Part 38

As the epic impulse faded, and before Greek genius for tragedy rose, the same race and dialect which had given epic narrative the proud, full verse that filled like a sail to zephyr and to storm alike, devised the elegiac couplet. With its opening even flow, its swifter rush in the second line, and its abrupt pause, it was a medium in which not narrative but man spoke, whether personal in passion, or impersonal in the dedication of a statue, or in epitaph. This verse had conventions as rigorous and restrained as the sonnet, and was briefer. It served as well for the epitaph of Thermopylae as for the cradle-bier of a child, dead new-born; and lent itself as gracefully to the gift of a bunch of roses as it swelled with some sonorous blast of patriotism. It could sharpen to a gibe, or sink to a wail at untoward fate. Through a period twice as long as the life of English letters, these short poems set forth the vision of life, the ways and works of men, the love and death of mortals. These lines of weight, of moment, always of grace and often of inspiration, stood on milestones; they graced the base of statues; they were inscribed on tombs; they stood over doorways; they were painted on vases. The rustic shrines held them, and on the front of the great temple they were borne. In this form, friend wrote to friend and lover to lover. Four or five of the best express the emotion of the passing Greek traveler at the statue of Memnon on the Nile. The quality of verse that fills the inn album to-day we all know; but Greek life was so compact of form and thought that even this unknown traveler's verse, scrawled with a stylus, still thrills, still rings, as the statue still sounds its ancient note.

In this long succession of short poems is delineated the Greek character, not of Athens but of the whole circle of the Mediterranean. The sphered life of the race is in its subjects. Each great Greek victory has its epigrams. In them, statues have an immortal life denied to marble and to bronze. The critical admiration of the Hellene for his great men of letters stands recorded here; his early love for the heroes of his brief-lived freedom, and his sedulous flattery of the Roman lords of his slavery. Here too is his domestic life, its joy and its sorrow. In this epigram, the maid dedicates her dolls to Artemis; and in that, the mother, mother and priestess both, lays down a life overflowing in good deeds and fruited with honorable offspring. The splendid side of Greek life is painted elsewhere. Here is its homely simplicity. The fisher again spreads his nets and the sailor his peaked lateen sail. The hunter sets his snares and tracks his game in the light snow. The caged partridge stretches its weary wings in its cage, and the cat has for it a modern appetite. Men gibe and jest. They see how hollow life is, and also how truth rings true. Love is here, sacred and revered, in forms pure and holy; and not less, that foul pool decked with beauty in which Greek manhood lost its masculine virtue.

Half a century before Christ, when Greek life overspread the eastern Mediterranean, and in every market-place Greek was the tongue of trade, of learning, and of gentle breeding, Greek letters grew conscious of its own riches. For six centuries and more, or as long as separates us from Chaucer, men had been writing these brief epigrams. The first had the brevity of Simonides, the next Alexandrian luxuriance. Many were carved by those who wrote much; more by those who composed but two or three. In Syrian Gadara there dwelt a Greek, Meleager, whose poetry is the very flower of fervent Greek verse. Yet so near did he live to the great change which was to overturn the gods he loved, and substitute morality for beauty as the mainspring of life, that some who knew him must also, a brief span of years later, have known Jesus the Christ. Meleager was the first who gathered Greek epigrams in an Anthology, prefacing it with such apt critical utterance as has been the despair of all critics called since to weigh verse in ruder scales and with a poise less perfect. He had the wide round of the best of Greek to pick from, and he chose with unerring taste. To his collection Philippus of Thessalonica, working when Paul was preaching in Jason's house, added the work of the Roman period, the fourth development of the epigram. Other collections between have perished, one in the third or Byzantine period, in which this verse had a renaissance under Justinian. In the tenth century a Byzantine scholar, Constantinos Cephalas, rearranged his predecessors' collections,--Meleager's included,--and brought together the largest number which has come down to us. The collection is known to-day as the 'Palatine Anthology,' from the library which long owned it. His work was in the last flare of life in the Lower Empire, when Greek heroism, for the last time, stemmed the Moslem tide and gave Eastern Europe breathing-space. When his successor Maximus Planudes, of the century of Petrarch,--monk, diplomat, theologian, and phrase-maker,--addressed himself to the last collection made, the shadow of new Italy lay over Greek life, and the Galilean had recast the minds of men. He excluded much that Greeks, from Meleager to Cephalas, had freely admitted, and which modern lovers of the Anthology would be willing to see left out of all copies but their own. The collection of Planudes long remained alone known (first edition Florence, 1594). That of Cephalas survived in a single manuscript of varied fortune, seen in 1606 by Salmasius at eighteen,--happy boy, and happy manuscript!--lost to learning for a century and a half in the Vatican, published by Brunck, 1776, and finally edited by Frederic Jacobs, 1794-1803, five volumes of text and three of comment, usually bound in eight. The text has been republished by Tauchnitz, and the whole work has its most convenient and familiar form for scholars in the edition of both the collections of Planudes and Cephalas, with epigrams from all other sources prepared by Frederic Duebner for Didot's 'Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum,' 1864-1872, three volumes. The Anthology as a whole has no adequate English translation. About one-third of the poems have a prose translation by George Burges in the 'Greek Anthology,' 1832, of Bohn's series, with versions in verse by many hands.

The first English translation of selections appeared anonymously, 1791. Others have succeeded: Robert Bland and John Herman Merivale, 1806; Robert Bland, 1813; Richard Garnett, 1864; Sir Edwin Arnold, 1869; John Addington Symonds, 1873; J.W. Mackail, 1890; Lilla Cabot Perry, 1891. A collection of selected translations edited by Graham R. Tomson was published in 1889. Of these partial versions, the only one which approaches the incommunicable charm of the original is Mr. Mackail's, an incomparable translation. His versions are freely used in the selections which follow. All the metrical versions, except those by Mrs. Perry, are from Miss Tomson's collection. But no translation equals the sanity, the brevity, the clarity of the Greek original, qualities which have made these epigrams consummate models of style to the modern world. In all the round of literature, the only exact analogue of the Greek epigram is the Japanese "ode," with its thirty syllables, its single idea, and its constant use of all classes as an universal medium of familiar poetic expression. Of like nature, used alike for epigraph, epitaph, and familiar personal expression, is the rhymed Arabic Makotta, brief poems written in one form for eighteen hundred years, and still written.

[Signature: TALCOTT WILLIAMS]

ON THE ATHENIAN DEAD AT PLATAEA

SIMONIDES (556-467 B.C.)

If to die nobly is the chief part of excellence, to us out of all men Fortune gave this lot; for hastening to set a crown of freedom on Greece, we lie possessed of praise that grows not old.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

ON THE LACEDAEMONIAN DEAD AT PLATAEA

SIMONIDES

These men, having set a crown of imperishable glory on their own land, were folded in the dark clouds of death; yet being dead they have not died, since from on high their excellence raises them gloriously out of the house of Hades.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

ON A SLEEPING SATYR

PLATO (429-347 B. C.)

This satyr Diodorus engraved not, but laid to rest; your touch will wake him; the silver is asleep.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

A POET'S EPITAPH

SIMMIAS OF THEBES (405 B.C.)

Quietly, o'er the tomb of Sophocles, Quietly, ivy, creep with tendrils green; And roses, ope your petals everywhere, While dewy shoots of grape-vine peep between, Upon the wise and honeyed poet's grave, Whom Muse and Grace their richest treasures gave.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

WORSHIP IN SPRING

THEAETETUS (Fourth Century B. C.)

Now at her fruitful birth-tide the fair green field flowers out in blowing roses; now on the boughs of the colonnaded cypresses the cicala, mad with music, lulls the binder of sheaves; and the careful mother swallow, having finished houses under the eaves, gives harborage to her brood in the mud-plastered cells; and the sea slumbers, with zephyr-wooing calm spread clear over the broad ship-tracks, not breaking in squalls on the stemposts, not vomiting foam upon the beaches. O sailor, burn by the altars the glittering round of a mullet, or a cuttle-fish, or a vocal scarus, to Priapus, ruler of ocean and giver of anchorage; and so go fearlessly on thy seafaring to the bounds of the Ionian Sea.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

SPRING ON THE COAST

LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM (Third Century B. C.)

Now is the season of sailing; for already the chattering swallow is come, and the gracious west wind; the meadows flower, and the sea, tossed up with waves and rough blasts, has sunk to silence. Weigh thine anchors and unloose thine hawsers, O mariner, and sail with all thy canvas set: this I, Priapus of the harbor, bid thee, O man, that thou mayest set forth to all thy trafficking.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

A YOUNG HERO'S EPITAPH.

DIOSCORIDES (Third Century B. C.)

Home to Petana comes Thrasybulus lifeless on his shield, seven Argive wounds before. His bleeding boy the father Tynnichos lays on the pyre, to say:--"Let your wounds weep. Tearless I bury you, my boy--mine and my country's."

Translation of Talcott Williams.

LOVE

POSIDIPPUS (Third Century B. C.)

Jar of Athens, drip the dewy juice of wine, drip, let the feast to which all bring their share be wetted as with dew; be silenced the swan-sage Zeno, and the Muse of Cleanthes, and let bitter-sweet Love be our concern.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

SORROW'S BARREN GRAVE

HERACLEITUS (Third Century B. C.)

Keep off, keep off thy hand, O husbandman, Nor through this grave's calm dust thy plowshare drive; These very sods have once been mourned upon, And on such ground no crop will ever thrive, Nor corn spring up with green and feathery ears, From earth that has been watered by such tears.

Translation of Alma Strettell.

TO A COY MAIDEN

ASCLEPIADES (286 B.C.)

Believe me love, it is not good To hoard a mortal maidenhood; In Hades thou wilt never find, Maiden, a lover to thy mind; Love's for the living! presently Ashes and dust in death are we!

Translation of Andrew Lang.

THE EMPTIED QUIVER

MNESALCUS (Second Century B.C.)

This bending bow and emptied quiver, Promachus hangs as a gift to thee, Phoebus. The swift shafts men's hearts hold, whom they called to death in the battle's rout.

Translation of Talcott Williams.

THE TALE OF TROY

ALPHEUS (First Century B.C.)

Still we hear the wail of Andromache, still we see all Troy toppling from her foundations, and the battling Ajax, and Hector, bound to the horses, dragged under the city's crown of towers,--through the Muse of Maeonides, the poet with whom no one country adorns herself as her own, but the zones of both worlds.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

HEAVEN HATH ITS STARS

MARCUS ARGENTARIUS (First Century B.C.)

Feasting, I watch with westward-looking eye The flashing constellations' pageantry, Solemn and splendid; then anon I wreathe My hair, and warbling to my harp I breathe My full heart forth, and know the heavens look down Pleased, for they also have their Lyre and Crown.

Translation of Richard Garnett.

PAN OF THE SEA-CLIFF

ARCHIAS (First Century B.C.)

Me, Pan, the fishermen placed upon this holy cliff,--Pan of the sea-shore, the watcher here over the fair anchorages of the harbor: and I take care now of the baskets and again of the trawlers off this shore. But sail thou by, O stranger, and in requital of this good service of theirs I will send behind thee a gentle south wind.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

ANACREON'S GRAVE

ANTIPATER OF SIDON (First Century B.C.)

O stranger who passeth by the humble tomb of Anacreon, if thou hast had aught of good from my books, pour libation on my ashes, pour libation of the jocund grape, that my bones may rejoice, wetted with wine; so I, who was ever deep in the wine-steeped revels of Dionysus, I who was bred among drinking-tunes, shall not even when dead endure without Bacchus this place to which the generation of mortals must come.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

REST AT NOON

MELEAGER (First Century B.C.)

Voiceful cricket, drunken with drops of dew, thou playest thy rustic music that murmurs in the solitude, and perched on the leaf edges shrillest thy lyre-tune with serrated legs and swart skin. But, my dear, utter a new song for the tree-nymphs' delight, and make thy harp-notes echo to Pan's, that escaping Love I may seek out sleep at noon, here, lying under the shady plane.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

"IN THE SPRING A YOUNG MAN'S FANCY"

MELEAGER

Now the white iris blossoms, and the rain-loving narcissus, And now again the lily, the mountain-roaming, blows. Now too, the flower of lovers, the crown of all the springtime, Zenophila the winsome, doth blossom with the rose. O meadows, wherefore vainly in your radiant garlands laugh ye? Since fairer is the maiden than any flower that grows!

Translation of Alma Strettell.

MELEAGER'S OWN EPITAPH

MELEAGER

Tread softly, O stranger; for here an old man sleeps among the holy dead, lulled in the slumber due to all; Meleager son of Eucrates, who united Love of the sweet tears and the Muses with the joyous Graces; whom god-begotten Tyre brought to manhood, and the sacred land of Gadara, but lovely Cos nursed in old age among the Meropes. But if thou art a Syrian, say "Salam," and if a Phoenician, "Naidios," and if a Greek, "Hail": they are the same.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

EPILOGUE

PHILODEMUS (60 B.C.)

I was in love once; who has not been? I have reveled; who is uninitiated in revels? Nay, I was mad; at whose prompting but a god's? Let them go; for now the silver hair is fast replacing the black, a messenger of wisdom that comes with age. We too played when the time of playing was; and now that it is no longer, we will turn to worthier thoughts.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

DOCTOR AND DIVINITY

NICARCHUS

Marcus the doctor called yesterday on the marble Zeus; though marble, and though Zeus, his funeral is to-day.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

LOVE'S IMMORTALITY

STRATO (First Century A.D.)

Who may know if a loved one passes the prime, while ever with him and never left alone? Who may not satisfy to-day who satisfied yesterday? and if he satisfy, what should befall him not to satisfy to-morrow?

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

AS THE FLOWERS OF THE FIELD

STRATO

If thou boast in thy beauty, know that the rose too blooms, but quickly being withered, is cast on the dunghill; for blossom and beauty have the same time allotted to them, and both together envious time withers away.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

SUMMER SAILING

ANTIPHILUS (First Century A.D.)

Mine be a mattress on the poop, and the awnings over it, sounding with the blows of the spray, and the fire forcing its way out of the hearthstones, and a pot upon them with empty turmoil of bubbles; and let me see the boy dressing the meat, and my table be a ship's plank covered with a cloth; and a game of pitch-and-toss, and the boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I love common life.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE GREAT MYSTERIES

CRINAGORAS (First Century A.D.)

Though thy life be fixed in one seat, and thou sailest not the sea nor treadest the roads on dry land, yet by all means go to Attica, that thou mayest see those great nights of the worship of Demeter; whereby thou shalt possess thy soul without care among the living, and lighter when thou must go to the place that awaiteth all.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

TO PRIAPUS OF THE SHORE

MAECIUS (Roman period)

Priapus of the sea-shore, the trawlers lay before thee these gifts by the grace of thine aid from the promontory, having imprisoned a tunny shoal in their nets of spun hemp in the green sea entrances: a beechen cup, and a rude stool of heath, and a glass cup holding wine, that thou mayest rest thy foot, weary and cramped with dancing, while thou chasest away the dry thirst.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE COMMON LOT

AMMIANUS (Second Century A.D.)

Though thou pass beyond thy landmarks even to the pillars of Heracles, the share of earth that is equal to all men awaits thee, and thou shalt lie even as Irus, having nothing more than thine obelus moldering into a land that at last is not thine.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

"TO-MORROW, AND TO-MORROW"

MACEDONIUS (Third Century A.D.)

"To-morrow I will look on thee,"--but that never comes for us, while the accustomed putting-off ever grows and grows. This is all thy grace to my longing; and to others thou bearest other gifts, despising my faithful service. "I will see thee at evening." And what is the evening of a woman's life?--old age, full of a million wrinkles.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE PALACE GARDEN

ARABIUS (527-567 A.D.)

I am filled with waters, and gardens, and groves, and vineyards, and the joyousness of the bordering sea; and fisherman and farmer from different sides stretch forth to me the pleasant gifts of sea and land: and them who abide in me, either a bird singing or the sweet cry of the ferrymen lulls to rest.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE YOUNG WIFE

JULIANUS AEGYPTIUS (532 A.D.)

In season the bride-chamber held thee, out of season the grave took thee, O Anastasia, flower of the blithe Graces; for thee a father, for thee a husband pours bitter tears; for thee haply even the ferryman of the dead weeps; for not a whole year didst thou accomplish beside thine husband, but at sixteen years old, alas! the tomb holds thee.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

A NAMELESS GRAVE

PAULUS SILENTIARIUS

My name, my country, what are they to thee? What, whether proud or bare 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 knowest its use. It hides--no matter whom.

Translation of William Cowper.

RESIGNATION

JOANNES BARBUCALLUS (Sixth Century A.D.)

Gazing upon my husband as my last thread was spun, I praised the gods of death, and I praised the gods of marriage,--those, that I left my husband alive, and these, that he was even such an one; but may he remain, a father for our children.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE HOUSE OF THE RIGHTEOUS

MACEDONIUS (Sixth Century A.D.)

Righteousness has raised this house from the first foundation even to the lofty roof; for Macedonius fashioned not his wealth by heaping up from the possessions of others with plundering sword, nor has any poor man here wept over his vain and profitless toil, being robbed of his most just hire; and as rest from labor is kept inviolate by the just man, so let the works of pious mortals endure.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

LOVE'S FERRIAGE

AGATHIAS (527-565 A.D.)

Since she was watched and could not kiss me closely, Divine Rhodanthe cast her maiden zone From off her waist, and holding it thus loosely By the one end, she put a kiss thereon; Then I--Love's stream as through a channel taking-- My lips upon the other end did press And drew the kisses in, while ceaseless making, Thus from afar, reply to her caress. So the sweet girdle did beguile our pain, Being a ferry for our kisses twain.

Translation of Alma Strettell.

[The following are undetermined in date.]

ON A FOWLER

ISIDORUS

With reeds and bird-lime from the desert air Eumelus gathered free though scanty fare. No lordly patron's hand he deign'd to kiss, Nor luxury knew, save liberty, nor bliss. Thrice thirty years he lived, and to his heirs His reeds bequeathed, his bird-lime, and his snares.

Translation of William Cowper.

YOUTH AND RICHES

ANONYMOUS

I was young, but poor; now in old age I am rich: alas, alone of all men pitiable in both, who then could enjoy when I had nothing, and now have when I cannot enjoy.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE SINGING REED

ANONYMOUS

I the reed was a useless plant; for out of me grow not figs, nor apple, nor grape cluster: but man consecrated me a daughter of Helicon, piercing my delicate lips and making me the channel of a narrow stream; and thenceforth whenever I sip black drink, like one inspired I speak all words with this voiceless mouth.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

FIRST LOVE AGAIN REMEMBERED

ANONYMOUS

While yet the grapes were green thou didst refuse me; When they were ripe, didst proudly pass me by: But do not grudge me still a single cluster, Now that the grapes are withering and dry.

Translation of Alma Strettell.

SLAVE AND PHILOSOPHER

ANONYMOUS

I Epictetus was a slave while here, Deformed in body, and like Irus poor, Yet to the gods immortal I was dear.

Translation of Lilla Cabot Perry, by permission of the American Publishers' Corporation.

GOOD-BY TO CHILDHOOD

ANONYMOUS

Her tambourines and pretty ball, and the net that confined her hair, and her dolls and dolls' dresses, Timareta dedicates before her marriage to Artemis of Limnae,--a maiden to a maiden, as is fit; do thou, daughter of Leto, laying thine hand over the girl Timareta, preserve her purely in her purity.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

WISHING

ANONYMOUS

It's oh! to be a wild wind, when my lady's in the sun: She'd just unbind her neckerchief, and take me breathing in.

It's oh! to be a red rose, just a faintly blushing one, So she'd pull me with her hand, and to her snowy breast I'd win.

Translation of William M. Hardinge.

HOPE AND EXPERIENCE

ANONYMOUS

Whoso has married once and seeks a second wedding, is a shipwrecked man who sails twice through a difficult gulf.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE SERVICE OF GOD

ANONYMOUS

Me, Chelidon, priestess of Zeus, who knew well in old age how to make offering on the altars of the immortals, happy in my children, free from grief, the tomb holds; for with no shadow in their eyes the gods saw my piety.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE PURE IN HEART

ANONYMOUS

He who enters the incense-filled temple must be holy; and holiness is to have a pure mind.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

THE WATER OF PURITY

ANONYMOUS

Hallowed in soul, O stranger, come even into the precinct of a pure god, touching thyself with the virgin water: for the good a few drops are set; but a wicked man the whole ocean cannot wash in its waters.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

ROSE AND THORN

ANONYMOUS

The rose is at her prime a little while; which once past, thou wilt find when thou seekest, no rose, but a thorn.

Translation of J.W. Mackail.

A LIFE'S WANDERING

ANONYMOUS

Know ye the flowery fields of the Cappadocian nation? Thence I was born of good parents: since I left them I have wandered to the sunset and the dawn; my name was Glaphyrus, and like my mind. I lived out my sixtieth year in perfect freedom; I know both the favor of fortune and the bitterness of life.