Chapter XXI: The Anthology (2)

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!