O fair-O sweet! 1 As the sweet apple blooms high on the bough, Yet not so nor forgot of the gatherers ; A more complete night scene remains for us, written about a century earlier by Alkman of Sardis (Fl. 670 B.C.)Sleep mountain-tops and ravines, Sleep headland and torrent ; Sleep what dark earth bears on her bosom, Beasts in the den and bees in their families; Sleeps every bird, Folding the long wings to slumber.2 Upon this we might perhaps justly remark that the personal note of Sappho is absent. And a fragment may be added, partly because the last words call to mind Tennyson's "Sea"blue bird of March," which he noticed in north-east Lincolnshire then coming up inland Would O would I were the kingfisher, as he flies with his mates in his feeble age between wind and water, the sea-bright bird of spring.3 3 φύλλα τε ἑρπετά θ' ὅσσα τρέφει μέλαινα γαῖα, καὶ κνώδαλ ̓ ἐν βένθεσσι πορφυρέης ἁλός εὔδουσιν δ' οἰωνῶν φῦλα τανυπτερύγων. . βάλε δὴ βάλε, κηρύλος εἴην, ὅς τ ̓ ἐπὶ κύματος ἄνθος ἅμ ̓ ἀλκυόνεσσι ποτῆται νηλεγὲς ἦτορ ἔχων, ἁλιπόρφυρος εἴαρος ὄρνις. G. S. Farnell, in his interesting Greek Lyric Poetry (1891), in a note on The belief was that the female birds carried the male on their wings, as the poet here longs that the maidens would favour him in their dances. Pindar the Dorian (522-442 B.C.) in a few lines paints what might be called a supernatural landscape, describing the souls in Elysium For them shines the sun in power all our night long, and the red rose meadows about their city are heavy with the shadowy incense-tree and golden fruits, . . . and happiness about them puts forth all her blossoms.1 Not less characteristic of Pindar's sharply touched descriptive power-and of his deep religious feeling, with varied tints colouring the pictures of Nature-is the mountain landscape which he gives in his first Pythian ode, speaking of Aetna, the snowy pillar of heaven, that nurses the sharp, cold, never-melting snow; from whose depths are vomited forth the pure sulphur fountains of unapproachable fire; whilst by day those rivers pour forth a stream of dark-glowing smoke, but during the dark hours the ruddy blaze, rolling, carries crashing rocks to the deep-lying ocean plain.2 κύματος ἄνθος, literally " the flower of the wave," quotes (from Buchholz) the French phrase à fleur d'eau, which my paraphrase has tried to render. 1 τοῖσι λάμπει μὲν μένος ἀελίου τὰν ἐνθάδε νύκτα κάτω, 2 φοινικορόδοις δ ̓ ἐνὶ λειμώνεσσι προάστιον αὐτῶν καὶ λιβάνῳ σκιαρᾷ καὶ χρυσέοις καρποῖς βέβριθεν νιφόεσσ' Αἴτνα, πάνετες χιόνος ὀξείας τιθήνα τᾶς ἐρεύγονται μὲν ἀπλάτου πυρὸς ἁγνόταται . ἐκ μυχῶν παγαί· ποταμοὶ δ ̓ ἁμέραισιν μὲν προχέοντι ῥόον καπνοῦ φοίνισσα κυλινδομένα φλὸξ ἐς βαθεῖαν φέρει πόντου πλάκα σὺν πατάγῳ. Pyth. i. Compare Pindar's contemporary Aeschylus, speaking also of Etna- ἔνθεν ἐκραγήσονταί ποτε Prom. Vinct. 367. And then the Greek personifying manner comes in, and he tells how it is Typhos, the crawling monster, who sends forth these dread torrents, which even passers-by hear with wondering awe. This picture has a power hitherto not found in Greek song; a passionate Dantesque reality :—It is, in fact, the record of a great eruption three years earlier. Somewhat earlier also the deeply feeling Ibykus of Rhegium sings how Spring-time sets free all Nature, whilst Love brings him no release— Truly in Spring the apple-trees of Kydon draw moisture from the river streams, there where is the pure unmown garden of the Maiden nymphs, and the vine-shoots swell and flourish beneath their overshadowing leafy branches: but with me Love for no one hour finds his rest.1 The contrast here drawn between Nature and human feeling, joy and sadness, it has been well observed by Mr. Farnell, is very rare in Hellenic poetry. This Master has indeed a special love for the wild birds and flowers. Thus he describes a tree About whose topmost leaves are the gold-striped duck and the sea-purpled birds with changeful coloured neck, and the swift-flying halcyons.2 Perhaps the greatest losses in pure literature which we have sustained are that of the Roman historians from Livy to Tacitus (and even these fragmentary), and that of the Greek lyric poets. Amongst these the disappearance of Ibycus may, his meagre relics suggests, be placed in the first rank of perished charm and beauty. Drama, in all ages, by its very nature so strictly confined to human life, has been very sparing of landscape description, except in those short strokes which place at once before the spectator a background suitable to the action. Yet Aeschylus, the earliest preserved to us of the Athenian dramatists,-in magnificent power the greatest, as Sophocles has the most exquisite art,—was naturally led, in his Prometheus Bound, to some attempt at painting the landscape wherein the scene was presumably laid by ancient legend. And in this, as more or less in the passages quoted from the lyric poets, we find the first great advance made beyond that introduction of Nature simply by way of direct comparison with man which Homer so splendidly exhibits. It is still, however, with reference to humanity that she appears; we have no description for its own sake, unless the night scene by Alkman be an exception; but that reaches us only as an isolated quotation, and we know not what relation it bore to the poem in which it was contained. The Prometheus lifts us at once within the mountain range of Scythia, and, in the primitive absence of stage scenery, Aeschylus has driven the landscape into the mind of his hearers by his own amazing force of language, describing the Titanic rock-world, in which he was obviously at home. Thus, at the opening of the play we find the god Hephaestus thus threatening the hero O bright thoughted child of right counselling Themis, against my will must I nail thee unwilling with indissoluble bonds of brass to this solitary rock, where thou shalt perceive neither voice nor form of any man, and scorched by the sun's bright flame thy skin shall lose its bloom: But, to thy joy, shall that glare be veiled by night with her spangled robe, and sun again disperse the hoar-frost of morning.1 1 τῆς ὀρθοβούλου Θέμιδος αἰπυμῆτα παῖ, Prom. Vinct. 18. The poet's interest in Alpine heights-so unfrequent in ancient days-again appears when Prometheus marks out her wide wandering future to the goddess Io She must pass a river before thou shalt reach Caucasus himself, loftiest of mountains, where from his very brow the stream bubbles out in its strength. But over-climbing the star-neighbouring peaks, thou must take the southward road. . . .1 Then, in a wild earthquake-volcano convulsion of Nature that majestic drama closes And truly [says Prometheus] in deed now, and not in word any longer, Earth is shaken: a thunder echoing from the deep growls near us, fiery wreaths of lightning blaze out, whirlwinds eddy the dust, and the blasts of all winds leap forth, each against the other blowing discordantly, and sky is confused with ocean. . . . O holy Mother mine, Ο ethereal heaven circling round, the light of all things,-ye see what injustice I suffer.2 What a change in tone, in music, and in imagery is here, as with Pindar, from the lovely sweet soft lyrics of the earlier day! -like the contrast between Elizabethan love-songs and the 1 πρὶν ἂν πρὸς αὐτὸν Καύκασον μόλῃς, ὁρῶν κροτάφων ἀπ ̓ αὐτῶν· ἀστρογείτονας δὲ χρὴ κορυφὰς ὑπερβάλλουσαν ἐς μεσημβρινὴν βῆναι κέλευθον. 2 καὶ μὴν ἔργῳ κοὐκ ἔτι μύθῳ χθὼν σεσάλευται· βρυχία δ' ἠχὼ παραμυκᾶται βροντῆς, ἕλικες δ ̓ ἐκλάμπουσι στεροπῆς ζάπυροι, στρόμβοι δὲ κόνιν εἱλίσσουσι· σκιρτᾷ δ ̓ ἀνέμων πνεύματα πάντων στάσιν ἀντίπνουν ἀποδεικνύμενα· Prom. Vinct. 719. Prom. Vinct. 1o8o. |