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):
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):
The third celebrates the Aphrodite of Praxiteles in Cnidos, whose garden has been so elegantly described by Lucian (ii. 560):
The fourth is composed with much artifice of style upon a statue of Love bound by his arms to a pillar (ii. 567):
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 ἀδέσποτον—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.
[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.
John Sterling.
There is no very good translation of this couplet. The difficulty lies in the word ῥήμασι. Is this equivalent to ῥήτραις, as Cicero, who renders it by legibus, seems to think? Or is it the same as orders?
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Shelley.
Elton.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
W. Cowper.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
T. Moore.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Francis Hodgson.
And—
Shelley.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Burgess.
W. Shepherd.
Edward Stokes.
[206] See Fitzgerald's faultless translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published by Quaritch.
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 Phœnician, Naidios! if a Hellene, Hail!
Goldwin Smith.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
[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 οὐρεσίφοιτα—roaming like nymphs along the hills, now single and now gathered into companies, as though their own sweet will had led them wandering.
Frederick Farrar.
Shelley.
[230] Comus, 463, etc.
[232] A certain Cyril gives this as his definition of a good epigram (ii. 75; compare No. 342 on p. 69):
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.
Merivale.
Porson.
W. Cowper.
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:
Sir John Beaumont.
Goldwin Smith.
J. A. Symonds. M.D.
Goldwin Smith.
W. Shepherd.
J. A. Symonds, M.D.
Merivale.
Wrangham.
J. H. Merivale.