Chapter 15

οὔριος ἐμπνεύσας ναύταις Νότος, ὦ δυσέρωτες,ἥμισύ μευ ψυχᾶς ἅρπασεν Ἀνδράγαθον·τρὶς μάκαρες νᾶες, τρὶς δ' ὄλβια κύματα πόντου,τετράκι δ' εὐδαίμων παιδοφορῶν ἄνεμος·εἴθ' εἴην δελφὶς ἵν' ἐμοῖς βαστακτὸς ἐπ' ὤμοιςπορθμευθεὶς ἐσίδῃ τὰν γλυκύπαιδα Ῥόδον.[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:

ὦ δυσέρως ψυχὴ παῦσαί ποτε καὶ δι' ὀνείρωνεἰδώλοις κάλλευς κωφὰ χλιαινομένη.[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:

ἔγχει καὶ πάλιν εἰπὲ πάλιν πάλιν Ἡλιοδώρας.[216]

In the same way a very old thought receives new exquisiteness the last couplet of the epitaph on Heliodora:

ἀλλά σε γουνοῦμαι Γᾶ παντρόφε τὰν πανόδυρτονἠρέμα σοῖς κόλποις μᾶτερ ἐναγκάλισαι.[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:

ἓν τόδε παμμήτειρα θεῶν λίτομαί σε φίλη Νύξναὶ λίτομαι κώμων σύμπλανε πότνια Νύξ.[218]

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

ἔστι δ' ὁ παῖς γλυκύδακρυς ἀείλαλος ὠκὺς ἀταρβὴςσιμὰ γελῶν πτερόεις νῶτα φαρετροφόρος.[219]

Again he calls him ἁβροπέδιλος ἔρως (delicate-sandalled Love) and fashions words like ψυχαπάτης, ὑπναπάτης (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:

τί μάτην ἐνὶ δεσμοῖςσπαίρεις; αὐτὸς ἔρως τὰ πτερά σου δέδεκεν,καί σ' ἐπὶ πῦρ ἔστησε, μύροις δ' ἔρρανε λιπόπνουν,δῶκε δὲ διψώσῃ δάκρυα θερμὰ πιεῖν.[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:

κωμάζω δ' οὐκ οἶνον ὑπὸ φρένα πῦρ δὲ γεμισθείς.[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:

πῶς οὐ χρὴ καὶ ἀοιδὸν ἐν εἴαρι καλὸν ἀεῖσαι;[222]

The cicada, δροσεραῖς σταγόνεσσι μεθυσθείς (drunken with honey-drops of dew), the αὐτοφυὲς μίμημα λύρας (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 ἀνθοδίαιτε μέλισσα (flower-pasturing bee), and all the flowers for which he has found exquisite epithets, the φίλομβρος νάρκισσος (narcissus that loves the rain of heaven), the φιλέραστα ῥόδα (roses to lovers dear), the οὐρεσίφοιτα κρίνα (lilies that roam the mountain-sides), and again τὰ γελῶντα κρίνα (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. Βαιὰ μὲν ἀλλὰ ῥόδα (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. Τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀήδονες, (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 andnettetéof 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):

στεῖχε πρὸς αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀπέρχεο παῖδα κομίζωναἰετέ, τὰς διφυεῖς ἐκπετάσας πτέρυγας,στεῖχε τὸν ἁβρὸν ἔχων Γανυμήδεα, μηδὲ μεθείηςτὸν Διὸς ἡδίστων οἰνοχόον κυλίκων·φείδεο δ' αἱμάξαι κοῦρον γαμψώνυχι ταρσῷμὴ Ζεὺς ἀλγήσῃ τοῦτο βαρυνόμενος.[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:

ἀστέρας εἰσαθρεῖς ἀστὴρ ἐμός· εἴθε γενοίμηνοὐρανὸς ὡς πολλοῖς ὄμμασιν εἰς σὲ βλέπω—[226]

and of this to Agathon:

τὴν ψυχὴν Ἀγάθωνα φιλῶν ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἔσχον·ἦλθε γὰρ ἡ τλήμων ὡς διαβησομένη—[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:

νυκτερινὴ δίκερως φιλοπάννυχε φαῖνε σελήνη,φαῖνε δι' εὐτρήτων βαλλομένη θυρίδων·αὔγαζε χρυσέην Καλλίστιον· ἐς τὰ φιλεύντωνἔργα κατοπτεύειν οὐ φθόνος ἀθανάτῃ.ὀλβίζεις καὶ τήνδε καὶ ἡμέας οἶδα σελήνη·καὶ γὰρ σὴν ψυχὴν ἔφλεγεν Ἐνδυμίων.[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 loseThe divine property of her first being.Such are those thick and gloomy shadows dampOft 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 sensualityTo 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 κωμάρειν. 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 careAnd caution! What has Love to doWith 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 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 careAnd caution! What has Love to doWith 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 wineBut old fantastic tales I'll armMy 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 shakeHis ægis o'er my head to-day.

I've drunk sheer madness! Not with wineBut old fantastic tales I'll armMy 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 shakeHis 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 rageBacchus 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!

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 stormUpon a false and fickle sea:One day you shine, and sunny warmAre those clear smiles you shower on me;Next day from cloudy brows you rainYour 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 barkMid winds that battle as they blow:—Then raise the flag of love or hate,That I at last may know my fate!

My love is like an April stormUpon a false and fickle sea:One day you shine, and sunny warmAre those clear smiles you shower on me;Next day from cloudy brows you rainYour 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 barkMid 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, gaveMy soul to thee;To thee soft-sandalled Love hath sent, a slave,Poor naked me:A stranger on a stranger's soil, tight-boundWith bands of steel:—I do but pray that we may once be foundFirm 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 proveHow pure my suit.Have pity, king, have pity! Fate hath willedThee god and lord:Life in thy hands and death, to break or build,For me is stored!

Yet thou dost spurn my prayers, refuse my love,Still stern and mute;Time will not melt thee, nor the deeds that proveHow pure my suit.

Have pity, king, have pity! Fate hath willedThee 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 flySo near the toils that Love had wrought?"Did I not warn you? Now the netHas tangled you, and in the stringYou vainly strive, for Love hath setAnd 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 wineOf hot and bitter tears to sip.Ah, weary soul, fordone with pain!Now in the fire you burn, and nowTake respite for a while again,Draw better breath and cool your brow!Why weep and wail? What time you firstSheltered wild Love within your breast,Did you not know the boy you nursedWould prove a false and cruel guest?Did you not know? See, now he paysThe guerdon of your fostering careWith 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!

Did I not tell you so, and cry:"Rash soul, by Venus, you'll be caught!Ah, luckless soul, why will you flySo near the toils that Love had wrought?"

Did I not warn you? Now the netHas tangled you, and in the stringYou vainly strive, for Love hath setAnd 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 wineOf hot and bitter tears to sip.

Ah, weary soul, fordone with pain!Now in the fire you burn, and nowTake respite for a while again,Draw better breath and cool your brow!

Why weep and wail? What time you firstSheltered wild Love within your breast,Did you not know the boy you nursedWould prove a false and cruel guest?

Did you not know? See, now he paysThe guerdon of your fostering careWith 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 comeThat men who love shall think of me,And reading o'er these verses seeHow 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 FatesGave me, to be Love's scrivener.

It may be in the years to comeThat men who love shall think of me,And reading o'er these verses seeHow 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 FatesGave me, to be Love's scrivener.

One large section of the Anthology remains to be considered. It contains what are called the ἐπιγράμματα ἐπιδεικτικά, 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):

γῇ μὲν ἔαρ κόσμος πολυδένδρεος, αἰθέρι δ' ἄστρα,Ἑλλάδι δ' ἥδε χθών, οἵδε δὲ τῇ πόλεϊ.[233]

The same may be said about the lines upon the vine and the goat (ii. 15; compare 20):

κἤν με φάγῃς ἐπὶ ῥίζαν ὅμως ἔτι καρποφορήσωὅσσον ἐπισπεῖσαί σοι τράγε θυομένῳ:[234]

and the following satire, so well known by the parody of Porson (ii. 325):

πάντες μὲν Κίλικες κακοὶ ἀνέρες· ἐν δὲ Κίλιξινεἷς ἀγαθὸς Κινύρης, καὶ Κινύρης δὲ Κίλιξ.[235]

Again the play of words in the last line of this next epigram (ii. 24) gives a sort of pungency to its conclusion:

ἀτθὶ κόρα μελίθρεπτε, λάλος λάλον ἁρπάξασατέττιγα πτανοῖς δαῖτα φέρεις τέκεσιν,τὸν λάλον ἁ λαλόεσσα, τὸν εὔπτερον ἁ πτερόεσσα,τὸν ξένον ἁ ξείνα, τὸν θερινὸν θερινά;κοὐχὶ τάχος ῥίψεις; οὐ γὰρ θέμις οὐδὲ δίκαιονὄλλυσθ' ὑμνοπόλους ὑμνοπόλοις στόμασιν.[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:

οἶδ' ὅτι θνατὸς ἐγὼ καὶ ἐφάμερος· ἀλλ' ὅταν ἄστρωνμαστεύω πυκινὰς ἀμφιδρόμους ἕλικας,οὐκέτ' ἐπιψαύω γαίης ποσίν, ἀλλὰ παρ' αὐτῷΖηνὶ θεοτρεφέος πίμπλαμαι ἀμβροσίης.[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):

ποίην τις βίοτοιο τάμῃ τρίβον; εἰν ἀγορῇ μὲννείκεα καὶ χαλεπαὶ πρήξιες· ἐν δὲ δόμοιςφρόντιδες· ἐν δ' ἀγροῖς καμάτων ἅλις· ἐν δὲ θαλάσσῃτάρβος· ἐπὶ ξείνης δ', ἢν μὲν ἔχῃς τι, δέος·ἢν δ' ἀπορῇς, ἀνιηρόν· ἔχεις γάμον; οὐκ ἀμέριμνος·ἔσσεαι· οὐ γαμέεις; ζῇς ἔτ' ἐρημότερος·τέκνα πόνοι, πήρωσις ἄπαις βίος· αἱ νεότητεςἄφρονες, αἱ πολιαὶ δ' ἔμπαλιν ἀδρανέες·ἦν ἄρα τοῖν δισσοῖν ἑνὸς αἵρεσις, ἢ τὸ γενέσθαιμηδέποτ' ἢ τὸ θανεῖν αὐτίκα τικτόμενον.[238]

The reverse of this picture is displayed with much felicity and geniality, but with less force, by Metrodorus (ii. 72):

παντοίην βιότοιο τάμοις τρίβον· ἐν ἀγορῇ μὲνκύδεα καὶ πινυταὶ πρήξιες· ἐν δὲ δόμοιςἄμπαυμ'· ἐν δ' ἀγροῖς φύσιος χάρις· ἐν δὲ θαλάσσῃκέρδος· ἐπὶ ξείνης, ἢν μὲν ἔχῃς τι, κλέος·ἢν δ' ἀπορῇς μόνος οἶδας· ἔχεις γάμον; οἶκος ἄριστοςἔσσεται· οὐ γαμέεις; ζῇς ἔτ' ἐλαφρότερος·τέκνα πόθος, ἄφροντις ἄπαις βίος· αἱ νεότητεςῥωμαλέαι, πολιαὶ δ' ἔμπαλιν εὐσεβέες·οὐκ ἄρα τῶν δισσῶν ἑνὸς αἵρεσις, ἢ τὸ γενέσθαιμηδέποτ' ἢ τὸ θανεῖν· πάντα γὰρ ἐσθλὰ βίῳ.[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):

ποῦ τὸ περίβλεπτον κάλλος σέο, Δωρὶ Κόρινθε;ποῦ στέφανοι πύργων, ποῦ τὰ πάλαι κτέανα,ποῦ νηοὶ μακάρων, ποῦ δώματα, ποῦ δὲ δάμαρτεςΣισύφιαι, λαῶν θ' αἱ ποτὲ μυριάδες;οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδ' ἴχνος, πολυκάμμορε, σεῖο λέλειπται,πάντα δὲ συμμάρψας ἐξέφαγεν πόλεμος·μοῦναι ἀπόρθητοι Νηρηΐδες, Ὠκεανοῖοκοῦραι, σῶν ἀχέων μίμνομεν ἁλκυόνες.[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):

πουλὺ Λεωνίδεω κατιδὼν δέμας αὐτοδάϊκτονΞέρξης ἐχλαίνου φάρεϊ πορφυρέῳ·κἠκ νεκύων δ' ἤχησεν ὁ τᾶς Σπάρτας πολὺς ἥρως·οὐ δέχομαι προδόταις μισθὸν ὀφειλόμενον·ἀσπὶς ἐμοὶ τύμβου κόσμος μέγας· αἶρε τὰ Περσῶνχἤξω κεἰς ἀΐδην ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιος.[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):

αἱ τρισσαί ποτε παῖδες ἐν ἀλλήλαισιν ἔπαιζονκλήρῳ, τίς προτέρη βήσεται εἰς ἀΐδην·καὶ τρὶς μὲν χειρῶν ἔβαλον κύβον, ἦλθε δὲ πασῶνἐς μίαν· ἡ δ' ἐγέλα κλῆρον ὀφειλόμενον·ἐκ τέγεος γὰρ ἄελπτον ἔπειτ' ὤλισθε πέσημαδύσμορος, ἐς δ' ἀΐδην ἤλυθεν, ὡς ἔλαχεν·ἀψευδὴς ὁ κλῆρος ὅτῳ κακόν· ἐς δὲ τὸ λῷονοὔτ' εὐχαὶ θνητοῖς εὔστοχοι οὔτε χέρες.[242]

Not the least beautiful are those which describe natural objects. The following six lines are devoted to an oak-tree (ii. 14):

κλῶνες ἀπῃόριοι ταναῆς δρυός, εὔσκιον ὕψοςἀνδράσιν ἄκρητον καῦμα φυλασσομένοις,εὐπέταλοι, κεράμων στεγανώτεροι, οἰκία φαττῶν,οἰκία τεττίγων, ἔνδιοι ἀκρεμόνες,κἠμὲ τὸν ὑμετέραισιν ὑποκλινθέντα κόμαισινῥύσασθ', ἀκτίνων ἡελίου φυγάδα.[243]

Here again is a rustic retreat for lovers, beneath the spreading branches of a plane (ii. 43):

ἁ χλοερὰ πλατάνιστος ἴδ' ὡς ἔκρυψε φιλεύντωνὄργια, τὰν ἱερὰν φυλλάδα τεινομένα·ἀμφὶ δ' ἄρ' ἀκρεμόνεσσιν ἑοῖς κεχαρισμένος ὥραιςἡμερίδος λαρῆς βότρυς ἀποκρέμαται·οὕτως, ὦ πλατάνιστε, φύοις· χλοερὰ δ' ἀπὸ σεῖοφυλλὰς ἀεὶ κεύθοι τοὺς Παφίης ὀάρους.[244]

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

ὑψίκομον παρὰ τάνδε καθίζεο φωνήεσσανφρίσσουσαν πυκινοῖς κῶνον ὑπὸ Ζεφύροις,καί σοι καχλάζουσιν ἐμοῖς παρὰ νάμασι σύριγξθελγομένων ἄξει κῶμα κατὰ βλεφάρων.[245]

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

ὦνερ τὰν βαλάνων τὰν ματέρα φείδεο κόπτειν,φείδεο· γηραλέαν δ' ἐκκεράϊζε πίτυν,ἢ πεύκαν, ἢ τάνδε πολυστέλεχον παλίουρον,ἢ πρῖνον, ἢ τὰν αὐαλέαν κόμαρον·τηλόθι δ' ἴσχε δρυὸς πελέκυν· κοκύαι γὰρ ἔλεξανἁμῖν ὡς πρότεραι ματέρες ἐντὶ δρύες.[246]

Among the epigrams which seem to have been composed in the same spirit as those exquisite littlecapricciengraved 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 charmingnaïvetés. Everybody knows the pretty story Socrates tells about these Μουσῶν προφῆται, or Prophets of the Muses, in thePhædrus—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):

τίπτε με τὸν φιλέρημον ἀναιδέϊ ποιμένες ἄγρῃτέττιγα δροσερῶν ἕλκετ' ἀπ' ἀκρεμόνων,τὴν Νυμφῶν παροδῖτιν ἀηδόνα, κἤματι μέσσῳοὔρεσι καὶ σκιεραῖς ξουθὰ λαλεῦντα νάπαις;ἠνίδε καὶ κίχλην καὶ κόσσυφον, ἠνίδε τόσσουςψᾶρας, ἀρουραίης ἅρπαγας εὐπορίης·καρπῶν δηλητῆρας ἐλεῖν θέμις· ὄλλυτ' ἐκείνους·φύλλων καὶ χλοερῆς τὶς φθόνος ἐστὶ δρόσου;[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):

Εὔνομον, ὤπολλον, σὺ μὲν οἶσθά με, πῶς ποτ' ἐνίκωνΣπάρτιν ὁ Λοκρὸς ἐγώ· πευθομένοις δ' ἐνέπω.αἰόλον ἐν κιθάρᾳ νόμον ἔκρεκον, ἐν δὲ μεσεύσᾳᾠδᾷ μοι χορδὰν πλᾶκτρον ἀπεκρέμασεν·καί μοι φθόγγον ἑτοῖμον ὁπανίκα καιρὸς ἀπῄτει,εἰς ἀκοὰς ῥυθμῶν τὠτρεκὲς οὐκ ἔνεμεν·καί τις ἀπ' αὐτομάτω κιθάρας ἐπὶ πῆχυν ἐπιπτὰςτέττιξ ἐπλήρου τοὐλλιπὲς ἁρμονίας·νεῦρα γὰρ ἓξ ἐτίνασσον· ὅθ' ἑβδομάτας δὲ μελοίμανχορδᾶς, τὰν τούτω γῆρυν ἐκιχράμεθα·πρὸς γὰρ ἐμὰν μελέταν ὁ μεσαμβρινὸς οὔρεσιν ᾠδὸςτῆνο τὸ ποιμενικὸν φθέγμα μεθηρμόσατο,καὶ μὲν ὅτε φθέγγοιτο, σὺν ἀψύχοις τόκα νευραῖςτῷ μεταβαλλομένῳ συμμετέπιπτε θρόῳ·τοὔνεκα συμφώνῳ μὲν ἔχω χάριν· ὃς δὲ τυπωθεὶςχάλκεος ἁμετέρας ἕζεθ' ὑπὲρ κιθάρας.[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 Phœbus 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):

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