Would I were
The murmuring bee, that through the ivy screen
And through the fern that hides thee, I might come
Into thy cavern!
[150] Perhaps this is over-stated. In the later Greek literature of the Sophists we find many very exquisite concetti. Philostratus, for example, from whom Jonson translated "Drink to me only with thine eyes," calls the feet of the beloved one ἐρηρεισμένα φιλήματα, or "kisses pressed upon the ground." Even Empedocles (see vol. i. p. 220) and Pindar (see vol. i. p. 369) are not free from the vice of artificial metaphor. Compare, too, the labored metaphors and compound epithets quoted from Chæremon above, chap. xvi., and the specimens quoted below from Meleager, chap. xxi.
[151] How wonderfully beautiful is her description of Delphis and his comrade Eudamnippus: "Their cheeks and chin were yellower than helichrysus; their breasts more radiant far than thou, O Moon, as having lately left the fair toil of the wrestling-ground."
How of old
The goatherd by his cruel lord was bound,
And left to die in a great chest; and how
The busy bees, up coming from the meadows,
To the sweet cedar, fed him with soft flowers,
Because the Muse had filled his mouth with nectar.
Yes, all these sweets were thine, blessed Comatas;
And thou wast put into the chest, and fed
By the blithe bees, and passed a pleasant time.
Leigh Hunt's Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla.
[153] This ought probably to be printed, after Ahrens, αἰάζ' ὦ τὸν Ἄδωνιν. The exclamation occurs in a fragment of Sappho (Bergk, No. 63), whose lyric on the legend of Adonis may have suggested Bion's idyl.