CHAPTER IV
LITERATURE AND ART
I THE GROVE OF THE MUSES AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Say thou that this grave is consecrate to the Muses, pointing to the books by the plane-trees, and that we guard it; and if a true lover of ours come hither, we crown him with our ivy.
II THE VOICE OF THE WORLD ANTIPATER OF SIDON
The herald of the prowess of heroes and the interpreter of the immortals, a second sun on the life of Greece, Homer, the light of the Muses, the ageless mouth of all the world, lies hid, O stranger, under the sea-washed sand.
III THE TALE OF TROY ALPHEUS
Still we hear the wail of Andromache, still we see all Troy toppling from her foundations, and the battling of Ajax, and Hector, bound to the horses, dragged under the city's crown of towers, through the Muse of Maeonides, the poet with whom no one country adorns herself as her own, but the zones of both worlds.
IV ORPHEUS ANTIPATER OF SIDON
No longer, Orpheus, wilt thou lead the charmed oaks, no longer the rocks nor the lordless herds of the wild beasts; no longer wilt thou lull the roaring of the winds, nor hail and sweep of snowstorms nor dashing sea; for thou perishedst; and the daughters of Mnemosyne wept sore for thee, and thy mother Calliope above all. Why do we mourn over dead sons, when not even gods avail to ward off Hades from their children?
V SAPPHO POSIDIPPUS
Doricha, long ago thy bones are dust, and the ribbon of thy hair and the raiment scented with unguents, wherein once wrapping lovely Charaxus round thou didst cling to him carousing into dawn; but the white leaves of the dear ode of Sappho remain yet and shall remain speaking thy blessed name, which Naucratis shall keep here so long as a sea-going ship shall come to the lagoons of Nile.
VI ERINNA (1) AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Thee, as thou wert just giving birth to a springtide of honeyed songs and just finding thy swan-voice, Fate, mistress of the threaded spindle, drove to Acheron across the wide water of the dead; but the fair labour of thy verses, Erinna, cries that thou art not perished, but keepest mingled choir with the Maidens of Pieria.
VII ERINNA (2) LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM
The young maiden singer Erinna, the bee among poets, who sipped the flowers of the Muses, Hades snatched away to be his bride; truly indeed said the girl in her wisdom, "Thou art envious, O Death."
VIII ANACREON'S GRAVE (1) AUTHOR UNKNOWN
O stranger who passest this the tomb of Anacreon, pour libation over me in going by; for I am a drinker of wine.
IX ANACREON'S GRAVE (2) ANTIPATER OF SIDON
O stranger who passest by the humble tomb of Anacreon, if thou hast had aught of good from my books pour libation on my ashes, pour libation of the jocund grape, that my bones may rejoice wetted with wine; so I, who was ever deep in the wine-steeped revels of Dionysus, I who was bred among drinking tunes, shall not even when dead endure without Bacchus this place to which the generation of mortals must come.
X PINDAR ANTIPATER OF SIDON
As high as the trumpet's blast outsounds the thin flute, so high above all others did thy lyre ring; nor idly did the tawny swarm mould their waxen-celled honey, O Pindar, about thy tender lips: witness the horned god of Maenalus when he sang thy hymn and forgot his own pastoral reeds.
XI THESPIS DIOSCORIDES
I am Thespis who first shaped the strain of tragedy, making new partition of fresh graces among the masquers when Bacchus would lead home the wine-stained chorus, for whom a goat and a basket of Attic figs was as yet the prize in contests. A younger race reshape all this; and infinite time will make many more inventions yet; but mine are mine.
XII SOPHOCLES SIMMIAS
Gently over the tomb of Sophocles, gently creep, O ivy, flinging forth thy pale tresses, and all about let the rose-petal blow, and the clustered vine shed her soft tendrils round, for the sake of the wise- hearted eloquence mingled of the Muses and Graces that lived on his honeyed tongue.
XIII ARISTOPHANES PLATO
The Graces, seeking to take a sanctuary that will not fall, found the soul of Aristophanes.
XIV RHINTHO NOSSIS
With a ringing laugh, and a friendly word over me do thou pass by; I am Rhintho of Syracuse, a small nightingale of the Muses; but from our tragical mirth we plucked an ivy of our own.
XV MELEAGER (1) MELEAGER
Tread softly, O stranger; for here an old man sleeps among the holy dead, lulled in the slumber due to all, Meleager son of Eucrates, who united Love of the sweet tears and the Muses with the joyous Graces; whom God-begotten Tyre brought to manhood, and the sacred land of Gadara, but lovely Cos nursed in old age among the Meropes. But if thou art a Syrian, say /Salam/, and if a Phoenician, /Naidios/, and if a Greek, Hail; they are the same.
XVI MELEAGER (2) MELEAGER
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 Meleager, the companion of the Muses, first of all who have run side by side with the Graces of Menippus. And if I am a Syrian, what wonder? We all dwell in one country, O stranger, the world; one Chaos brought all mortals to birth. And when stricken in years, I inscribed this on my tablets before burial, since old age is death's near neighbour; but do thou, bidding hail to me, the aged talker, thyself reach a talking old age.
XVII PYLADES THE HARP-PLAYER ALCAEUS OF MESSENE
All Greece bewails thee departed, Pylades, and cuts short her undone hair; even Phoebus himself laid aside the laurels from his unshorn tresses, honouring his own minstrel as was meet, and the Muses wept, and Asopus stayed his stream, hearing the cry from their wailing lips; and Dionysus' halls ceased from dancing when thou didst pass down the iron path of Death.
XVIII THE DEATH OF MUSIC LEONTIUS
When Orpheus was gone, a Muse was yet haply left, but when thou didst perish, Plato, the harp likewise ceased; for till then there yet lived some little fragment of the old melodies, saved in thy soul and hands.
XIX APOLLO AND MARSYAS (1) ALCAEUS OF MESSENE
No more through pine-clad Phrygia, as of old, shalt thou make melody, uttering thy notes through the pierced reeds, nor in thy hands as before shall the workmanship of Tritonian Athena flower forth, nymph-born Satyr; for thy hands are bound tight in gyves, since being mortal thou didst join immortal strife with Phoebus; and the flutes, that cried as honey-sweet as his harp, gained thee from the contest no crown but death.
XX APOLLO AND MARSYAS (2) ARCHIAS
Thou hangest high where the winds lash thy wild body, O wretched one, swinging from a shaggy pine; thou hangest high, for thou didst stand up to strife against Phoebus, O Satyr, dweller on the cliff of Celaenae; and we nymphs shall no longer as before hear the honey- sounding cry of thy flute on the Phrygian hills.
XXI GLAPHYRUS THE FLUTE-PLAYER ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA
Phoebus said over clear-voiced Glaphyrus as he breathed desire through the pierced lotus-pipes, "O Marsyas, thou didst tell false of thy discovery, for this is he who carried off Athena's flutes out of Phrygia; and if thou hadst blown then in such as his, Hyagnis would not have wept that disastrous flute-strife by Maeander."
XXII VIOL AND FLUTE THEOCRITUS
Wilt thou for the Muses' sake play me somewhat of sweet on thy twin flutes? and I lifting the harp will begin to make music on the strings; and Daphnis the neatherd will mingle enchantment with tuneable breath of the wax-bound pipe; and thus standing nigh within the fringed cavern mouth, let us rob sleep from Pan the lord of the goats.
XXIII POPULAR SONGS LUCILIUS
Eutychides, the writer of songs, is dead; flee, O you under earth! Eutychides is coming with his odes; he left instructions to burn along with him twelve lyres and twenty-five boxes of airs. Now Charon has come upon you; whither may one retreat in future, since Eutychides fills Hades too?
XXIV GRAMMAR, MUSIC, RHETORIC LUCILIUS
Pluto turns away the dead rhetorician Marcus, saying, "Let the dog
Cerberus suffice us here; yet if thou needs must, declaim to Ixion and
Melito the song-writer, and Tityus; for I have no worse evil than
thee, till Rufus the critic comes to murder the language here."
XXV CALAMUS AUTHOR UNKNOWN
I the reed was a useless plant; for out of me grew not figs nor apple nor grape-cluster; but man consecrated me a daughter of Helicon, piercing my delicate lips and making me the channel of a narrow stream; and thenceforth, whenever I sip black drink, like one inspired I speak all words with this voiceless mouth.
XXVI IN THE CLASSROOM CALLIMACHUS
Simus son of Miccus, giving me to the Muses, asked for himself learning, and they, like Glaucus, gave a great gift for a little one; and I lean gaping up against this double letter of the Samian, a tragic Dionysus, listening to the little boys; and they repeat /Holy is the hair/, telling me my own dream.
XXVII THE POOR SCHOLAR ARISTON
O mice, if you are come after bread, go to another cupboard (for we live in a tiny cottage) where you will feed daintily on rich cheese and dried raisins, and make an abundant supper off the scraps; but if you sharpen your teeth again on my books and come in with your graceless rioting, you shall howl for it.
XXVIII THE HIGHER METAPHYSIC AGATHIAS
That second Aristotle, Nicostratus, Plato's peer, splitter of the straws of the sublimest philosophy, was asked about the soul as follows: How may one rightly describe the soul, as mortal, or, on the contrary, immortal? and should we speak of it as a body or incorporeal? and is it to be placed among intelligible or sensible objects, or compounded of both? So he read through the treatises of the transcendentalists, and Aristotle's /de Anima/, and explored the Platonic heights of the /Phaedo/, and wove into a single fabric the whole exact truth on all its sides. Then wrapping his threadbare cloak about him, and stroking down the end of his beard, he proffered the solution:—If there exists at all a nature of the soul—for of this I am not sure—it is certainly either mortal or immortal, of solid nature or immaterial; however, when you cross Acheron, there you shall know the certainty like Plato. And if you will, imitate young Cleombrotus of Ambracia, and let your body drop from the roof; and you may at once recognise your self apart from the body by merely getting rid of the subject of your inquiry.
XXIX THE PHAEDO OF PLATO AUTHOR UNKNOWN
If Plato did not write me, there were two Platos; I carry in me all the flowers of Socratic talk. But Panaetius concluded me to be spurious; yes, he who concluded that the soul was mortal, would conclude me spurious as well.
XXX CLEOMBROTUS OF AMBRACIA CALLIMACHUS
Saying, "Farewell, O Sun," Cleombrotus of Ambracia leaped off a high wall to Hades, having seen no evil worthy of death, but only having read that one writing of Plato's on the soul.
XXXI THE DEAD SCHOLAR CALLIMACHUS
One told me of thy fate, Heraclitus, and wrung me to tears, and I remembered how often both of us let the sun sink as we talked; but thou, methinks, O friend from Halicarnassus, art ashes long and long ago; yet thy nightingale-notes live, whereon Hades the ravisher of all things shall not lay his hand.
XXXII ALEXANDRIANISM CALLIMACHUS
I hate the cyclic poem, nor do I delight in a road that carries many hither and thither; I detest, too, one who ever goes girt with lovers, and I drink not from the fountain; I loathe everything popular.
XXXIII SPECIES AETERNITATIS PTOLEMAEUS
I know that I am mortal, and ephemeral; but when I scan the multitudinous circling spirals of the stars, no longer do I touch earth with my feet, but sit with Zeus himself, and take my fill of the ambrosial food of gods.
XXXIV THE PASTORAL POETS ARTEMIDORUS
The pastoral Muses, once scattered, now are all a single flock in a single fold.
XXXV ON A RELIEF OF EROS AND ANTEROS AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Nemesis fashioned a winged Love contrary to winged Love, warding off bow with bow, that he may be done by as he did; and, bold and fearless before, he sheds tears, having tasted of the bitter arrows, and spits thrice into his low-girt bosom. Ah, most wonderful! one will burn with fire: Love has set Love aflame.
XXXVI ON A LOVE BREAKING THE THUNDERBOLT AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Lo, how winged Love breaks the winged thunderbolt, showing that he is a fire more potent than fire.
XXXVII ON A LOVE PLOUGHING MOSCHUS
Laying down his torch and bow, soft Love took the rod of an ox-driver, and wore a wallet over his shoulder; and coupling patient-necked bulls under his yoke, sowed the wheat-bearing furrow of Demeter; and spoke, looking up, to Zeus himself, "Fill thou the corn-lands, lest I put thee, bull of Europa, under my plough."
XXXVIII ON A PAN PIPING ARABIUS
One might surely have clearly heard Pan piping, so did the sculptor mingle breath with the form; but in despair at the sight of flying, unstaying Echo, he renounced the pipe's unavailing sound.
XXXIX ON A STATUE OF THE ARMED VENUS AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Pallas said, seeing Cytherea armed, "O Cyprian, wilt thou that we go so to judgment?" and she, laughing softly, "why should I lift a shield in contest? if I conquer when naked, how will it be when I take arms?"
XL ON THE CNIDIAN VENUS OF PRAXITELES AUTHOR UNKNOWN
The Cyprian said when she saw the Cyprian of Cnidus, "Alas where did
Praxiteles see me naked?"
XLI ON A SLEEPING ARIADNE AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Strangers, touch not the marble Ariadne, lest she even start up on the quest of Theseus.
XLII ON A NIOBE BY PRAXITELES AUTHOR UNKNOWN
From life the gods made me a stone; and from stone again Praxiteles wrought me into life.
XLIII ON A PICTURE OF A FAUN AGATHIAS
Untouched, O young Satyr, does thy reed utter a sound, or why leaning sideways dost thou put thine ear to the pipe? He laughs and is silent; yet haply had he spoken a word, but was held in forgetfulness by delight? for the wax did not hinder, but of his own will he welcomed silence, with his whole mind turned intent on the pipe.
XLIV ON THE HEIFER OF MYRON AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Ah thou wert not quick enough, Myron, in thy casting; but the bronze grew solid before thou hadst cast in a soul.
XLV ON A SLEEPING SATYR PLATO
This Satyr Diodorus engraved not, but laid to rest; your touch will wake him; the silver is asleep.
XLVI THE LIMIT OF ART PARRHASIUS
Even though incredible to the hearer, I say this; for I affirm that the clear limits of this art have been found under my hand, and the mark is fixed fast that cannot be exceeded. But nothing among mortals is faultless.