In gentle Fanny's arms I lay, Full many a dainty she supplied. And then, of too much clover, died. Close to her couch she laid me dead : In dreamland to be visited By spectre tombs beside her bed. Cowper should have done that instead of the other. The last in the fourth section is this very graceful one which bears no master's name. Kind earth, take old Amyntychus to thee Many an one, and gave thee vineyard shoots For beauty, and made thy valleys thick with corn. And of his hand were water runnels born To feed thee serviceable herbs, beside Thine apple-bearing orchards fair and wide. Wherefore on his grey head, kind earth, lie light, And make with flowers his spring-tide pastures bright. Nearly all the epigrams in Mr. Wright's fifth section are from the Anthology of Planudes, a monk of the fourteenth century who 'Bowdlerised' the old collections and added others. Two or three only are from the Palatine Anthology. This first is by Diotimus, almost a contemporary of Callimachus. It is a noble classic speech for a statue. Here am I, very Artemis, but thou, Seeing Zeus' true daughter here in bronze revealed, For her were the whole earth mean hunting-field.' Next is a piece of description by Plato : Then came we to a shadowy grove and lo! And his bent bow, Hanging them from the leafy trees and high. And there he lay among the roses sleeping And, sleeping, smiled, while browny bees were keeping Above where he did lie. The little one of Parmenio is not interesting in English, but this of Agathias is beautiful (perhaps we ought to call it Mrs. Browning's). It is for a waxen Faun. 'All of its own accord, little Faun, does thy flute go on ringing? Why, with ears to the reed, listenest the livelong day?' Smiling, he holds his peace: an answer maybe had come winging, Only he pays no heed, rapt in oblivion away. Nay, not the wax withholds him; his whole soul, charmed with the singing, Gives back silence for meed, silent rewarding the lay. This fine description of Niobe and her children is the only one of -: Meleager's which Mr. Wright gives in this group: Daughter of Tantalus! hearken my words-a message to mourn Hear from my lips the pitiful tale of thy woe! Loosen thine hair, poor mother, that bared'st for deity's scorn Now not a son is left thee. Fresh horror! for what do I see? One in the arms of her mother, and one as she clings to her knee, One faces death with a shudder erect; one bends on the dart; Last, there is one that looks on the daylight alone. Niobe, she that erewhile loved boasting, with fear at her heart But this is the loveliest of the group, full of the care and passion of real grief: Pericles, Archias' son! To thee they place At twenty years thou sleep'st death's sleep profound, And undisturbed by beasts that prowl around. I shall not do the next one of Leonidas about a drunken Anacreon. Here are two pretty ones of Meleager instead about a cup and a picture (v. 171): Bright laughs the cup-for 'I have kissed,' it saith, Oh! that, her lips to my lips, at a breath And (v. 149): My lady's kiss would drink my spirit up! Ah! who hath shown my lady unto me, Who brought to me one of the Graces three Full surely brings he me a joyful thing, And for his grace the grace of thanks I bring. But I must not give Meleager the lion's share again in this groupthat is almost the last of his I shall be able to put in. These two of Plato's with which Mr. Wright finishes the section are admirably contrasted in tone, and both quite perfect. This is for a ring: See! five oxen graven on a jasper gem! To the life! and feeding one and all of them. Stay-will they not run away-the beasties? No, the fold Of this golden circlet our little herd shall hold. It is as fanciful as a nursery rhyme. The other is as joyous and stately as Milton. Silent! shaggy scaur that Dryads keep. Silent! rills adown the crags that run. Lo! the dance awakens at his call. Let your young feet trip it merrily, Waternymphs and woodnymphs one and all! Mr. Wright's last section contains what I might call the epigrams of thought. The first is Palladas'-(I had almost written Shakespeare's). He was a late writer. All life's a stage and farce. Or learn to play, And the next two are his also. And: Naked to earth was I brought-naked to earth I descend. Breathing the thin breath through our nostrils, we If with the hand one quench our draught of breath, The next beautiful one-quite Tennysonian-is attributed to Esopus in the Palatine Anthology, though Mr. Wright gives it no master. Is there no help from life save only death? 'Sweet are stars, sun, and moon, and sea, and earth, For service and for beauty these had birth, But all the rest of life is little worth 'Yea, all the rest is pain and grief,' saith he, For if it hap some good thing come to me This of Agathias is most charming in its naïveté. Certainly he is the latest of the epigrammatists. But this complaint of girls for secluded life might have been written very few years ago. Not such your burden, happy youths, as ours- ye have comrades, when ill fortune lours, Along the streets and see the painters' shows. And there our thoughts are dull enough, God knows! The next, by Agathias too, is true now-a-days and always. At this smooth marble table let us sit And while away the time with dice a bit! And the dice test our power to self-restrain. This one by Poseidippus, some seven hundred years earlier, has been well done by Sir John Beaumont together with its answer, attributed to Metrodorus. I am tempted to do it again though, as it just fits a sonnet. Show me some path of life! The market-place Married, what care! single, what loneliness! Or straight to die, having but just seen the light. For this next-Ptolemy's, who lived about two centuries and a half on in the Christian era-I shall borrow a turn of rhyme from Robert Browning. I know that I am mortal and the creature of a day. This is more familiar. The author is unknown, but the text is as old as Solomon. Drink and be merry! for what is the future and what is the morrow? Feast as thou may'st, and do good and distribute: but let not life borrow The last but one is a poem of Marcus Argentarius, also late, full of a beautiful hedonism. The golden stars are quiring in the west, And in their measure will I dance my best, High on my head a crown of flowers I raise And strike my sounding lyre in Phoebus' praise, And the whole firmament were wrong Had it no crown, no song. 2 This crown, this song, this 'order' of life was what made Greek humanity divine. There is no more concise expression of the intimacy between daily life and ritual than that little verse contains in the heart of it. It is the most Greek but, perhaps Mr. Wright thought, not the most philosophic strain to end with, and he brings us to a full stop with Philodemus' resolutions. I loved-and you. I played-who hath not been Hence with it all! Then dark my youthful head, I gathered roses while the roses blew. Awake, my heart! and worthier aims pursue. There is a note of Herrick again in that. We found one of Philodemus' love-songs in the third group, and noticed its sigh of sadness,Poor lovers I and thou.' We saw that he too came from Gadara and was a contemporary of Meleager. It is strange to catch the selfsame notes ringing from the midst of that Syrian culture, which we hear echo our own longings of to-day in the poets of the golden age of Elizabeth. WILLIAM M. HARDINGE. 2 The allusion in the poem is to the constellations of Orpheus and Ariadnelute and crown. |