πάτρα δέ με τεκνοῖ
Ἀτθὶς ἐν Ἀσσυρίοις ναιομένα, Γάδαρα.[210]
It is curious to think of this town, which from our childhood we have connected with the miracle of the demoniac and the swine, as a Syrian Athens, the birthplace of the most mellifluous of all erotic songsters. Meleager's date is half a century or thereabouts before the Christian era. He therefore was ignorant of the work and the words of One who made the insignificant place of his origin world-famous. Of his history we know really nothing more than his own epigrams convey; the two following couplets from one of his epitaphs record his sojourn during different periods of his life at Tyre and at Ceos:
ὃν θεόπαις ἤνδρωσε Τύρος Γαδάρων θ' ἱερὰ χθών·
Κῶς δ' ἐρατὴ Μερόπων πρέσβυν ἐγηροτρόφει.
Ἀλλ' εἰ μὲν Σύρος ἐσσί, Σάλαμ· εἰ δ' οὖν σύγε Φοῖνιξ,
Ναίδιος· εἰ δ' Ἕλλην, χαῖρε· τὸ δ' αὐτὸ φράσον.[211]
This triple salutation, coming from the son of Gadara and Tyre and Ceos, brings us close to the pure humanity which distinguished Meleager. Modern men, judging him by the standard of Christian morality, may feel justified in flinging a stone at the poet who celebrated his Muiscos and his Diocles, his Heliodora and his Zenophila, in too voluptuous verse. But those who are content to criticise a pagan by his own rule of right and wrong will admit that Meleager had a spirit of the subtlest and the sweetest, a heart of the tenderest, and a genius of the purest that has been ever granted to an elegist of earthly love. While reading his verse, it is impossible to avoid laying down the book and pausing to exclaim: How modern is the phrase, how true the passion, how unique the style! Though Meleager's voice has been mute a score of centuries, it yet rings clear and vivid in our ears; because the man was a real poet, feeling intensely, expressing forcibly and beautifully, steeping his style in the fountain of tender sentiment which is eternal. We find in him none of the cynicism which defiles Straton, or of the voluptuary's despair which gives to Agathias the morbid splendor of decay, the colors of corruption. All is simple, lively, fresh with joyous experience in his verse.
The first great merit of Meleager as a poet is limpidity. A crystal is not more transparent than his style; but the crystal to which we compare it must be colored with the softest flush of beryl or of amethyst. Here is a little poem in praise of Heliodora (i. 85):
πλέξω λευκόϊον, πλέξω δ' ἁπαλὴν ἅμα μύρτοις
νάρκισσον, πλέξω καὶ τὰ γελῶντα κρίνα,
πλέξω καὶ κρόκον ἡδύν· ἐπιπλέξω δ' ὑάκινθον
πορφυρέην, πλέξω καὶ φιλέραστα ῥόδα,
ὡς ἂν ἐπὶ κροτάφοις μυροβοστρύχου Ἡλιοδώρας
εὐπλόκαμον χαίτην ἀνθοβολῇ στέφανος.[212]
Nothing can be more simple than the expression, more exquisite than the cadence of these lines. The same may be said about the elegy on Cleariste (i. 307):
οὐ γάμον ἀλλ' Ἀΐδαν ἐπινυμφίδιον Κλεαρίστα
δέξατο, παρθενίας ἅμματα λυομένα·
ἄρτι γὰρ ἑσπέριοι νύμφας ἐπὶ δικλίσιν ἄχευν
λωτοὶ καὶ θαλάμων ἐπλαταγεῦντο θύραι·
ἠῷοι δ' ὀλολυγμὸν ἀνέκραγον, ἐκ δ' Ὑμέναιος
σιγαθεὶς γοερὸν φθέγμα μεθαρμόσατο·
αἱ δ' αὐταὶ καὶ φέγγος ἐδᾳδούχουν παρὰ παστῷ
πεῦκαι, καὶ φθιμένᾳ νέρθεν ἔφαινον ὁδόν.[213]
The thought of this next epigram recalls the song to Ageanax in Theocritus's seventh idyl (ii. 402):
οὔριος ἐμπνεύσας ναύταις Νότος, ὦ δυσέρωτες,
ἥμισύ μευ ψυχᾶς ἅρπασεν Ἀνδράγαθον·
τρὶς μάκαρες νᾶες, τρὶς δ' ὄλβια κύματα πόντου,
τετράκι δ' εὐδαίμων παιδοφορῶν ἄνεμος·
εἴθ' εἴην δελφὶς ἵν' ἐμοῖς βαστακτὸς ἐπ' ὤμοις
πορθμευθεὶς ἐσίδῃ τὰν γλυκύπαιδα Ῥόδον.[214]