Unj. A. D'ye see now, how absurd and utterly worthless

Your arguments have been?. And now look round

(turning to the audience)

Which class amongst our friends here seems most numerous?

Just A. I'm looking.

Unj. A.

Well, now tell me what you see.

Just A. (after gravely and attentively examining the rows of spectators) The blackguards have it, by a large majority.

There's one, I know-and yonder there's another

And there, again, that fellow with long hair.

Of course such buffoonery would bring down the house. The Just Argument throws up the case. The son is now crammed for his contest with the father's creditors. He easily beats them all out of court. But the father's delight is seriously modified when his son makes an unexpected use of his new accomplishment. The hopeful youth thrashes his own father, and proceeds with easy volubility to justify himself in the act. The aggrieved parent seeks his revenge on Socrates and the Clouds. Taking with him his slaves, he carries the torch to the "thinking-shop." The incendiary old gentleman, perched on his ladder, to the students asking him what he is about there, replies:

Holding a subtle disputation with the rafters.

And Socrates himself, at length aroused by the noise, is, with a retort turned upon himself of his own explanation as to his situation in the hanging-basket, told by the sarcastic father: I walk in air and contemplate the sun.

Aristophanes is eminently an author to be studied less for delight than for melancholy instruction on the state of morals and of manners prevalent in the most polished nation of the ancient pagan world.

XI.

PINDAR (SAPPHO, SIMONIDES).

HOMER is not more unquestionably first in fame among the epic poets of antiquity than among ancient lyric poets is Pindar.

Pindar was of Thebes in Boeotia, a country celebrated in proverb for the mental dullness of its inhabitants. This poet may fairly be judged to take away that reproach. He flourished during perhaps three quarters of a century, from about 522 B. C. He was of aristocratic blood, and he was aristocratic in feeling. Little is known of his life. There is a tradition, which one likes to believe trustworthy, that he had a Theban countrywoman, Co-rin'na, who fairly beat him in a poetical contest waged between the two when he was young. Afterward, so the legend goes on, he brought her a poem of his, sown thick with Theban mythology. She had herself advised this resource to the ambitious young poet; but, “You should sow with the hand, not with the sack," was her criticism on his over-profusion. Tennyson alludes in The Princess to "fair Corinna's triumph."

Pindar was the most fortunate of poets. Popular everywhere, he was also the pet of noblemen and princes. His poetry was all occasional, that is, written for occasions, and it was written to order for hire. The most of what remains consists of triumphal odes celebrating victories won in the great national games of Greece.

Pindar had the audacity of genius. He shrank from nothing arduous or dangerous that tempted him. He soaredbut it was not with the wing of Ic'a-rus-into the region of the sun. His figures are bold to the verge of the inconceivable. This makes him a very difficult writer to translate. The English poet, Cowley, who made some odes that he called

Pindaric, said, about doing Pindar into English, that, to render him literally, would make the public cry out, It is one madman translating another.

Let us begin with a sample of Pindar's dithyrambics. These constitute a wild, stormy, tumultuous metre, in which we have only fragments remaining from the lyre of Pindar. Mr. H. N. Coleridge, nephew of Samuel Taylor Coleridge the poet, shall here be our translator. The fragment translated is an almost presumptuous ode of address to the Olympian divinities, inviting them to descend to the worship of

men:

Down to our dance, gods!
Come down from Olympus-
Hither descend!

Glory o'er Athens and joyance bestowing,

O light, as ye wont, in the forum o'erflowing,

Where the crowds, and the chorus, and sacrifice blend!
Lo, they come! Now the violet-coronals bring,

And pure honey dew-drops

Fresh gather'd in spring.

See me advancing

Under Jove's guidance

Singing divine !—

'Tis the ivy-clad Boy!-God Bromius we name him;
With a cry and a shout Eriboas we claim him!
O! begotten of mother of old Cadmus' line
In the mighty embrace of omnipotent sire—
I come from afar off

To lead thy bright quire!

For the new palm-bud

Caught glance from the prophet

Of Nemea's strand;

When the nectarous plants felt the spring-tide sweet-smelling,
What time the young hours oped the ports of their dwelling!
Now the violet blooms are chance-flung on the land,

And the rose and the rose-leaf are wreath'd in the hair,

And voices and pipings

Ring loud in the air!

We next give, using Cary's version, Pindar's celebrated hymn to the Graces. A "soft Lydian air" the poem is:

O ye, ordained by lot to dwell
Where Cephisian waters well;
And hold your fair retreat

'Mid herd of coursers beautiful and fleet,
Renowned queens, that take your rest
In Orchomenus the blest,
Guarding with ever-wakeful eye
The Minyans' high-born progeny ;—
To you my votive strains belong :
List, Graces, to your suppliant's song!
For all delightful things below,
All sweet, to you their being owe;
And at your hand their blessings share
The wise, the splendid, and the fair.

Nor without the holy Graces,
The gods, in those supernal places,
Their dances or their banquets rule:
Dispensers they of all above,

Throughout the glorious court of Jove;
Where each has placed her sacred stool
By the golden-bow'd Apollo,

Whom in his harpings clear they follow;
And the high majestic state

Of their eternal Father venerate.

Daughters of heaven ;-Aglaia, thou,
Darting splendors from thy brow;
With musical Euphrosyne,—
Be present. Nor less call I thee,
Tuneful Thalia, to look down
On the joyous rout, and own
Me their bard, who lead along,
For Asopichus the throng
Tripping light to Lydian song;
And Minya for thy sake proclaim
Conqueress in the Olympic game.

Waft, Echo, now thy wing divine
To the black dome of Proserpine;

And marking Cleodamus there,
Tell the glad tidings;-how his son,

For him, hath crown'd his youthful hair
With plumes in Pisa's valley won.

With the dallying, long-lingering spirit of the foregoing strain, is sharply contrasted the swift sweep of the following lyric description of Bel-ler'o-phon's adventure with the celestial winged steed Peg'a-sus. This passage occurs in the course of a triumphal ode. Pindar's habitual method was to associate some suitable bit of mythology with his subject. In this way he secured variety of material for his various occasions. In the present case silence concerning the final fate of Bellerophon was dictated to the poet by his object. We use Cary again as translator:

Straight to the wingèd steed rushed on,
With sturdy step, Bellerophon;

And seizing, to his cheek applied
The charm that sooth'd his swelling pride.
Them soon the azure depths enfold

Of ether waste and cold;

Whence leveling his aim,

The Amazonian crew,

And Chimæra breathing flame,

And the Solymi he slew.

His final doom in silence past

Shall be by me conceal'd.

The ancient stalls of Jove at last

The courser, in Olympus, held.

The first Pythian ode is one of the series inscribed to Pindar's royal patron, Hi'e-ro of Syracuse, who had condescended to be a victor in a chariot-race. But in truth to contend in the Pythian games was rather a presumption than a condescension, even on the part of a king. It is impossible to exaggerate the enthusiasm with which the games of Greece were resorted to by competitors and spectators. To be crowned conqueror in one of the contests, not only was