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.

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    to Euripides is from the pen of a brother dramatist, the comic poet Philemon (ii. 94) : * el rah aXr]9eiaun.v ol TeOuriKdres oXaOrjcriv elyoi/, fo'Spfcs c6s <j>a<riv Tives, cnTrr}y^d[XT]u dv wctt5 Ibelv EvpnriSrju. Aristophanes is praised by Antipater of Thessalonica (ii. 37) as the poet who laughed and hated rightly : Kca/juice Kal arv£as a£ia Kal yeXaaas. His plays are characterized as full of fearful graces, tyofiepiov 7r\r)06fjL£roi yaptrioy. Over the grave of Anacreon, who receives more tributes of this kind than any other poet, roses are to bloom, and wine is to be poured, and the thoughts of Smerdies, Bathyllus, and Megistias are to linger. Antipater of Sidon in particular paid honour to his grave (i. 278): + 6a\\oi T€TpctK6puju/3os, ’At’dupeov, aucpl ce Ki<r<rbs d/3pa re Aeificavcov Tropcpvpewv ireraXa ' ir-qyal S’ apyivdevros avaQAifioivTo yaXanros, evudes S’ airb yrjs r)5i/ yeoiro \ae9v, ocppa Ke roi (nrobir] re Kal ocTTea Tepiptv dprjrai, el 877 ns (j)9ip.evois xp‘V7rTeTai eixppoauj'a, * “ If it be true that in the grave the dead Have sense and knowledge, as some men'assert, I’d hang myself to see Euripides.” f ‘£ Around the tomb, O bard divine ! Where soft thy hallowed brow reposes, Long may the deathless ivy twine, And summer pour his waste of roses ! “ And many a fount shall there distil, And many a rill refresh the flowers ; But wine shall gush in every rill, And every fount yield milky showers. “ Thus, shade of him whom nature taught To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure, Who gave to love his warmest thought, Who gave to love his fondest measure ;