The third celebrates the Aphrodite of Praxiteles in Cnidos, whose garden has been so elegantly described by Lucian (ii. 560):
ἡ Παφίη Κυθέρεια δι' οἴδματος ἐς Κνίδον ἦλθε
βουλομένη κατιδεῖν εἰκόνα τὴν ἰδίην·
πάντη δ' ἀθρήσασα περισκέπτῳ ἐνὶ χώρῳ,
φθέγξατο· ποῦ γυμνὴν εἶδέ με Πραξιτέλης;[251]
The fourth is composed with much artifice of style upon a statue of Love bound by his arms to a pillar (ii. 567):
κλαῖε δυσεκφύκτως σφιγχθεὶς χέρας, ἄκριτε δαῖμον,
κλαῖε μάλα, στάζων ψυχοτακῆ δάκρυα,
σωφροσύνας ὑβριστά, φρενοκλόπε, λῃστὰ λογισμοῦ,
πτανὸν πῦρ, ψυχᾶς τραῦμ' ἀόρατον, Ἔρως·
θνατοῖς μὲν λύσις ἐστὶ γόων ὁ σός, ἄκριτε, δεσμός·
ᾧ σφιγχθεὶς κωφοῖς πέμπε λιτὰς ἀνέμοις·
ὃν δὲ βροτοῖς ἀφύλακτος ἐνέφλεγες ἐν φρεσὶ πυρσὸν
ἄθρει νῦν ὑπὸ σῶν σβεννύμενον δακρύων.[252]
In bringing this review of the Anthology to a close, I feel that I have been guilty of two errors. I have wearied the reader with quotations; yet I have omitted countless epigrams of the purest beauty. The very riches of this flower-garden of little poems are an obstacle to its due appreciation. Each epigram in itself is perfect, and ought to be carefully and lovingly studied. But it is difficult for the critic to deal in a single essay with upwards of four thousand of these precious gems. There are many points of view which with adequate space and opportunity might have been taken for the better illustration of the epigrams. Their connection with the later literature of Greece, especially with the rhetoricians, Philostratus, Alciphron, and Libanius, many of whose best compositions are epigrams in prose—as Jonson knew when he turned them into lyrics; their still more intimate æsthetic harmony with the engraved stones and minor bass-reliefs, which bear exactly the same relation to Greek sculpture as the epigrams to the more august forms of Greek poetry; the lives of their authors; the historical events to which they not unfrequently allude—all these are topics for elaborate dissertation.
Perhaps, however, the true secret of their charm is this: that in their couplets, after listening to the choric raptures of triumphant public art, we turn aside to hear the private utterances, the harmoniously modulated whispers of a multitude of Greek poets telling us their inmost thoughts and feelings. The unique melodies of Meleager, the chaste and exquisite delicacy of Callimachus, the clear dry style of Straton, Plato's unearthly subtlety of phrase, Antipater's perfect polish, the good sense of Palladas, the fretful sweetness of Agathias, the purity of Simonides, the gravity of Poseidippus, the pointed grace of Philip, the few but mellow tones of Sappho and Erinna, the tenderness of Simmias, the biting wit of Lucillius, the sunny radiance of Theocritus—all these good things are ours in the Anthology. But beyond these perfumes of the poets known to fame is yet another. Over very many of the sweetest and the strongest of the epigrams is written the pathetic word ἀδέσποτον—without a master. Hail to you, dead poets, unnamed, but dear to the Muses! Surely with Pindar and with Anacreon and with Sappho and with Sophocles the bed of flowers is spread for you in those "black-petalled hollows of Pieria" where Ion bade farewell to Euripides.
FOOTNOTES:
[163] He mutilated and, so to speak, castrated this book quite as much as he arranged its contents, by withdrawing the more lascivious epigrams according to his own boast.
[164] Paris, 1864-1872. The translations quoted by me are taken principally from the collections of Wellesley (Anthologia Polyglotta) and Burgess (Bohn's Series), and from the Miscellanies of the late J. A. Symonds, M.D. The versions contributed by myself have no signature.