to his picture of the keen brisk wind, clearing the clouds away, to bring into relief against the sky the dark masses of waves tossing on the horizon (Agamemnon, 1152-54), to his world-famous
ποντιων κυματων
ανηριθμον γελασμα.
"The multitudinous laughter of the ocean waves."
—Prometheus, 89-90.
Mr. Palgrave has, of course, cited with reference to Sophocles the great chorus in the Œdipus Coloneus, but he has omitted to notice that, if Sophocles has not elsewhere given us so elaborate a piece of natural description, innumerable touches in the dramas, and more particularly in the fragments, show that he observed nature almost as minutely as Shakespeare. Nothing could be more vivid than the touches of description in the Philoctetes. From Euripides Mr. Palgrave cites nothing, observing that he rarely goes beyond somewhat conventional phrases. Surely Mr. Palgrave must have forgotten the magnificent description of Parnassus, as seen from the plain, in the Phœnissæ, the glorious description of a moonlight night, as represented on the tapestry, in the Ion, the vivid touches of natural description in the Bacchæ, that of the meadow in the Hippolytus, and the chorus about Athens in the Medea, to say nothing of the charming rural picture in the fragments of the Phaeton.[33] To say of Aristophanes that, in his treatment of nature, he rarely goes beyond somewhat common phrases, is to say what is refuted, not merely in the chorus referred to by Mr. Palgrave, but in the Frogs and in the Birds. He stands next to Homer in his keen sensibility to the charm of nature. Shelley himself might have written the choruses referred to. In dealing with the Alexandrian poets Mr. Palgrave passes over Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus entirely, and yet the fine picture of Delos given by Callimachus in the Hymn to Delos is one of the gems of ancient description, and Apollonius Rhodius abounds with the most graphic and charming delineations of scenery and natural objects. What a beautiful description of early morning is this!—
ημος δ' ουρανοθεν χαροπη ὑπολαμπεται ηως
εκ περατης ανιουσα, διαγλαυσσουσι δ' αταρποι,
και πεδια δροσοεντα φαεινη λαμπεται αιγλη.
Argon. i. 1280-1283.