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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    & yevos avOpwTruv iroAvBaKpuTOV, affdeves, olnrp6v, <paiv6p.evov Kara yrjs Kal Sia\v6p.evov. When he chooses to be cynical, Palladas can present the physical conditions of human life with a crude brutality which is worthy of a monk composing a chapter De, Contemptu humancR miserice. It is enough to allude to the epigrams upon the birth (ii. 259) and the breath (ii. 265) of man. To this had philosophy fallen in the death of Greece. One more quotation from Palladas has a touch of pathos. The old order has yielded to the new : Theodosius has closed the temples : the Greeks are in ashes : their very hopes remain among the dead (ii. 268) : “EA\y]ves earp.ev &v$pes iffiroSw/ievoi, veKpaiv exovres eAirlfias TeQap.fx.evas' avearpatpri yap iravra vvv ra Tvpayp.ara. With this wail the thin lamentable voice of the desiccated rhetorician ceases. Akin to these hortatory epigrams, in their tone of settled melancholy, are some of the satiric and convivial. It is neces- sary, when we think of the Greeks as the brightest and sunniest of all races, to remember what songs they sang at their ban- quets, and to comfort ourselves with the reflection that between their rose-wreaths and the bright Hellenic sky above them hung for them, no less than for ourselves, the cloud of death. What more dismal drinking-song can be conceived than this? (i. 337) :* ov8e»/ a/xapT-fjaas yev6p.r\v trapa toov p.e tskovtuv ’ yevvTjOels S’ 6 raAas epxo/aai els ’AiStjv ’ “ Such is the state of man ; from birth To death all comfortless : Then swept away beneath the earth In utter nothingness.” Edward Stokes. My sire begat me ; ’twas no fault of mine : But being born, in Hades I must pine :