[86] It is interesting to observe that this custom of the funeral dirge, improvised with wild inspiration by women, has been preserved almost to the present day in Corsica. A collection of these coronachs, called Voceri in the language of the island, was published in 1855 at Bastia, by Cesare Fabiani.
[87] Translated by Mitchell, vol. ii. p. 282, in his Dicast turned Gentleman.
[88] "To be in health is the best thing for mortal man; the next best to be of form and nature beautiful; the third, to enjoy wealth gotten without fraud; and the fourth, to be in youth's bloom among friends." The Greek suspicion of wealth, abundantly illustrated in the Gnomic elegies, might be further exemplified by this fragment ascribed to Timocreon:
Would, blind Wealth, that thou hadst been
Ne'er on land or ocean seen,
Nowhere on this upper earth!
Hell's black stream that gave thee birth
Is the proper haunt for thee,
Cause of all man's misery!
[89] Athen., Lib., viii. 360.
[90] This begs the question of the nationality of Tyrtæus, who, according to antique tradition, was of Attic origin, but who writes like a Spartan.
[91] Compare Simonides (Bergk, vol. iii. p. 1143):
ἄγγελε κλυτὰ ἔαρος ἁδυόδμου,
κυανέα χελιδοῖ.
Blithe angel of the perfume-breathing spring,
Dark-vested swallow.
[92] Those who are curious in the matter of metres will find the Sapphic stanza reproduced in English, with perfect truth of cadence, in Swinburne's "Sapphics" (Poems and Ballads). The imitations by Horace are far less close to the original.