(which I have generally framed upon the editor's) inevitably miss the charm of the originals, transferred thus into blank English from "that language," to quote Mr. Mackail's expression,1 "which is to all other languages as a gem to an ordinary "pebble." To Leonidas of Tarentum in the third century B.C. belongs. this picture of a roadside pool— Drink not here, traveller, of this tepid water, which the sheep at pasture have filled with mud; passing but a little way over the ridge where heifers graze, there by that shepherds' stonepine thou wilt find babbling through the oozing rock a spring colder than northern snow.2 About 50 B.C. Antiphilus, after the fashion of the excellent landscapist Crome, in his favourite scenes from Norfolk, drew this oak-grove High-hung boughs of the tall oak, shadowy height over those who shelter from the sheer heat, leaves roofing us closer than tiles, dwellings of the wood-pigeon and the cricket, Ο sprays at noontide save me too as I lie beneath your leafage, me a fugitive from the sun.3 If both of our beautiful vignettes seem to end in the moral of human comfort, I do not read in this the want of 1 Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, with revised text and translation (Longmans, 1890). To this beautiful work I am here very greatly Let all get it, who have the noble ambition integros accedere fontes. indebted. 2 Μὴ σύ γε ποιονόμοιο περίπλυον ιλύος ὧδε ἀλλὰ μολὼν μάλα τυτθὸν ὑπὲρ δαμαλήβοτον ἄκραν εὑρήσεις κελαρύζον ἐυκρήνου διὰ πέτρης ναμα Βορεαίης ψυχρότερον νιφάδος. * Κλῶνες ἀπηόριοι ταναῆς δρυός, εὔσκιον ὕψος VI, iii. εὐπέταλοι, κεράμων στεγανώτεροι, οἰκία φαττῶν, κἠμὲ τὸν ὑμετέραισιν ὑποκλινθέντα κόμαισιν ῥύσασθ ̓ ἀκτίνων γελίου φυγάδα. VI, xvii. due feeling for Nature; it is, rather, the exigence under which the epigram lies to bind itself together by a leading image. These pictures might be named realistic. An epigram, ascribed to Plato, and worthy of his genius, is an example of that mythological treatment of the Divine in nature which pervaded Greek poetry even long into Christian times. Let the shaggy cliff of the Dryads be silent, and the springs of the rock, and the many-mingled bleating of the ewes: for Pan himself now sounds his musical pipe, running his supple lips over the joined reeds; and around with active feet the nymphs of the water and the nymphs of the oakwood have formed their dance.1 We have seen the sea-view also translated into mythology as far back as Hesiod, and we may trace it to Cometas in the ninth century of our era. By that time Pan and the like can have been hardly more than figures of speech; yet, even so, they carried on the continuity of Hellenic life and literature; their recurrence may have even been an unconscious impulse of that desire to combine what was truly religious in the old Pagan thought with Christianity, or at least to recognise its existence, which long inspired many of the greatest Eastern theologians, onward from St. Paul's discourse on the Areopagus with his emphatic quotation from the poetry of Aratus or Cleanthes. But, indeed, what God and Nymph and Faun exactly expressed to earlier Pagan Hellas, when introduced in landscape description, we cannot, I think, more than partially grasp. One thing only we may hold as certain that the poets looked on Nature with eyes keenly alive to all her beauty, and that their sense of this found expression and was deepened through such religious references. 1 Σιγάτω λάσιον Δρυάδων λέπας, οἵ τ ̓ ἀπὸ πέτρας VI, viii. It seems, however, to me highly probable that, despite the elegance and charm of these personifications-even now, indeed, far from exhausted, and, whilst true culture in education survives, inexhaustible—yet Greek poetry was at times hampered and conventionalised by its mythology; the clear view of Nature as she is restricted; a monotony thrown over the landscape. And the epigrammatic form, we might add, lent itself easily to this mode of treatment, and hence to these results. By Meleager of the Syrian Gadara, living 100 B.C., the most richly inventive and vivid colourist (the word truly renders his half-Oriental style) among these fascinating singers, I give a little floral love-song of much grace and tenderness Now blooms the white violet, now the shower-loving narcissus, now the lilies that wander over the hills; and now, a springflower herself among the flowers, the darling Zenophilé, that sweet tempting rose, has blossomed. Meadows, why laugh vainly in your shining foliage? Better than sweet breathing garlands is my maiden.1 Hear now an invitation to the woods— Come and sit under my stone-pine, sounding sweet as honey as it bends to the soft western breeze; and lo! here is the honeydropping fountain, where I bring sweet slumber, playing on my lonely reeds.2 Lastly, Moero of Byzantium (third century B.C.), in one of 1 Ηδη λευκόιον θάλλει, θάλλει δὲ φίλομβρος ἤδη δ' ἡ φιλέραστος, ἐν ἄνθεσιν ὥριμον ἄνθος, 2 Ερχεο καὶ κατ' ἐμὰν ἕζευ πίτυν, ἃ τὸ μελιχρὸν I, xix. singer. Sleep itself seems to breathe through the lovely lines of this unknown VI, vi. the only two epigrams by her which time spares us, has a little Elegy, addressed to Aphrodité of the Golden House, upon one of those simple religious offerings which constantly meet us in the Anthology; a poem true womanly in its feeling, and worthy of Sappho in musical tenderness O vine-cluster, full of the juice of Dionysus, thou liest in the golden portico of Aphrodite: nor ever more shall thy mother vine, twining round thee her fair tendril, above thy head put forth her fragrant leaf.1 How modern is this in its gentle human sentiment ! Yet not more, perhaps, so than a fragment from the gifted and lost dramatist Menander, which, in its breadth of view, suggesting at the same time a strange likeness in unlikeness to the great Hebrew Psalm of Creation, may here find a fit place in this imperfect notice of the Greek poetry of Nature. That man I hold happiest who, having without sense of pain beheld these holy wonders, the common sun, stars, sea, clouds, fire, has gone quickly thither whence he came. Should he live a hundred years, these sights will never fail him; or should he live but few days, never [elsewhere] will he see things more wonderful.2 1 Κεῖσαι δὴ χρυσέαν ὑπὸ παστάδα τὰν Αφροδίτας, 2 οὐδ ̓ ἔτι τοι μάτηρ ἐρατὸν περὶ κλῆμα βαλοῦσα φύσει ὑπὲρ κρατὸς νεκτάρεον πέταλον. τοῦτον εὐτυχέστατον λέγω ὅστις θεωρήσας ἀλύπως, Παρμένων, II, xxi. Menander, Hypobolimaeus, Fr. 2. Gray was so deep and delicate a student, and so given to adorn his operosa carmina with flowers gathered from all gardens, that I am tempted to find here the lovely phrase of his Vicissitude Ode, painting the delight of a sick man's recovery: Two gracious little ditties, probably for girls or children, shall close my Greek specimens. It is sad that so few such songs have been preserved for us— Where are my roses, where are my violets, where are my beautiful parsley leaves? Here are your roses, here are your violets, here are your beautiful parsley leaves.1 Now the Rhodian carol, while the children went about begging nice presents— .. Here, here is the swallow, bringing happy hours, happy years ; white below is she, black above. But if you will not give, we will not put up with it, [we may carry off] the little wife who is sitting indoors, little she is, easily we shall carry her. Open, open the door to the swallow ! 2 -But it is time to make the great transition from Hellas to Latium. 1 ποῦ μοι τὰ ῥόδα, ποῦ μοι τὰ ἴα, ποῦ μοι τὰ καλὰ σέλινα; |