegance. But I wish to confine attention to the ideal of knighthood and knightly education presented in the passage quoted. Herakles was not merely the lover, but the guardian also and tutor, of Hylas. He regarded him not only as an object of tenderness, but also as a future friend and helper in the business of life. His constant aim was to form of him a brave and manly warrior, a Herculean hero. And in this respect Herakles was the eponym and patron of an order which existed throughout Doric Hellas. This order, protected by religious tradition and public favor, regulated by strict rules, and kept within the limits of honor, produced the Cretan lovers, the Lacedæmonian "hearers" and "inspirers," the Theban immortals who lay with faces turned so stanchly to their foes that vice seemed incompatible with so much valor. Achilles was another eponym of this order. In the twenty-ninth idyl, the phrase #Achillêïoi philoi# is used to describe the most perfect pair of manly friends. The twelfth idyl is written in a similar if a weaker and more wanton vein. The same longing retrospect is cast upon the old days "when men indeed were golden, when the love of comrades was mutual," and constancy is rewarded with the same promise of glorious immortality as that which Plato holds out in the _Phædrus_. Bion, we may remark in passing, celebrates with equal praise the friendships of Theseus, Orestes, and Achilles. Without taking some notice of this peculiar institution, in its origin military and austere, it is impossible to understand the chivalrous age of Greece among the Dorian tribes. In the midst of brute force and cunning, and an almost absolute disregard of what we are accustomed to understand by chivalry--gentleness, chastity, truth, regard for women and weak persons--this one anomalous sentiment emerges.

Passing to another point in which Greek differed from mediæval chivalry, we notice the semi-divine nature of the heroes: #theios aôtos# is the name by which they are designated, and supernatural favor is always showered upon them. This indicates a primitive society, a national consciousness ignorant of any remote past. The heroes whom Theocritus celebrates are purely Dorian--Herakles, a Jack the Giant-Killer in his cradle, brawny, fearless, of huge appetite, a mighty trainer, with a scowl to frighten athletes from the field; Polydeuces, a notable bruiser; Castor, a skilled horseman and a man of blood. In one point the twin sons of Leda resembled mediæval knights. They combined the arts of song with martial prowess. Theocritus styles them #hippêes kitharistai, aethlêtêres aoidoi#--harp-playing riders of horses, athlete poets. Their achievements, narrated in the twenty-second idyl, may be compared with those of Tristram and Lancelot. The gigantic warrior whom they find by the well in the land of the Bebrycians, gorgeously armed, insolent, and as knotty as a brazen statue, who refuses access to the water and challenges them to combat, exactly resembles one of the lawless giants of the _Mort d'Arthur_. The courtesy of the Greek hero contrasts well with the barbarian's violence; and when they come to blows, it is good to observe how address, agility, training, nerve, enable Polydeuces to overcome with ease the vast fury and brute strength of the Bebrycian bully. As the fight proceeds, the son of Leda improves in flesh and color, while Amycus gets out of breath, and sweats his thews away. Polydeuces pounds the giant's neck and face, reducing him to a hideous mass of bruises, and receiving the blows of Amycus upon his chest and loins. At the end of the fight he spares his prostrate foe, on the condition of his respecting the rites of hospitality and dealing courteously with strangers. Throughout it will be noticed how carefully Theocritus maintains the conception of the Hellenic as distinguished from the barbarian combatant. Christian and pagan are not more distinct in a legend of the San Graal. But Greek chivalry has no magic, no monstrous exaggeration. All is simple, natural, and human. Bellerophon, it is true, was sent after the Chimæra, and Perseus freed Andromeda like St. George from a dragon's mouth. But these fancies of Greek infancy formed no integral part of artistic mythology; instead of being multiplied, they were gradually winnowed out, and the poets laid but little stress upon them.

The achievement of Castor is not so favorable to the character of Hellenic chivalry. Having in concert with Polydeuces borne off by guile the daughters of Leucippus from their affianced husbands, Castor kills one of the injured lovers who pursues him and demands restitution. He slays him, though he is his own first cousin, ruthlessly; and while the other son of Aphareus is rushing forward to avenge his brother's death, Zeus hurls lightning and destroys him. Theocritus remarks that it is no light matter to engage in battle with the Tyndarids; but he makes no reflection on what we should call "the honor" of the whole transaction.

Of all the purely pastoral idyls by which Theocritus is most widely famous, perhaps the finest is the seventh, or Thalysia. It glows with the fresh and radiant splendor of Southern beauty. In this poem the idyllist describes the journey of three young men in summer from the city to the farm of their friend Phrasidamus, who has asked them to take part in the feast with which he proposes to honor Demeter at harvest-time. On their way they meet with a goatherd, Lycidas, who invites them, "with a smiling eye," to recline beneath the trees and while away the hours of noontide heat with song. "The very lizard," he says, "is sleeping by the wall; but on the hard stones of the footpath your heavy boots keep up a ceaseless ringing." Thus chided by the goatherd they resolve upon a singing-match between Simichidas, the teller of the tale, and Lycidas, who offers his crook as the prize of victory. Lycidas begins the contest with that exquisite song to Ageanax, which has proved the despair of all succeeding idyllists, and which furnished Virgil with one of the most sonorous lines in his _Georgics_. No translation can do justice to the smooth and liquid charm of its melodious verse, in which the tenderest feeling mingles gracefully with delicate humor and with homely descriptions of a shepherd's life. The following lines, forming a panegyric on Comatas, some famed singer of the rustic muse, may be quoted for their pure Greek feeling. Was ever an unlucky mortal envied more melodiously, and yet more quaintly, for his singular fortune?

#aisei d', hôs pok' edekto ton aipolon eurea larnax
zôon eonta kakêisin atasthaliêisin anaktos;
hôs te nin hai simai leimônothe pherbon ioisai
kedron es hadeian malakois anthessi melissai;
houneka hoi glyky Moisa kata stomatos chee nektar.
ô makariste Komata, ty thên tade terpna peponthês,
kai ty kateklasthês es larnaka, kai ty, melissan
kêria pherbomenos, etos hôrion exetelessas.#[152]

The song with which Simichidas contends against his rival is not of equal beauty; but the goatherd hands him the crook "as a gift of friendship from the Muses." Then he leaves the three friends, who resume their journey till they reach the house of Phrasidamus. There elms and poplar-trees and vines embower them with the pleasant verdure of rustling leaves and the perfumes of summer flowers and autumn fruits. The jar of wine as sweet as that which made the Cyclops dance among his sheepfold spreads its fragrance through the air; while the statue of Demeter, with her handfuls of corn and poppy-heads, stands smiling by.

This seventh idyl, of which no adequate idea can be conveyed by mere description, may serve as the type of those purely rustic poems which since the days of Theocritus have from age to age been imitated by versifiers emulous of his gracefulness. If space allowed, it would not be uninteresting to analyze the idyl of the two old fishermen, who gossip together so wisely and contentedly in their hut by the sea-shore, mending their nets the while, and discoursing gravely of their dreams. In this idyl, which is, however, possibly the work of one of Theocritus's imitators, and in the second, which consists of a singing-match between two harvest-men, the native homeliness of the idyllic muse appears to best advantage.

With this brief and insufficient notice I must leave Theocritus in order to say a few words about his successors. Bion's poetry, when compared with that of Theocritus, declines considerably from the bucolic type. His idyls are for the most part fragments of delicately finished love-songs, remarkable for elegance and sweetness more than for masculine vigor or terse expression. In Bion the artificial style of pastoral begins. Theocritus had made cows and pipes and shepherds fashionable. His imitators followed him, without the humor and natural taste which rendered his pictures so attractive. We already trace the frigid affectation of bucolic interest in the elegy on Bion: "He sang no song of wars or tears, but piped of Pan and cowherds, and fed flocks, singing as he went; pipes he fashioned, and milked the sweet-breathed heifer, and taught kisses, and cherished in his bosom love, and stole the heart of Aphrodite." As it happens, the most original and powerful of Bion's remaining poems is a "Song of Tears," of passionate lamentation, of pathetic grief, composed, not as a pastoral ditty, but on the occasion of one of those splendid festivals in which the Syrian rites of slain Adonis were celebrated by Greek women. The #epitaphios Adônidos# is written with a fiery passion and a warmth of coloring peculiar to Bion. The verse bounds with tiger leaps, its full-breathed dactyls panting with the energy of rapid flight. The tender and reflective beauty of Theocritus, the concentrated passion of his Simætha, and the flowing numbers of his song to Adonis are quite lost and swallowed up in the Asiatic fury of Bion's lament. The poem begins with the cry #Aiazô ton Adônin#, which is variously repeated in idyllic fashion as a refrain throughout the lamentation.[153] After the prelude, having, as it were, struck the key-note to the music, the singer cries:

#mêketi porphyreois eni pharesi Kypri katheude;
egreo deilaia kyanostole kai platagêson
stathea, kai lege pasin, apôleto kalos Adônis.#[154]

Notice how the long words follow one another with quick pulses and flashes of sound. The same peculiar rhythm recurs when, after describing the beautiful dead body of Adonis, the poet returns to Aphrodite:

#ha d' Aphrodita
lysamena plokamidas ana drymôs alalêtai
penthalea, nêplektos, asandalos; hai de batoi nin
erchomenan keironti kai hieron haima drepontai
oxy de kôkyoisa di' ankea makra phoreitai,
Assyrion booôsa posin, kai paida kaleusa.#[155]

There are few passages of poetical imagery more striking than this picture of the queen of beauty tearing through the forest, heedless of her tender limbs and useless charms, and calling on her Syrian lover. What follows is even more passionate; after some lines of mere description, the ecstasy again descends upon the poet, and he bursts into the wildest of most beautiful laments:

#hôs iden, hôs enoêsen Adônidos ascheton helkos,
hôs ide phoinion haima marainomenôi peri mêrôi,
pacheas ampetasasa kinyreto; meinon Adôni,
dyspotme meinon Adôni, k.t.l.#[156]

The last few lines of her soliloquy are exquisitely touching, especially those in which Aphrodite deplores her immortality, and acknowledges the supremacy of the queen of the grave over Love and Beauty. What follows is pitched at a lower key. There is too much of merely Anacreontic prettiness about the description of the bridal bed and the lamenting Loves. Aphrodite's passion reminds us of a Neapolitan _Stabat Mater_, in which the frenzy of love and love-like piety are strangely blended. But the concluding picture suggests nothing nobler than a painting of Albano, in which _amoretti_ are plentiful, and there is much elegance of composition. This remark applies to the rest of Bion's poetry. If Theocritus deserves to be illustrated by the finest of Greek bass-reliefs, Bion cannot claim more than an exquisitely chiselled gem. Certainly the second and third fragments are very charming; and the lines to Hesper (fragment 16) have so much beauty that I attempt a version of them:

Hesper, thou golden light of happy love,
Hesper, thou holy pride of purple eve,
Moon among stars, but star beside the moon,
Hail, friend! and since the young moon sets to-night
Too soon below the mountains, lend thy lamp
And guide me to the shepherd whom I love.
No theft I purpose; no wayfaring man'
Belated would I watch and make my prey;
Love is my goal, and Love how fair it is,
When friend meets friend sole in the silent night,
Thou knowest, Hesper!

In Moschus we find less originality and power than belong to Bion. His _Europa_ is an imitation of the style in which Theocritus wrote _Hylas_; but the copy is frigid and affected by the size of its model. Five-and-twenty lines for instance are devoted to an elaborate description of a basket, which leaves no very definite impression on the mind;[157] whereas every leaf and tendril on the cup which Theocritus introduces into the first idyl stands out vividly before us. Nothing, moreover, could be more unnatural and tedious than the long speech which Europa makes when she is being carried out to sea upon the bull's back. Yet we must allow that there is spirit and beauty in the triumph of sea monsters who attend Poseidon and do honor to the chosen bride of Zeus; Nereids riding on dolphins, and Tritons, "the deep-voiced minstrels of the sea, sounding a marriage-song on their long-winding conchs."[158] The whole of this piece is worthy of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. Moschus is remarkable for occasional felicities of language. In this line, for example,

#eute kai atrekeôn poimainetai ethnos oneirôn,#

an old thought receives new and subtle beauty by its expression. If _Megara_ (Idyl iv.) be really the work of Moschus, which is doubtful, it reflects more honor on him. The dialogue between the wife and mother of the maddened Herakles, after he has murdered his children and gone forth to execute fresh labors, is worthy of their tragic situation. #Erôs drapetês# (Runaway Love), again, is an exquisite little poem in the Anacreontic style of Bion, fully equal to any of its models. The fame of Moschus will, however, depend upon the elegy on Bion. I have already hinted that its authorship is questioned. In my opinion it far surpasses any of his compositions in respect of definite thought and original imagination. Though the bucolic commonplaces are used with obvious artificiality, and much is borrowed from Theocritus's _Lament for Daphnis_, yet so true and delicate a spirit is inbreathed into the old forms as to render them quite fresh. The passage which begins #ai ai tai malachai# every dabbler in Greek literature knows by heart. And what can be more ingeniously pathetic than the _nuances_ of feeling expressed in these lines?

#pharmakon êlthe, Biôn, poti son stoma; pharmakon eides.
pôs teu tois cheilessi potedrame kouk eglykanthê?
tis de brotos tossouton anameros ê kerasai toi
ê dounai laleonti to pharmakon?#[159]

And:

#tis pote sâi syringi melixetai, ô tripothête?
tis d' epi sois kalamois thêsei stoma? tis thrasys houtôs?
eiseti gar pneiei ta sa cheilea kai to son asthma;
achô d' en donakessi teas epibosket' aoidas.#[160]

Or again:

#achô d' en petrêisin odyretai hotti siôpêi,
kouketi mimeitai ta sa cheilea.#[161]

There is also something very touching in the third line of this strophe:

#keinos ho tais agelaisin erasmios ouketi melpei,
ouket' erêmaiêisin hypo drysin hêmenos âidei,
alla para Ploutêi melos Lêthaion aeidei,#[162]

and in the allusion made to the Sicilian girlhood of grim Persephone (126-129). This vein of tender and melodious sentiment, which verges on the _concetti_ of modern art, seems different from the style of _Europa_.

To English readers, the three elegies, on Daphnis, on Adonis, and on Bion, severally attributed to Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, will always be associated with the names of Milton and Shelley. There is no comparison whatever between Lycidas and Daphnis. In spite of the misplaced apparition of St. Peter, and of the frigidity which belongs to pastoral allegory, Lycidas is a richer and more splendid monument of elegiac verse. The simplicity of the Theocritean dirge contrasts strangely with the varied wealth of Milton's imagery, the few ornaments of Greek art with the intricate embroideries of modern fancy. To quote passages from these well-known poems would be superfluous; but let a student of literature compare the passages #pâi pok' ar' êsth'# and #ô Pan Pan# with Milton's paraphrase "Where were ye, nymphs--," or the concise paragraphs about the flowers and valleys that mourned for Daphnis with the luxuriance of Milton's invocation "Return, Alpheus."

When Shelley wrote _Adonais_ his mind was full of the elegies on Bion and Adonis. Of direct translation in his Lament there is very little; but he has absorbed both of the Greek poems, and transmuted them into the substance of his own mind. Urania takes the place of Aphrodite--the heavenly queen, "most musical of mourners," bewails the loss of her poetical consort. Instead of loves, the couch of Adonais is surrounded by the thoughts and fancies of which he was the parent; and, instead of gods and goddesses, the power of nature is invoked to weep for him and take him to herself. Whatever Bion and Moschus recorded as a fact becomes, consistently with the spiritualizing tendency of modern genius, symbolical in Shelley's poem. His art has alchemized the whole structure, idealizing what was material and disembodying the sentiments which were incarnated in simple images. _Adonais_ is a sublime rhapsody; its multitudinous ideas are whirled like drops of golden rain, on which the sun of the poet's fancy gleams with ever-changing rainbow hues. In drifts and eddies they rush past, delighting us with their rapidity and brilliancy; but the impression left upon our mind is vague and incomplete, when compared with the few and distinct ideas presented by the Doric elegies. At the end of _Alastor_ there occurs a touching reminiscence of Moschus, but the outline is less faint than in _Adonais_, the transmutation even more complete.

Tennyson, among the poets of the nineteenth century, owes much to the Greek idyllists. His genius appears to be in many respects akin to theirs, and the age in which he lives is not unlike the Ptolemaic period. Unfitted, perhaps, by temperament for the most impassioned lyrics, he delights in minutely finished pictures, in felicities of expression, and in subtle harmonies of verse. Like Theocritus, he finds in nature and in the legends of past ages subjects congenial to his muse. _Oenone_ and _Tithonus_ are steeped in the golden beauty of Syracusan art. "Come down, O maid," transfers, with perfect taste, the Greek idyllic feeling to Swiss scenery; it is a fine instance of new wine being poured successfully into old bottles, for nothing can be fresher, and not even the _Thalysia_ is sweeter. It would be easy enough to collect minor instances which prove that the laureate's mind is impregnated with the thoughts and feelings of the poems I have been discussing. For instance, both the figure "softer than sleep," and the comparison of a strong man's muscles to the smooth rush of running water over sunken stones, which we find in _Enid_, occur in Theocritus.

At the end of this chapter I cannot refrain from once more recommending all lovers of pure verse and perfect scenery to study the Greek idyllists upon the shores of the Mediterranean. Nor would it be possible to carry a better guide-book to the statue-galleries of Rome and Naples. For in the verses of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, the æsthetic principles of the Greeks, in the age to which our relics of their statuary for the most part belong, are feelingly and pithily expressed; while the cold marble, that seems to require so many commentaries, receives from their idyllic coloring new life.

FOOTNOTES:

[142]

Down the dark stream he went; the eddies drowned
The muses' friend, the youth the nymphs held dear.

[143] I may refer my readers to the chapter on the Cornice in my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_ for a fuller treatment of this landscape.

[144] Not for us alone, as we once thought, friend Nicias, did Love's parent, whosoever among gods that was, beget Lord Eros. Not for us did fair things first reveal their fairness; we who are mortal men, and have no vision of to-morrow.

[145] One bright morning in the first week of June I went out into the fields at Borca below Macugnaga, which were then full of brilliant and sweet flowers. There I met an old woman, with whom I talked about her life in what seemed to me a terrestrial Paradise. She threw her arms and eyes to heaven, and looking round her, cried, "_Che brutto paese!_"--"Ah, what an ugly country to live in!" Compare Browning's _Up at a Villa, Down in the City_.

[146]

Now rests the deep, now rest the wandering winds,
But in my heart the anguish will not rest,
While for his love I pine who stole my sweetness,
And made me less than virgin among maids.

[147]

Adieu, dread queen, thou to the ocean turn
Thy harnessed steeds; but I abide and suffer:
Adieu, resplendent moon, and all you stars
That follow on the wheels of night, adieu!

[148]

Into the black wave
Fell headlong as a fiery star from heaven
Falls headlong to the deep, and sailors cry
One to another, Lighten sail; behold,
The breeze behind us freshens!

[149]

Would I were
The murmuring bee, that through the ivy screen
And through the fern that hides thee, I might come
Into thy cavern!

[150] Perhaps this is over-stated. In the later Greek literature of the Sophists we find many very exquisite _concetti_. Philostratus, for example, from whom Jonson translated "Drink to me only with thine eyes," calls the feet of the beloved one #erêreismena philêmata#, or "kisses pressed upon the ground." Even Empedocles (see vol. i. p. 220) and Pindar (see vol. i. p. 369) are not free from the vice of artificial metaphor. Compare, too, the labored metaphors and compound epithets quoted from Chæremon above, chap. xvi., and the specimens quoted below from Meleager, chap. xxi.

[151] How wonderfully beautiful is her description of Delphis and his comrade Eudamnippus: "Their cheeks and chin were yellower than helichrysus; their breasts more radiant far than thou, O Moon, as having lately left the fair toil of the wrestling-ground."

[152]

How of old
The goatherd by his cruel lord was bound,
And left to die in a great chest; and how
The busy bees, up coming from the meadows,
To the sweet cedar, fed him with soft flowers,
Because the Muse had filled his mouth with nectar.
Yes, all these sweets were thine, blessed Comatas;
And thou wast put into the chest, and fed
By the blithe bees, and passed a pleasant time.

LEIGH HUNT'S _Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla_.

[153] This ought probably to be printed, after Ahrens, #aiaz' ô ton Adônin#. The exclamation occurs in a fragment of Sappho (Bergk, No. 63), whose lyric on the legend of Adonis may have suggested Bion's idyl.

[154]

Sleep, Cypris, no more, on thy purple-strewed bed;
Arise, wretch stoled in black--beat thy breast unrelenting,
And shriek to the worlds, "Fair Adonis is dead."

_Translation by_ Mrs. BARRETT BROWNING.

[155]

And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound,
All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mournful and shrill
Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing her feet,
Gather up the red flower of her blood, which is holy,
Each footstep she takes; and the valleys repeat
The sharp cry which she utters, and draw it out slowly.
She calls on her spouse, her Assyrian.--_Ibid._

[156]

When, ah! ah!--she saw how the blood ran away
And empurpled the thigh; and, with wild hands flung out,
Said with sobs, "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay!"

_Translation by_ Mrs. BARRETT BROWNING.

[157] This basket for holding flowers, the work of Hephæstus, had the tale of Io carved upon it. So Catullus, in the counterpane of Thetis, has wrought in needlework the story of Ariadne; and Statius, in the mantle given by Adrastus to Admetus, has woven that of Hero and Leander. Both of these Roman poets excel Moschus in picturesque effect.

[158] Italian art of the Renaissance in the designs of Mantegna and Raphael and Giulio Romano did full justice to these marine triumphs.

[159]

There came, O Bion, poison to thy mouth,
Thou didst feel poison! how could it approach
Those lips of thine, and not be turned to sweet?

LEIGH HUNT.

[160]

Who now shall play thy pipe, oh! most desired one;
Who lay his lips against thy reeds? who dare it?
For still they breathe of thee, and of thy mouth,
And Echo comes to seek her voices there.--_Ibid._

[161]

Echo too mourned among the rocks that she
Must hush, and imitate thy lips no longer.--LEIGH HUNT.

[162]

No longer pipes he to the charmèd herds,
No longer sits under the lonely oaks,
And sings; but to the ears of Plato now
Tunes his Lethean verse.--_Ibid._