The Greek Anthology

Front matter

Ancient Classics for English Readers EDITED BY THE

REV. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A.

THE

Chapter 1

THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY.

CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

The Collection, or rather the Collections, of small poems known as the Greek "Anthology," have long been an object of great interest to scholars. They have been much studied and repeatedly edited. The individual poems, or selections from them, have been often translated and often imitated. They employed the best care of the great printer, Henry Stephens. They were favourite subjects of study with Erasmus, and his friend Sir Thomas More. The greater part of them were excellently translated into Latin verse by Hugo Grotius, a man sometimes overrated and sometimes underrated, but undoubtedly eminent in various departments of learning—as a scholar, a jurist, and a theologian. The poet Gray, a critic of nice and fastidious taste, made them the object of particular attention, and enriched an interleaved copy of Stephen's Anthology with copious notes, parallel pas- sages, and conjectural emendations, besides transfusing several of the epigrams into Latin verse. They beguiled some of the weary hours which Johnson felt heavy on his hands in his last illness, and they helped to cheer the melancholy and morbid life which was the lot of the amiable Cowper.

It is true that, amidst the general chorus of approbation which they have excited, a few anserine discords have occasionally been heard. Chesterfield, in his famous Letters, thus peremptorily denounces them to his son: "I hope you will keep company with Horace and Cicero among the Romans, and Homer and Xenophon among the Greeks, and that you have got out of the worst company in the world—the Greek epigrams. Martial has wit, and is worth looking into sometimes; but I recommend the Greek epigrams to your supreme contempt." But whatever we may think of his lordship in respect of knowledge of life and worldly wisdom, we are not disposed to bow to his authority in literature any more than in morals.

The supposed insipidity of Greek epigrams had been a well-known subject of jest in Paris in the century preceding Chesterfield's time. Racan, the French poet, was shown by a lady some epigrams of her own composition. He pronounced them bad, because they wanted point. She replied that that was of no consequence, as they were epigrams à la Grecque. They met at dinner soon afterwards, where the soup served up was not very palatable, and the lady observed to Racan that it was abominable. He replied: "Mademoiselle, it is soupe à la Grecque," which expression having got abroad became a favourite mode of designating an indifferent soup. A French poet, or indeed a French man of fashion generally, was likely enough to miss in the Greek compositions the piquancy for which is own literature is so remarkable, and Chesterfield's school of taste was eminently French. But Menage himself, who tells the story given above, but who was a good scholar, and a considerable wit, appreciated highly the Greek epigrams, and composed a good many Greek imitations of them.

Men of the greatest learning and best taste have, since Chesterfield's time and down to our own day, given a very different verdict from his opinion, and, we may say, have done so unanimously. We find, no doubt, in the Anthology, that admixture of good, bad, and indifferent which Martial pronounces to be unavoidable in all similar collections; but to prefer Martial to his Greek prototypes, or rather predecessors, as Chesterfield does, would now be universally held to be blind and tasteless criticism. We feel assured that, even under the disadvantages arising from their wearing an English dress, the specimens given in this volume will justify to its readers the high estimate of the Anthology which has so completely gained the ascendant among men of true discernment.

Until the beginning of the seventeenth century the only "Greek Anthology" considered to be extant in anything like a complete state was the collection made by Maximus Planudes, a monk of Constantinople, who flourished about the middle or in the earlier half of the fourteenth century. Planudes was considered to have compiled this collection from an Anthology, or, as it was called, a "Cycle," of epigrams, put together by Agathias—surnamed, from his study of law, Scholasticus—a well-known though heavy historian, who was a native of Myrinè, and lived in the time of Justinian, in the sixth century after Christ. Planudes's collection was distributed into seven books, under different heads, according to the subjects treated of.

It was about the year 1606 that the great scholar Salmasius, then a youth of eighteen, discovered in the library of the Palatinate at Heidelberg another MS. of a Greek Anthology, compiled by Constantinus Cephalas, of whom not even the name had been previously heard. Cephalas appears to have lived about the beginning of the tenth century, and thus, in point of chronology, occupies an intermediate position between Agathias and Planudes. The latter collector, as seems now to be probable, employed himself chiefly in abridging and rearranging the work of Cephalas, which is generally the more copious of the two, though not on all subjects. Planudes has been somewhat harshly assailed as not merely destitute of taste, but as having expurgated lines and even stanzas in the original poems, and either omitted them altogether or replaced them with phraseology of his own. We are not willing, however, to cancel or much diminish the debt which we undoubtedly owe him; and there are not a few epigrams suppressed by him which have since come to light, and which had better never have been published or never written. His Anthology, until Salmasius's discovery, was the only considerable repertory of this kind of literature, and was a source of inexhaustible interest, amusement, and instruction to many generations of scholars. Planudes, though his taste may have been defective, was a man of learning as well as of worth. He translated into Greek Ovid's Metamorphoses and other Latin works; and it seems now to be proved that he was not the author of a foolish life of Æsop that was long ascribed to him.

It is remarkable that while the Palatine Anthology had been discovered by Salmasius so early as the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the discovery made generally known, and although it was the declared intention of Salmasius to publish it immediately, a number of circumstances interfered for a long time to prevent that step from being taken; and it was only about the end of the last or the beginning of the present century, at an interval of nearly two hundred years, that it was given to the world by Brunck and by Jacobs. The MS. had in the mean time gone through a variety of adventures, having been removed to the Vatican in 1623 with the rest of the Palatine library, thereafter transferred to Paris in 1797, and in 1815 finally restored to Heidelberg, where we suppose it now lies, if none of the recent German arrangements have led to a change.

Partial transcripts of it had in the mean time been made, but the final publication of the Palatine manuscript, and the attention and careful study which it called forth from German scholars, who generally do thoroughly whatever they undertake, threw a great deal of additional light on this branch of literature. These studies, pursued with much ardour by various scholars, have in a special manner brought into conspicuous notice the name of Meleager, the first and most considerable of the flower-gatherers, for such is the English equivalent for the word "anthologist." He was a Syrian, and flourished in the early part of the century preceding the commencement of our era. He collected the fragments of Greek poetry and genius which before his time were either intrusted to the memories of men, engraven on marbles or other solid structures, or dispersed in miscellaneous works as fugitive pieces. These he named his "Garland," and prefixed to it, as a preface or proœmium, a set of verses extending to nearly 60 lines, in which he characterises each or the principal part of the writers included in his collection by a flower or plant emblematical of his or her peculiar genius. But Meleager was not merely a collector, he was also a composer, of epigrams, and his compositions may take a high place in comparison with the average or all but the best of those inserted in his "Garland." His character seems to have been a remarkable one, not free from great faults, ardent in his passions, and acute in his susceptibilities, but with a high idea of the dignity of the poet's art, and a lively and just appreciation of the Beautiful. Another collector after Meleager was Philippus of Thessalonica, who lived in the time of Trajan, and who also contributed some original epigrams and prefixed a proem to his collection. Finally, there came Agathias, already mentioned, the last of the ancient anthologists, whose collection was entitled a "Cycle" or Circle of poetical compositions, and who himself, like his predecessors, contributed some original epigrams, not indeed equal to those of Meleager, but yet not destitute of taste and elegance. Contributions to his collection were also supplied by his contemporary and friend, Paul the Silentiary, who at the court of Justinian held an office in some degree corresponding to that of Gentleman usher.

Generally speaking, the space of time over which the writers of the Greek epigrams successively flourished may be said to extend to upwards of a thousand years—from Simonides, if we call him the earliest, down to Agathias as the latest of them—a period, undoubtedly, of very long duration for a language and literature to retain such a wonderful vitality, and, amidst some fallings off, a certain similarity of style and character. It might be doubted if some of the latest of these writers deserved the name of Classical in the highest sense of the term. But Agathias, the last in the list, has so well caught the ancient spirit, that it would be harsh to exclude him. After his era the degeneracy of the literature became unmistakable.

None of these more ancient collections descended entire to modern times, and we know them mainly in the compilations formed from them successively by Cephalas and by Planudes. The name of "Anthology" is still employed on the same principle on which Meleager originally regarded his collections as wreaths or gar- lands, the poems composing it being assimilated to flowers of varied kinds and lives. The individual poems have been called Epigrams, a term which originally and literally denoted simply an Inscription, though the word was in process of time transferred to a different class of compositions—and perhaps it might have been convenient to have two words, epigram and epigraph, to note the distinction.

The tendencies of the Greek mind in originally building up this species of literature are well explained by Jacobs, the ablest and the most diligent of the editors of the Anthologies. He speaks of the ancient Greeks as the most religious of men; using the epithet, as we conceive, in a favourable sense, to designate that feeling of dependence and gratitude towards divine power which, however alloyed by a mixture of superstition and a leaning to sensuous forms of worship, had in it much of the essence of a true piety. In this spirit he tells us that, referring to the gods all events, whether prosperous or adverse, they were accustomed, when their wars had been successfully concluded and their enemies subdued, to set apart a portion of their booty or of its profits to the honour of those deities to whose protection they thought that they owed the victory, as well as to dedicate to them in their temples and shrines the arms of which their enemies were stripped. This, he considers, was the oldest form of offerings and inscriptions, and others of an analogous kind were gradually added. Prizes won in public games, or some equivalent for them, were dedicated by the victors to the gods who patronised them. The old soldier consecrated the weapons and armour he was no longer fit or likely to use. Mechanics and labourers did so in like manner with the implements of their industry, when these were worn out, or when the owners changed their own employments. Even playthings, when laid aside, were thus dedicated, a common feeling of affectionate remembrance prompting the owners to place them under the protection of a temple, rather than leave them exposed to the rude accidents of chance or neglect. Moral sentences came to be put up as inscriptions on statues or memorial columns; and we read of a desire shown by the Pisistratidæ to disseminate in this way prudential maxims or impressive truths by inscribing them in verse upon the Hermæ, or busts of Mercury, which formed their milestones or landmarks. It is needless to say that inscriptions on tombs were a natural and obvious mode of preserving the memory of the dead and recording the affection of the living.

The workings of the Greek character, as tending in these many ways to embody and perpetuate the national feeling of rude and sometimes, as it almost seems, of infantine piety, are nowhere better analysed and described than in those well-known passages in Wordsworth's "Excursion" which it is unnecessary to quote, where he deals with the genesis of natural religion in different countries and under different circumstances. These feelings, as Wordsworth shows in a continuation of the same passage, led them to look at the more beautiful or striking scenes of nature and natural objects as animated by some spiritual essence that could be reverenced and addressed, and hence their affectionate consecration of their rivers, hills, and groves to the deities or semi-deities under whose care they seemed to be placed.

"'Take, running river, take these locks of mine,' Thus would the Votary say—'this severed hair, My vow fulfilling, do I here present, Thankful for my belovèd child's return.'"

All of these impulses are exhibited in the poems of the Anthology, which thus acquire an additional interest from the light they throw upon the manners, customs, and beliefs of this remarkable people. The wide range of topics embraced in the anthologies has been well depicted by De Bosch in some Latin lines to the memory of Grotius, printed in his edition of the Anthology, in which Grotius's translations first appeared, and which we venture thus to render in some of its most striking parts:—

Whov'er delights in themes from history's page, These varied studies will his thirst assuage; Here sacred bards their liberal aid bestow The fates of gods and goddesses to show; Wisdom may sometimes wear a look austere, But smiles and jests are oft her helpmates here; Venus and every Grace for victory vie, And fast the Idalian darts of Cupid fly. By disc or javelin now the prize is won, On horseback or on foot the race is run. The graceful Muse has here concisely sung The charms that woman sends from eye or tongue;

What men have done she gives to understand, Whose zeal has saved or raised their native land.

Cities, that in the dust long buried lie, Rear in their ancient seats their heads on high. Traces of shrines and temples seem to stand Heaped with large gifts from many a pious hand. The sad laments of friends now strike our ears; Our eyes now see the child's, the parent's tears. We hear the widows wail, when doomed to mourn A loved one lost, and clasp his lifeless urn, Lessons of wisdom open to our view In all life's varied scenes of gay or gloomy hue.

The inscriptions that existed in Greece were innumerable. Even those that still remain, ether in their original sites or removed to munificent libraries or museums, are very numerous, and we have the terms of many more preserved in ancient looks. But it is not every epigram that can claim a place in an Anthology, It must for that purpose be an anthos or flower, possessing an attraction from some beauty or elegance, from some ingenuity or elevation of sentiment. Many inscriptions of great historical interest are thus excluded. It is interesting to read in Plutarch of the pillar that Theseus is said to have erected on the Isthmus of Corinth to mark the boundary between Attica and the Peloponnesus. On one site of it were the words, "This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia;" on the other, "This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia;"—of which ancient inscription an imitation was put up on Hadrian's arch at Athens, dividing the older town from the part that the Roman emperor had renovated:—

This Athens is the primitive town of Theseus. This is the town of Adrian, not of Theseus."

Still more interesting is it to read the very words of that inscription to which Milton so touchingly refers in his sonnet, beginning, "Captain or colonel, or knight in arms"—when he entreats that his "defenceless doors" may be preserved from harm amidst the civil disturbances:—

Lift not thy spear against the Muses' bower: The great Emathian Conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Wert to the ground."

The actual inscription by which Alexander the Great preserved Pindar's house, when Thebes was given over to be sacked by his soldiers, has been preserved by some ancient antiquaries, and runs thus:—

"Of Pindarus the poet do not burn the house."

Again, on the base of the wonderful statue of Olympian Jove, the name of the sculptor was thus inscribed in an hexameter line, at what time does not appear:—

"Phidias, Charmides' son, the Athenian citizen, made Me."

A startling inscription, and involving a strange mixture of ideas! The statue is made to speak as a person, and thus almost becomes the god himself, and yet this god describes the artist as having made him. How diff- cult to reconcile this fact with what is told of Stilpo the philosopher, that he was banished by the Areopagus for saying that the Minerva in the Citadel of Athens was no divinity, but the work of Phidias the sculptor! But interesting as these inscriptions are, they do not belong to an anthology. Even those of them that have a metrical form are too muck mere matter-of-fact to have a place in a Garland.

It should here be added that the parentage of individual epigrams is often very uncertain. We know generally what poets had places in Meleager's and Philippus's collections, from the enumeration of their names in the proems. But we are still in doubt as to the individual poems which they wrote, and often there are a variety of persons of the same name who wrote poems not easily distinguishable. In this perplexity we are often driven to resort to internal evidence, which is not always a safe guide, though on the whole it may keep us from any great blunder. In general, the simpler and more natural the composition is, if it has genius at all, the more likely it is to be an ancient and original inscription.

The Greek Anthology, therefore, in its largest sense—swelled as it has been by contributions from various sources—may now be considered as consisting, not merely of the collections of Cephalas and Planudes, but also of a large number of other short poems deserving the name of epigrams or epigraphs, found scattered about among the old Greek historians, biographers, and miscellaneous writers, and which it is likely that Meleager, Philippus, or Agathias, if we had them entire, would be found to have inserted in their collections, or might reasonably have done so. But the longer and more elaborate compositions, not of an inscriptional character, ought perhaps to be excluded from this class, though it is not always easy to draw the line, and most of the modern editors of the Greek Anthology have occasionally overstepped the limit.

We have already indicated that the primitive Greek epigram differs much from the modern idea attached to the word. From the time of Martial, indeed, the epigram came to be characterized generally by that peculiar point or sting, which we now look for in a French or English epigram; and the want of this in the old Greek compositions doubtless led some minds to think them tame and tasteless. The true or the best form of the early Greek epigram does not aim at wit or seek to produce surprise. Its purpose is to set forth in the shortest, simplest, and plainest language, but yet with perfect purity and even elegance of diction, some fact or feeling of such interest as would prompt the real or supposed speaker to record it in the form of an epigram; though it is true that, particularly in the later period of epigrammatic writing, these compositions, even among the Greeks, assumed a greater variety of aspect, and were employed as the vehicle of satire or ridicule, as a means of producing hilarity and mirth. A good many of the epigrammatists flourished in or after the age of Martial, and may have followed or co-operated with him to produce this change of style.

It seems of great importance at the present time to recall attention to these early monuments of genius and taste. They are highly characteristic of the Greek mind, which in those compositions that did not deal with fervid or majestic expression, looked to the combination of perfect simplicity with perfect beauty as their true ideal; and this, in great things or in little, in sculpture or in poetry, in the statue that enchants the world or the epigraph that in a few lines has power to touch the heart or please the fancy. Much of these excellences, particularly of diction, must be lost in translation, as the structure of the classical languages, especially the Greek, afforded facilities for condensation and elegance unattainable in English. Even the attempt, however, to imitate this character, may help to purify the taste, in an age when the poet is not always free from obscurity, when the art of concealing art seems not often practised, when condensation is not thought of, and simplicity is considered to be insipidity.

The first serious attempt to exhibit the true character of the Greek epigram in English translation was in the papers which appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine' in the years 1833 and 1834, from the pen of Professor Wilson, assisted by many friends, and particularly by Mr William Hay, who for some years devoted much of his scholarship and powers of versification to this task. The effort thus made was eminently successful, and has tended very much to throw into the shade the more vague and diffuse versions which had proceeded from previous translators, including even Elton, and Bland and Merivale, to whom, however, we owe a deep debt of gratitude for doing so much to revive, in the present century, a taste for this species of poetry.

It is not easy to determine in what order compositions of this kind should be treated. On the whole, it seems best not to deal with them chronologically, or even according to the authors to whom they are attributed, which is often a matter of difficulty, in consequence of the authorship being doubtful. It seems a preferable course to divide them into classes, and in this way to keep together epigrams of the same character, which will facilitate comparison. The classes into which we shall divide them are these: 1, Dedicatory; 2, Sepulchral; 3, Amatory; 4, Didactic; 5, Literary and Artistic; 6, Witty and Satirical; 7, Narrative and Miscellaneous.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II.

DEDICATORY.

We proceed to give select specimens of epigrams, beginning with the class that may be called Dedicatory or Votive. These all involve the common idea that something is consecrated or offered up to some divine power; and it is thought that under this division may be, and ought properly to be introduced, among other varieties, the monumental records of victories and remarkable public events, where the monument is truly considered as made sacred by the greatness of the subject, and by the intention thereby to show gratitude to the gods for benefits received.

Ranging as these epigrams do over so great a portion of time, there is one feature in which they may materially differ from each other. Some of them have been actual inscriptions, while others are mere literary exercises or compositions of such a kind as might be appropriately inscribed to celebrate any memorable achievement or occurrence. These diversities in the epigrams will necessarily tell upon their internal character, for in an actual inscription the poet may dispense with any detail as to those things that are patent to the eye. The reader of such an epigram or epigraph on the spot, does not need to be told where it is erected, or on what material it is inscribed; he has merely to learn the subject, the occasion, and the author or orderer of the inscription. But an epigram that is a mere literary production, while it does all this, must also do more, and tell the reader something as to the place and position in which the imaginary inscription is to be supposed to have been put up.

Of these two kinds of epigram it is needless to say that the first is the more ancient, and will also in general be found to be the shorter, the simpler, and the more direct of the two. Some critics think that the fictitious, or imaginary inscription, was not known or practised before the time of Alexander the Great; but be that as it may, the real inscription, of which many specimens have been preserved, is certainly more interesting and valuable, as it also is, generally speaking, more vigorous and lifelike, than the other kind.

Of the composers of ancient epigrams that were actual epigraphs, the most remarkable is Simonides of Ceos, particularly if we look to the number as well as to the merit of his compositions. His birth is placed, by Clinton, in the year 556 B.C., and his death in 467, in the 90th year of his age. He is the same to whom Wordsworth refers in those beautiful lines:—

O ye, who patiently explore The wreck of Herculanean lore, What rapture could ye seize Some Theban fragment, or unroll One precious tender-hearted scroll Of pure Simonides!"

Some of the pieces bearing the name of this author may be the productions of other and inferior artists; for three of the name, at least, attained distinction as poets, and the family had a professional and hereditary connection with poetry and musical representation. In the great Simonides the fire of patriotism, or at least the power of expressing it, burned with so bright a glow, that it is difficult to mistake his compositions on such subjects. But they are also distinguished by much simplicity and compression, as well as by great sobriety and purity of thought. "When young," we are told in Dr Smith's Biography, "he formed a part of the brilliant literary circle which Hipparchus collected at his court. In advanced life he enjoyed the personal friendship of Themistocles and Pausanias, and celebrated their exploits: and in his extreme old age he found an honoured retreat at the court of Syracuse." The residence of Simonides at Syracuse is particularly memorable for two things. It was he who, as Cicero tells us in his 'Nature of the Gods,' was asked by Hiero who or what God was, when he requested a day's time to think of his answer. On subsequent days he always doubled the period required for deliberation; and when Hiero inquired the reason, he replied that the longer he considered the subject, the more obscure it appeared. The other circumstance to which we refer is, that Xenophon in his 'Hiero' introduces him as the person to whom the Sicilian tyrant unbosoms himself as to the miseries and dangers of that "bad eminence." On turning to the volume on Xenophon in this series, our readers will be able to judge of the estimation in which Simonides must have been held for sagacity and wisdom. He seems to have been the first inventor of what is called Mnemonics, or the science of Artificial Memory.

Two events are mentioned as having occurred to Simonides, which have rather a fabulous air. It is said that, having given burial to a dead body which lay exposed on the sea-shore—an act which was held among the Greeks to be an indispensable duty of humanity—the dead man appeared to him in a dream, and warned him not to go on board of a certain vessel in which he had intended to sail, and that by following this advice his life was saved, as the vessel was lost on her voyage.

On this subject an epigram is preserved, which runs thus, having reference to some supposed representation of his dream;—

The Saviour of Simonides, the Ceian, here you see, Who, dead, repaid the living man—an act of piety."

His life was again saved on another occasion in this way. He had written a eulogistic poem upon the Thessalian prince, Scopas, for which he was to receive a certain remuneration. He had introduced into the poem, also, some laudatory verses on the Dioseuri (Castor and Pollux), and Scopas, on settling the transaction, refused to pay him more than a half of the stipulated sum, telling him to apply to the Dioseuri for the other half. Soon afterwards, when Simonides was present in the house of Scopas, he was told that two young men wished to speak with him, and going to the door he saw no one; but while gazing around him in astonishment, the house which he had just left fell, and killed Scopas and the other guests, while Simonides was saved.

As already mentioned, Simonides was a professional poet, and, as Bentley irreverently says, one of "a string," including Pindar, that got their livelihood by the Muses. It is certain that he would be largely remunerated from the public treasury for his historical epigrams, just as the Italian poet Sannazaro got from the Venetian Senate 600 ducats for his epigram of six lines on the beauty of Venice. But it may be inferred, from their brevity and condensation, that the payment of Simonides would be measured rather by the merits than by the length of his compositions.