human
Can you write me a poem about longmans, green, and co., euctemon and serapis?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about longmans, green, and co., euctemon and serapis:
  This book was published in 1890 by Longmans, Green, and Co.,
London; and New York: 15 East 16th Street.
The epigrams in the book are given both in Greek and in English.
This text includes only the English. Where Greek is present in
also been omitted.
{eti pou proima leuxoia}
Dim now and soil'd,
Like the soil'd tissue of white violets
Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank.
excellence in any style. But, while it would be easy to agree on
epigrams not in the Anthology.
without comment where it differs from that of the MSS. or other
originals.
Planudean Anthology which are not found in the Palatine MS.
The Greek word "epigram" in its original meaning is precisely
literary sense, though this is not yet fixed definitely. In his
monuments at Thermopylae, he uses the words {gramma} and
epigrammasi xai stelesi}, "epitaphs and monuments". Among these
epitaphs is the celebrated couplet of Simonides which has found a
{Pagxalon eot epigramma to distikhon en de parelthes
tous treis rapsodeis xoux epigramma legeis}
The notorious difficulty of giving any satisfactory definition of
remained conditioned by being in its essence and origin an
inscriptional poem, took in the later periods so wide a range of
versified statement of a fact or an idea; sometimes it is barely
suffice. In the Anthology there occurs this couplet:
{Pan to peritton axaipon epei logos esti palaios
os xai tou melitos to pleon esti khole}
This is a sentence merely; an abstract moral idea, with an
illustration attached to it. Compare with it another couplet in
{Aion panta pserei dolikhos khronos oioen ameibein
ounoma xai morpsen xai psuain ede tukhen}
actually written for paintings or sculptures, that just makes an
those told of Pittacus, of Euctemon, of Serapis and the murderer,
situation. It must have the compression and conciseness of a real
 III. 4 in this collection.
While the epigram is thus somewhat incapable of strict formal
period. Traditionally ascribed to the invention of Archilochus or
earlier. It may be assumed with probability that elegy was an
The Palatine Anthology as it has come down to us includes a small
larger proportion of non-elegiac pieces. Of the eight hundred and
Constantinus Cephalas was compiling his Anthology, adding to the
treasures of past times much recent and even contemporary work,
Athelstan of England inflicted the great defeat on the Danes at
When spray beginneth to springe,
The lutel foul hath hire wyl
On hyre lud to synge.
verses of Renaissance scholars. The vocabulary of these poets is
 Horace, A. P., ll. 75-8, leaves the origin of elegiac verse in
legein}. The /voti sententia compos/ to which he says it became
extended is interpreted by the commentators as meaning amatory
poetry. If this was Horace's meaning he chose a most singular way
 Mr. F. D. Allen's treatise /On Greek Versification in
Inscriptions/ (Boston, 1888) gives an account of the slight
changes in structure (caesura, etc.) between earlier and later
periods.
latter, and the latter a small amount not found in the former.
Thermopylae, not only by Herodotus but by Diodorus Siculus and
Strabo, the former in a historical, the latter in a geographical,
includes epigrams found in an anonymous Life of Aeschylus: in the
Diogenes Laërtius; and thirteen wholly or partially by Athenaeus,
Kaibel has made it superfluous to traverse the vast folios of the
appendices to the great works of Brunck and Jacobs. Most of these
reared, among strange gods and barbarous faces, over Paulina of
{Sema pater Kleoboulos apepsthimeno Xenopsanto
thexe tod ant aretes ede saopsrosunes}
or this, on an unmarried girl:
{Sema PHrasixleias xoure xexlesomai aiei
anti gamou para theon touto lakhous onoma}
(The monument of Phrasicleia; I shall for ever be called maiden,
having got this name from the gods instead of marriage.)
workmanship here, we feel, is unconscious; and without conscious
 Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta. Berlin, 1878.
authority for the history of past times; and when in the latter
part of the fourth century B.C. history became a serious study
Philochorus, a distinguished Athenian antiquary who flourished
proper begins for us with Meleager of Gadara.
This Garland or Anthology has only come down to us as forming the
anything more than a poem commemorating the boys mentioned in it.
preserved. It purports to be a collection of the epigrammatists
Ptolemy Philadelphus or Ptolemy Euergetes; but as this Anthology
Rhodes by Nero in A.D. 53. One of the epigrams under the name of
Automedon in the Anthology is on the rhetorician Nicetas, the
probability half a century earlier, under Nero.
Euripides, {e ge sopsron ou diapstharesetai}. It was a new
Anthology of epigrams dealing with this special subject from the
earliest period downwards. As we possess it, Strato's collection
includes thirteen of the poets named in the Garland of Meleager
mentioned by Diogenes Laërtius, who wrote at the beginning of the
Capito, who was a contemporary of Hadrian, fixes his approximate
date.
How far we possess Strato's collection in its original form it is
interpolation afterwards. Some of the epigrams are foreign to the
In the three hundred years between Strato and Agathias no new
Anthology is known to have been made.
unpublished, in seven books, entitled {Kuklos}. His proem to the
Cyclus is extant. It consists of forty-six iambics followed by
eighty-seven hexameters, and describes the collection under the
symbolism no longer of a flower-garden, but of a feast to which
corresponding to the section of {Protreptika} in the Palatine
arranged in alphabetical order, goes on as follows:--"but
As to the date of Cephalas there is no certain indication. Suidas
contains entries made at different times over a space of several
compilation of books of excerpts. Gibbon gives an account of the
frequently find strings of epigrams by the same author with no
particular connection in subject, which are obviously transcribed
Planudes made a new Anthology in seven books, founded on that of
Cephalas, but with many alterations and omissions. Each book is
epigrams.
Book IV.--Epigrams on monuments, statues, animals, and places, in
Book VI.--{Anathematika}, in twenty-seven chapters; from the
{Anathematika} of Cephalas, with four new epigrams.
explained by great carelessness in transcription; especially as
anthology until the seventeenth century. The other entirely
disappeared, unless a copy of it was the manuscript belonging to
Angelo Colloti, seen and mentioned by the Roman scholar and
{Tade enestin en tede te biblo ton epigrammaton
A. Nonnou poirtou Panopolitou ekphrasis tou kata Ioannen agiou
euaggeliou.
B. Paulou poirtou selantiariou (sic) uiou Kurou ekphrasis eis ten
E. Meleagou poietou Palaistinou stephanos diaphoron epigrammaton.
epigrammaton.
de e taxis ton epigrammaton egoun diairesis outos.
a. prote men e ton Khristianon.
b. deutera de e ta Khristodorou periekhousa tou Thebaiou.
d. e ton anathematikon.
e. pempte e ton epitumbion.
s. e ton epideiktikon.
z. ebdome e ton pretreptikon.
e. e ton skoptikon.
th. ebdome e ton protreptikon.
i. diaphoron metron diaphora epigrammata.
ia. arithmetika kai grepha summikta.
id. Anakreontos Teiou Sumposiaka emiambia kai Anakreontia kai
trimetra.
Konstantinou kai Theophanous keintai epigrammata.}
Eumenes kings of Pergamus, at Cyzicus.
The extracts made by Salmasius remained for long the only source
 Suid. s.v. {PHilokhoros}.
 Melanippides, however, also wrote epigrams according to Suidas,
s.v., and the phrase of Meleager may mean "the epigrams of this
poet who was celebrated as a hymn-writer".
 Suidas s.v. {Diogenianos}.
 Agathias, Hist. i. 1: {ton epigrammaton ta artigene kai neotera
oialanthanonti eti kai khuden outosi par eniois
upophithurizomena}. Cf. also Suidas, s.v. {Agathias}.
 {Konstantinos o Kephalas o makarios kai aeimnestos kai
tripothetos anthrepos}.
When any selection of minor poetry is made, the principle of
arrangement is one of the first difficulties. In dealing with the
consists of between five and six thousand pieces, all in the same
arrangement by subject. The first, if we believe the note in the
Palatine MS. already quoted, was adopted by Meleager in the
alphabetical arrangement of his Garland; but beyond the uncommon
variety it must give to the reader, it seems to have little to
recommend it. The Anthologies of Cephalas and Planudes are both
(1) {Erotika}, amatory pieces. This heading requires no comment.
(4) {Epideiktika}, epigrams written as {epideixeis}, poetical
speeches of celebrated persons on different occasions, with such
gardens, temples, pictures, statues, gems, clocks, cups: such are
(6) {Sumpotika kai Skoptika}, convivial and humorous epigrams.
Love keeping Thyrsis' sheep comes oddly in among epitaphs. The
purposes a more accurate classification is desirable.
The Anthology of Planudes attempts, in a somewhat crude form, to
supply this. Each of the six books, with the exception of the
alphabetically by headings. Thus the list of chapters in Book I.
begins, {eis agonas}, {eis ampelon}, {eis anathemata}, {eis
roughly by subject. Another is the fact that a difficulty still
world. Sections I., II., and VI. of the Palatine arrangement just
appears to be the longest piece in the Anthology which can
properly be called an epigram.
Odysseus is the passionate fidelity of Penelope. Yet more than
insufficient cause to quarrel on; the silver-footed goddess, set
In this heroic period love is only spoken of incidentally and
{eraman men ego sethen, Atthi, palai pota--}
{Oion to glukumalon ereuthetai--
Er eti parthenias epiballomai;
Ou gar en atera pais, o gambre, toiauta--}
the poetry of pure passion has never reached further than this.
With the immense expansion of the Greek world that followed the
Callimachus and his contemporaries the pure Greek tradition still
hauntingly liquid and languid rhythm, "delicate-sandalled," gives
sweetness, but as he grows and becomes more tyrannous, his honey
scorches and stings; and the lover, "set on fire and drenched to
lover through stormy winter nights; Love the Ball-player tosses
hearts for balls in his hands; Love the Runaway lies hidden in a
lady's eyes; Love the Healer soothes with a touch the wound that
his own dart has made; Love the Artist sets his signature beneath
Language is no longer vivid and natural; the colour is a little
minuteness of tessellation. Yet if removed from the side of their
Bergk, are a perfect example of the pastoral in contrast with the
 Anth. Pal. xii. 158, {soi me, Theokleis, abropedilos Eros gumnon
 Ibid. v. 241; cf. Passionate Pilgrim, xiv., xv.
Closely connected with the passion of love as conceived by Greek
society in which this type grew up has disappeared and left the
gymnasia, developed great perfection of bodily form and kept it
constantly before all men's eyes. Art lavished all it knew on the
Much of what is most perplexing in the difference in this respect
female," might form the text for a chapter of no small importance
disastrous, to reunite the fragments of the human ideal.
In much of this poetry too we are in the conventional world of
 {ear oroosa Nukheia}, Theocr. xiii. 42.
 Clem. Rom. II. 12: {eperotetheis autos o Kurios upo tinos pote
exei autou e basileia, eipen, otan estai ta duo en kai to exo os
to eso kai to arsen meta tes theleias oute arsen oute thelu}. It
is also quoted in almost the same words by Clem. Alex., Strom.
abiding rest from the labours of a busy life, bountiful to all,
special providence, under the symbolic forms of Cypris Urania or
of such a life is disarmed of terror. In one of the most graceful
children, and that their tears over him had no bitterness. The
repugnant, to the Greek peoples. Mysticism, as has already been
superstitious and most dispassionate minds.
With the diffusion of a popularised philosophy religious feeling
protection. Each shaded well in the forest, each jut of cliff on
the shore, has its tutelar deity, if only under the form of the
insignificant matters in their charge. These are not mere
monument on the roadside by the gate of Potidaea. But the
punishments, in this or in a future state. But the highest Greek
Ranging as they do over the whole variety of human action, these
home. The most numerous and the most beautiful are those where,
demands of heaven, were best satisfied with small and simple
offerings. "The least of a little" was sufficient to lay before
implements of their craft are dedicated by the carpenter and the
the lord of the myriad-boughed forest; the Muses are pleased with
the shepherd in the divine silence of the hills. The fancy of
 Anth. Pal. vii. 733; cf. also v. 14 in this selection.
 Ibid. vi. 251; cf. v. 3 in this selection.
 v. 15 in this selection.
 {ou mentoi soi Alkinou ge apologon ero}, Plato, Rep. 614 B.
 {To zen gar ismen tou thanein d apeiria
Pas tis phobeitai phos lipein tod eliou}--Eurip. Phoenix, fr. 9.
 Ibid. vi. 337; cf. Theocr. Idyl xxii.
 Frag. incert. 257, {tout esti to zen oukh eauto zen monon}.
 Ibid. vi. 98, {ek mikron oligista}.
epitaph; and this was often actually inscribed on a monument, or
quality.
Many again are to be found among the miscellaneous section of
poets. Some are inscriptions for libraries or collections;
A different view of art and literature, and one which adds
Anthology. Then, as now, people were amused by bad and bored by
proverbial; living in a garret where the very mice were starved,
Of epigrams on individual works of art it is not necessary to say
languages as a gem to an ordinary pebble.
epigrams on fashions in prose style, on conventional graces of
height, above the nightingales, under the solitary stars alone,
 Cf. iv. 1 in this selection.
 Anth. Pal. ix. 433. On this epigram Jacobs says, /Frigide hoc
carmen interpretantur qui illud tabulae pictae adscriptum fuisse
 Compare Anth. Pal. xii. 43 with ix. 565.
 Anth. Pal. ii., iii.
 iv. 46 in this selection.
 Anth. Pal. vii. 80. Cf. In Memoriam, xxiii.
 Anth. Pal. ix. 577; notice especially {theies pimplamai
ambrosies}.
That the feeling for Nature is one of the new developments of the
express in words the total impression made upon us, but only that
First in the natural order comes that simply sensuous view of the
sentimental description, sometimes realistic in detail, sometimes
conventional treatment. Landscapes, for example, are always a
sky. Or the citizen, leaving the glare of town, spends a country
holiday on strewn willow-boughs with wine and music, as in that
remarkable for their clear and vivid portraiture, are that of
The descriptions of Nature too are, as a rule, not only slightly
Roman date; another of uncertain period but of great beauty, an
poetry, and dwelling on them till they assume an exaggerated
purely romantic as the opening lines of /Christabel/.
 vi. 28 in this selection.
 Aegeus, fr. 24; cf. the celebrated simile in /Hyperion/,
beginning, /As when upon a tranced summer night/.
third century B.C.
Though fate and death make a dark background against which the
brilliant colouring of Greek life glitters out with heightened
replaced. Quintilian, speaking at a distance from any national or
seriously made for dances and lyres and garlands as things deeply
Though they are not actually kept separate--nor indeed would a
coming suddenly on the top of the first.
generalisations; and indeed there is no single criterion of the
difference between one age and another more easy and certain of
application, where the materials for applying it exist, than to
that has no beginning nor end. Some Greek jests have an Irish
inconsequence, some the grave and logical monstrosity of American
 /Omnem vitae imaginem expressit . . . omnibus rebus, personis,
adfectibus accomodatus/: see the whole passage, Inst. Rhet. x. i.
offence will not be taken where none was meant. The law of /laesa
unrelenting and undiscriminating severity. Fate seemed to take a
sardonic pleasure in confounding expectation, making destruction
spring out of apparent safety, and filling life with dramatic and
with the sorrow that beauty is less strong than time. Nor is the
sometimes merely silly, sometimes, though rarely, becoming
imaginative. The contrast of a youth without means to indulge its
the statue of Memnon at Thebes are an example of the vivid
honour, "that she might shew her omnipotence." At the root of all
success is in refusing to play. For the busy and idle, for the
fear; how short-lived soever he be in comparison with the world
 {to theion pan phthoneron te kai tarakhodes}, Hdt. i. 32.
 ix. 19 in this selection.
The famous sepulchral epigrams of Simonides deserve a word to
sea. In all of them the foremost quality is their simplicity of
That great period passed away; and in those which follow it, the
sundered lovers, the disunited life. Among the most beautiful are
Attalus. A subject whose strange fascination drew artist after
crushed violently together and mingling their fires. Already the
Into darkness, into silence: the magnificent brilliance of that
drenched with wine, the dead man will not drink. On an island of
Tarentum, the brief-fated, cries out passionately of the stone
resting-places. No bitterer pang can be added to death than for
them.
This last aspect of death was the one upon which the art of the
hateful; "as much as a mother is sweeter than a stepmother," says
wilt." But even the grace of a tomb was often denied. In the
drowned man. The ocean never forgot its cruelty. {Pasa thalassa
thalassa}, "everywhere the sea is the sea," wails Aristagoras,
who trusts the gale of winter draws fate on himself with his own
stand like a sheet of molten glass, the terrible straits swallow
Aristomenes, with ship and crew; and Nicophemus perishes, not in
wintry waves, but of thirst in a calm on the smooth and merciless
Less numerous than these poems of sea-sorrow, but with the same
away. The aged gardener lies at peace under the land that he had
lightly over his grey temples, and the earliest flowers of spring
in the famous Ode where the note of the immortal bird sets the
legionaries, and whose later life had passed from Italy to Asia,
unites the lands of her birth and adoption and decease in her
farewell. For all ranks and ages--the baby gone to be a flower in
Alexandrian library, has seen three kings succeed to the throne--
lips.
Thessalonica from her tomb bids husband and children cease their
lamentations and be only glad while they remember her. Such
recompence is in death that the dead sailor or shepherd becomes
thenceforth the genius of the shore or the hillside. The sacred
wholly cease out of being.
Shelley's own could scarcely render:
Thou wert the Morning Star among the living
Ere thy fair light was fled;
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.
 From the inscription on the tomb of Publius Cornelius Scipio
Africanus, Augur and Flamen Dialis, son of the conqueror of
 iii. 33 in this selection.
 Propertius, IV. xii. 46.
 Ibid. vii. 657. The spirit, and much of the language, of these
epigrams is very like that of Gray's /Elegy/.
 Ibid. vii. 378, {agallomenoi kai taphon os thalamon}.
Criticism, to be made effectively, must be made from beyond and
outside the thing criticised. But as regards life itself, such an
to-morrow we die. In finer tempers it issues in a mood strangely
swaggering. "I don't care," the young man cries, with a sort of
faltering bravado. Snatch the pleasure of the moment, such is the
monumental line of Menander, sorrow and life are too surely akin.
profoundest thought of mankind.
preserved from his world of comedies, weighs and puts aside all
the attractions that life can offer: "Him I call most happy who,
house, and death is its blind and irresponsible lord.
From the name of Palladas is inseparable the name of the famous
 Archestr. ap. Athenaeum, vii. 286 a; {kan apothneskein melles,
arpason, . . kata usteron eoe o ti soi pepromenon estin}.
 Citharist. Fr. 1, {ar esti suggenes to lupe kai bios}.
{Egeire o katheudon
Kai anasta ek ton vekron
Kai epiphausei soi o KHristos}--
survives; and the loss of the vivid multiplicity and colour of a
ideal, perhaps one which is even more stimulating and more
accumulation of importance given to the barbarous antecedents and
ambiguous records which it leaves. The value of this selection of
Sweet is snow in summer for the thirsty to drink, and sweet for
Snow, hail, darken, blaze, thunder, shake forth all thy glooming
persuasion, Zeus, thou didst once pierce in gold to that brazen
bridal-chamber.
Evermore in my ears eddies the sound of Love, and my eye silently
Cleophantis lingers long; and the third lamp now begins to give a
forewarns, she loves.
Dost thou then also, Philinna, carry longing in thee, dost thou
sleuth-hounds of the Cyprian on her track.
Would I were a pink rose, that fastening me with thine hands thou
longing as thou didst kindle it.
Who of my friends has imaged me sweet-voiced Zenophile? who has
Flower-fed bee, why touchest thou my Heliodora's skin, leaving
outright the flower-bells of spring? Meanest thou that even the
Fly for me, O gnat, a swift messenger, and touch Zenophile, and
whisper lightly into her ears: "one awaits thee waking; and thou
I beseech thee, Love, charm asleep the wakeful longing in me for
Why so woe-begone? and why, Philaenis, these reckless tearings of
trustworthy than the tongue.
unheeding.
Stay there, my garlands, hanging by these doors, nor hastily
Terrible is Love, terrible; and what avails it if again I say and
I am down: tread with thy foot on my neck, cruel divinity; I know
Ah suffering soul, now thou burnest in the fire, and now thou
to-morrow?
This ship to thee, O king of sea and sovereign of land, I Crantas
death; now renouncing all, fear and hope, sea and storms, I have
planted my foot securely upon earth.
I Laïs who laughed exultant over Greece, I who held that swarm of
The shuttle that sang at morning with the earliest swallows' cry,
This fresh-cloven pomegranate and fresh-downed quince, and the
Eudemus dedicates this shrine in the fields to Zephyrus, most
honey-sweet water in their hands.
juniper sacred among hunters, and stone-heaped seat of Hermes, be
This deer that fed about Ladon and the Erymanthian water and the
forehead, laid them before the Maiden of the country.
hundred spears; be ashamed, O mountains and seas.
O Time, all-surveying deity of the manifold things wrought among
country, farewell Athens nigh to Euboea, farewell dear sea.
I am an Athenian woman; for that was my city; but from Athens the
I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; and that opposite me, of a
husbandman; for a common Hades lies beneath sea and earth.
I am the tomb of one shipwrecked; but sail thou; for when we were
Mariner, ask not whose tomb I am here, but be thine own fortune a
Icarian rocks, having given up the ghost in the Aegean sea.
Sit beneath the poplars here, traveller, when thou art weary, and
fountain that Simus sets by the side of Gillus his dead child.
Hermes messenger of Persephone, whom usherest thou thus to the
parents. Pluto delighting in tears, are not all mortal spirits
allotted to thee? why gatherest thou the unripe grapes of youth?
The daughters of the Samians often require Crethis the teller of
I am of Baucis the bride; and passing by my oft-wept pillar thou
bridal song into a voice of wailing dirges.
prayers Persephone lit the lamp.
Artemis, wert busy with thy beast-slaying hounds.
Why idly bemoaning linger you by my tomb? nothing worthy of
Here the stone says it holds the white dog from Melita, the most
No longer, poor partridge migrated from the rocks, does thy woven
This little stone, good Sabinus, is the record of our great
The herald of the prowess of heroes and the interpreter of the
children?
indeed said the girl in her wisdom, "Thou art envious, O Death."
horned god of Maenalus when he sang thy hymn and forgot his own
pastoral reeds.
I am Thespis who first shaped the strain of tragedy, making new
Island Tyre was my nurse; and the Attic land that lies in Syrian
Gadara is the country of my birth; and I sprang of Eucrates, I
Celaenae; and we nymphs shall no longer as before hear the honey-
strings; and Daphnis the neatherd will mingle enchantment with
piercing my delicate lips and making me the channel of a narrow
Simus son of Miccus, giving me to the Muses, asked for himself
graceless rioting, you shall howl for it.
That second Aristotle, Nicostratus, Plato's peer, splitter of the
spurious; yes, he who concluded that the soul was mortal, would
conclude me spurious as well.
One told me of thy fate, Heraclitus, and wrung me to tears, and I
I know that I am mortal, and ephemeral; but when I scan the
multitudinous circling spirals of the stars, no longer do I touch
harbourage to her brood in the mud-plastered cells: and the sea
Beneath flowering Tmolus, by the stream of Maeonian Hermus, am I,
Go and rest your limbs here for a little under the juniper, O
Me, Pan, the fishermen placed upon this holy cliff, Pan of the
leadest thy feet; straightway will he, being by thee, make thy
business easy.
spring colder than northern snow.
fountain wells forth cold stainless water.
tiles, houses of wood-pigeons, houses of crickets, O noontide
Attic maid, honey-fed, chatterer, snatchest thou and bearest the
Why in merciless chase, shepherds, do you tear me the solitude-
flocks.
bills.
No longer dreading the rayless night-mist, sail towards me
Bromius bid you, Priapus of the anchorage.
I do not wish to feast down in the city, Philotherus, but in the
country, delighting myself with the breath of the west wind;
different sides stretch forth to me the pleasant gifts of sea and
Aniceteia wets her golden lip in me; but may I give her also the
draught of bridal.
Cythera of Bithynia dedicated me, the marble image of thy form, O
Never grow mould, O lamp, nor call up the rain, lest thou stop my
Cyprian thou flatterest thy master's pangs.
Artemis, to thee the son of Cichesias dedicates his shoes, and
Themostodice the strait folds of her gown, because thou didst
graciously hold thy two hands over her in childbed, coming, O our
Callirhoë dedicates to the Paphian garlands, to Pallas a tress of
first.
The Cyprian denies that she bore Love, seeing Antiochus among the
Praxiteles the sculptor made a Parian image of Love, moulding the
lookest joyously, sweet spring bursts into bloom.
O pastoral pipes, no longer sing of Daphnis on the mountains, to
pleasure Pan the lord of the goats; neither do you, O lyre
interpretess of Phoebus, any more chant Hyacinthus chapleted with
If thou boast in thy beauty, know that the rose too blooms, but
quickly being withered, is cast on the dunghill; for blossom and
evening of a woman's life? old age, full of a million wrinkles.
Now is autumn, Epicles, and out of the belt of Bootes the clear
Once on a time when a ship was shattered at sea, two men fell at
I know that my hands are empty of wealth; but by the Graces, O
Know, O Thetis of the sea, that Memnon yet lives and cries aloud,
Where is thine admired beauty, Dorian Corinth, where thy crown of
Formerly the dead left their city living; but we living hold the
city's funeral.
poverty.
You with the roses, you are fair as a rose; but what sell you?
yourself, or your roses, or both together?
Centaur," and ah that we had too! but now it perished from us.
To the must-drinking Satyrs and to Bacchus, planter of the vine,
Bacchus and the Satyrs, will drink deeper than they.
Round-bellied, deftly-turned, one eared, long-throated, straight-
Xenophon the wine-bibber dedicates an empty jar to thee, Bacchus;
boatswain's whistle: the other day I had such fortune, for I love
All the ways of life are pleasant; in the market-place are goodly
Six hours fit labour best: and those that follow, shown forth in
letters, say to mortals, "Live."
Whoso has married once and again seeks a second wedding, is a
shipwrecked man who sails twice through a difficult gulf.
reasonable and not to too hard a mistress.
Snub-nosed Memphis danced Daphnis and Niobe; Daphne like a stock,
Eutychus the portrait-painter got twenty sons, and never got one
likeness, even among his children.
Charmus ran for the three miles in Arcadia with five others;
Marcus once saw midnight out in the armed men's race, so that the
forbidding another to hope, gasped out his own life.
If you have an enemy, Dionysius, call not down upon him Isis nor
locusts."
You have a Thessalian horse, Erasistratus, but the drugs of all
boiled and roasted and pickled, and there is no life in it then.
I was in love once; who has not been? I have revelled; who is
kinsfolk in their forest feeding-ground; for thou art gone on the
Unherded at evenfall the oxen came to the farmyard from the hill,
Strange dust covers thy body, and the lot of death took thee, O
living out of the sea, out of the sea likewise drew my death.
reefs, nigh the disastrous main, I found a grave at the hands of
swallowed me down cast me up again on this shore.
Thee too, son of Cleanor, desire after thy native land destroyed,
Hades inexorable and inflexible, why hast thou thus reft infant
Callaeschrus of life? Surely the child will be a plaything in the
adopted son; but God would not let me have even a second mother's
Protomachus said, as his father held him in his hands when he was
Already the saffron-strewn bride-bed was spread within the golden
Unhappy, by what first word, by what second shall I name thee?
Vibius, and around thee may all be roses.
All human must pay the debt of death, nor is there any mortal who
apart. All life is such, only the turn of the scale; if thou art
Be young, dear my soul: soon will others be men, and I being dead
Diodorus, slipping greedily into wine, drink deep, even to the
ointments and garlands.
Now is rose-time and peas are in season, and the heads of early
abundant in years; for to-day thou hast no share in what is gone.
Now we flourish as before others did, and soon others will, whose
mouldering into a land that at last is not thine.
All is laughter, and all is dust, and all is nothing; for out of
unreason is all that is.
We all are watched and fed for Death as a herd of swine butchered
either never to be born, or, as soon as born, to die.
development of Greece, from the earliest time to the repulse of
the Persian invasion, B.C. 480.
MIMNERMUS of Smyrna fl. B.C. 634-600, and was the contemporary of
ERINNA of Rhodes, the contemporary of Sappho according to ancient
poetry ({melisma}) and epigrams ({elegoi}) as distinct from one
epigrams are quoted by Herodotus; others are preserved by Strabo,
Meleager, l. 34, speaks of "the yellow ears from the blade of
extinction of Greek freedom at the battle of Chaeronea, B.C. 480-
perfection. Two epigrams and part of a third ascribed to him are
preserved in Athenaeus.
The period may then be conveniently subdivided under five heads--
(1) Poets of Greece Proper and Macedonia, continuing the purely
Greek tradition in literature.
(3) The earlier Alexandrians of the third century B.C.
(4) The later Alexandrians of the second century B.C.
(5) Just on the edge of this period, Meleager and his
contemporaries: transition to the Roman period.
Mitylene" and may be by a different hand, as Adaeus was a common
simplicity out of doors, with a serious sense of religion and
invasion, probably that of B.C. 279; but this is headed "Anyte of
showing (if the common theory as to her date be true) a deep and
sympathetic study of Simonides.
Probably to this group belong also the following poets:
rather than an epigrammatist.
PERSES, called "the Theban" in the heading of one epigram, "the
simplicity and good taste, but inferior power. The /Garland/ of
beautiful epitaphs.
PHAEDIMUS of Bisanthe in Macedonia, author of an epic called the
epigrams under his name, a beautiful dedication, and a very noble
appendix of epigrams in mixed metres at the end of the Palatine
(2) Under this head is a group of three distinguished poets and
critics:
PHILETAS of Cos, a contemporary of Alexander, and tutor to the
children of Ptolemy I. He was chiefly distinguished as an elegiac
Meleager, l. 30. Two of the seven epigrams under his name in the
{griphoi} or pattern-poems at the end of the Palatine MS.
(3) LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM is the reputed author of one hundred and
daintiness of style; but when he writes simply his execution is
epigrammatist," and so is probably a different person from the
MOERO or MYRO of Byzantium, daughter of the tragedian Homerus,
Thessalonica mentions her in his list of famous poetesses. Of the
(/Garland/, l. 5) only two are extant, both dedications.
THEODORIDES of Syracuse, the author of nineteen epigrams in the
speaks of him as imitating Simonides, and criticises his style as
something of the simplicity of his great model, and even a slight
MOSCHUS of Syracuse, the last of the pastoral poets, flourished
fragment by Cyrus (ix. 136), which has without authority been
attributed to him and is generally included among his poems.
To this period may belong DIOTIMUS, whose name is at the head of
speaks, l. 27, of "the quince from the boughs of Diotimus."
AUTOMEDON of Aetolia is the author of an epigram in the Palatine
THEAETETUS is only known as the author of three epigrams in the
(4) ALCAEUS of Messene, who flourished 200 B.C., represents the
literary and political energy still surviving in Greece under the
against the theory that most if not all are by the same author,
DIOSCORIDES, the author of forty-one epigrams in the Palatine
ARTEMIDORUS, a grammarian, pupil of Aristophanes of Byzantium and
epigrams are given as by one or other in Planudes and Diogenes
cognisance.
Testament), and educated at Tyre. His later life was spent in the
pastoral, with great beauty of style and feeling for nature.
(1) ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA, the author of upwards of a hundred
Nicopolis by Octavianus, after the battle of Actium; another
ANTIPHANES the Macedonian is the author of ten epigrams in the
BIANOR of Bithynia is the author of twenty-two epigrams in the
Anthology. One of them is on the destruction of Sardis by an
earthquake in A.D. 17. He is fond of sentimental treatment, which
DIODORUS, son of Diopeithes of Sardis, also called Diodorus the
EVENUS of Ascalon is probably the author of eight epigrams in the
PARMENIO the Macedonian is the author of sixteen epigrams in the
Anthology, most of which have little quality beyond commonplace
rhetoric.
collection, are the following:--
travelling in Greece.
identified with Gn. Lentulus Gaetulicus, legate of Upper Germany,
epigrams.
(2) PHILIPPUS of Thessalonica was the compiler of an Anthology of
dubiously ascribed to him. He wrote epigrams of all sorts, mainly
merely rhetorical exercises on stock themes give no clue to his
precise period.
Anthology, besides three doubtful. Among them are some graceful
NICARCHUS is the author of forty-two epigrams of the same kind as
To some part of this century also belong SECUNDUS of Tarentum and
mutilated form, as the twelfth section or first appendix of the
Anthology, and one more in Planudes.
fashion in Greek prose writing. His date is fixed by an attack on
Alexandrian period.
CLAUDIUS PTOLEMAEUS of Alexandria, mathematician, astronomer, and
To some part of this period appear to belong ALPHEUS of Mitylene,
 The spelling /Lucillius/ is a mere barbarism, the /l/ being
doubled to indicate the long vowel: so we find {Statullios}, etc.
Anthology in the reign of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, about the
middle of the tenth century.
PALLADAS of Alexandria is the author of one hundred and fifty-one
twenty-eight lines.
ARABIUS, author of seven epigrams in the Anthology, is called
PAULUS, always spoken of with his official title of SILENTIARIUS,
Anthology, is the most distinguished poet of this period. Our
possess a long description of the church of Saint Sophia by him,
partly in iambics and partly in hexameters, and a poem in dimeter
inferior to those of Meleager.
RUFINUS, author of thirty-nine (and three more doubtful) amatory
ascribed to Theophanes in Planudes.