Volume 1

Studies of the Greek poets / by John Addington Symonds.

  • John Addington Symonds
Date:
1877-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of the Greek poets / by John Addington Symonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    392/468
    and on the three athletes who perished by shipwreck (i. 342), have a mournful wail of their own. Not very different, too, is the pathos of Therimachus struck by lightning (i. 306) :* avTOfMTai SetArj ttot\ rtivAiov at /3oes XQov e| upeos 7roA\fj VKp6p.evai xl&vl’ ala?, ®r)pip.axos 8e irapa 8put rbv tiaKpbv evSei vttvov ' iKoifJLT]dr] 8s e/c irvpbs oiipaviov. It is pleasant to turn from these to epitaphs which dwell more upon the qualities of the dead than the circumstances of their death. Here is the epitaph of a slave (i. 379) : + ZooffL/xr] 7] irp\v eovaa p.6v(p rep ad>p.ari SovArj na\ to3 (TcbpiaTL vvv evpev iA^vdepiTju. Here is a buffoon (i. 380) : J Nt?Aei^y 'AtSrjs’ iir\ (To\ S’ iyeAa(r<re Qavovn, TiTvpe, Kal vckvwu drjfce ere pup.o\6yov. Of all the literary epitaphs by far the most interesting are those written for the poets, historians, and philosophers of Greece. Reserving these for separate consideration I pass now to mention a few which belong as much to the pure epi- gram as to the epitaph. When, for example, we read two very clever poems on the daughters of Lycambes (i. 339), two again on a comically drunken old woman (i. 340, 360), and five on a man who has been first murdered and then buried by his mur- derer (i. 340), we see that, though the form of the epitaph has been adopted, clever rhetoricians, anxious only to display their skill, have been at work in rivalry. Sardanapalus, the eponym of Oriental luxury, furnishes a good subject for this style of * “ Home to their stalls at eve the oxen came Down from the mountain through the snow-wreaths deep ; But ah, Therimachus sleeps the long sleep ’Neath yonder oak, lulled by the levin-flame.” t She who was once but in her flesh a slave Hath for her flesh found freedom in the grave.” + “ Hades is stem ; but when you died, he said, Smiling, ‘ Be jester still among the dead.”