and singing of love as existing between two particular persons. It is a commonplace that every new lover loves as no one has ever done before. Until a poet speaks of himself in this way, until he emphasises the individuality of his own particular passion, he cannot be said to write real love-poetry. And certainly the fragments, at any rate, do not supply any proof that Alcman ever wrote such love-poetry. He may have been in love with Megalostrate; as far as we know, he never said so.[32]
Again, it must not be forgotten that Alcman also wrote poems addressed to boys, and it is at least possible that some of those erotic fragments which are preserved may have belonged to these.[33]
As for the Parthenia, they are not love-poems in any sense of the word. The poet is merely ὁ τῶν παρθένων ἐπαινέτης τε καὶ σύμβουλος,[34] which was possible in the happy condition of Spartan society, quite without anything further being implied.
“Multa tuae, Sparte, miramur iura palaestrae.”
One of these poems was written in old age;[35] perhaps all of them were.[36] Besides, they celebrate a number of girls indifferently; love-poems would not do that.[37]
Till Egypt renders up some more Alcman, it will be impossible to prove that he ever addressed a love-poem to a woman.
Strange as it may perhaps seem, it is almost an equal misuse of words to call Mimnermus a love-poet. It has so long been customary to regard him as such, that it is at first hard to realise that, in all probability, he was never anything of the kind. As a matter of fact, it seems naturally reasonable to suppose, and there is at any rate nothing in the fragments to contradict this view, that Mimnermus was, like the other elegiac writers of his age, purely didactic.[38] The philosophy which he inculcated differed from that of Tyrtaeus or Solon, no doubt, but it was none the less a philosophy. Mimnermus argued that, considering the shortness of life, and especially of youth, it was advisable to devote one’s self immediately and strenuously to sensual pleasures, before the power of enjoying them was lost. The argument was quite general. “What is life without love?” he says; he does not say, “What is life without your love?”[39] This enunciation of general principles is not love-poetry. As has already been remarked, no poetry can properly be so described until the personal element has entered into it, and of this personal element there is no evidence in the case of Mimnermus.
As for the actual poems themselves, there is no evidence that any of them were, as is generally tacitly assumed, addressed to Nanno or any other woman; and indeed, if one considers their nature, one will see that there is really no reason why they should have been. It is worthy of note, in the first place, that the only definite evidence of the existence of such a person as Nanno is that furnished by Hermesianax,[40] and that this writer’s information as to the early poets was not always very accurate, is sufficiently shown by what he says of Homer, Sappho, Anacreon, and others.[41] But granted that the story of the poet’s love for Nanno was true, that is very far from proving the fact that he addressed his poems to her. What seemed only natural in the fourth century, was by no means so in the seventh. But besides this (as it ought to be superfluous to remark, and probably is not), Hermesianax never states that Mimnermus did so; he does not even go so far as to say that the latter alluded to Nanno in his elegies. Hermesianax makes three definite statements about Mimnermus:—(1) that he invented or utilised the pentameter; (2) that he was in love with Nanno, and used often (in consequence?) to attend entertainments; (3) that he suffered from the enmity of Hermobius and Pherecles. More than this is not to be found in the passage, however one may emend or explain it. As for the supposition that Mimnermus gave to his collected elegies the title of Nanno, there is no evidence of a collection so entitled before the time of Strabo, by which time, of course, the influence of writers like Hermesianax had long been at work.[42] In short, there is no evidence whatever to lead one to suppose that the elegies of Mimnermus were anything but purely impersonal didactic moralisings on the shortness of youth, and the consequent advisability of making the best possible use of it.[43] Mimnermus was a philosopher;[44] to call him a love-poet is a misuse of words. He wrote exquisite poetry, and his service in developing the forms of art was unquestionably very valuable, but he brings us very little farther in the history of the treatment of women in literature.
It is in Anacreon that we find for the first time love-poetry addressed to women;[45] though one must never forget, as some modern writers seem inclined to do, that this writer also addressed a number of love-poems to boys, and that, in fact, these formed the bulk of his work.[46] The poems addressed to women were many of them, perhaps all, the work of the poet’s old age,[47] and their general tone is sufficiently indicated by such fragments as 55, 59, 161, etc.:[48] these two features serve, of course, to connect Anacreon with his predecessors; at the same time, the individualisation of this particular emotion, which we find here for the first time clearly indicated, was obviously a great advance in the art of the subject. Purely animal emotions, however highly developed or refined, could never lead to that feeling which we have called the romantic, and hence the direct importance of Anacreon for our immediate subject is but small; but the individualisation of these animal emotions was obviously of inexpressible importance for the development of the literature that dealt with them. The first essential of art is accurate observation, and the essence of accurate observation is attention to a definite object. By appreciating this fact, and concentrating upon a definite object the general emotions described by Mimnermus and the like, Anacreon created love-poetry as between man and woman, and thereby created that form of art in which the romantic feeling, when it arose, found the readiest means of expression. Thus, though in no sense of the word a romantic writer, or one who would have been likely to sympathise with romantic ideas, Anacreon was yet, unconsciously and indirectly, doing an unquestionable service in preparing the way for the dissemination, if not for the evolution, of this later feeling; and in so far this γυναικῶν ἠπερόπευμα deserves, at least, recognition, if not respect.