The Geryonis was a poem on the story of the expedition of Hercules against the Spanish monster Geryon, who lived in Cadiz; and there is a fragment preserved, in which, perhaps, the earliest mention is made of that ancient mystic legend of the sun's passing over the sea in a golden cup, which cup was lent to Her cules, for his voyage through the Mediterranean, and has given occasion to more learned criticism than any other cup, heathen or Christian, glass, metal, or wood, in the world : ̓Αίλιος δ' Ὑπεριονίδας δέπας ἐσκατέβαινε χρύσεονκ. τ. λ. 'Now did the Sun of old Hyperion hight, In golden cup embark, Of sacred Night, Where dwell his mother and his youthful wife, What time into the laurel grove Before we leave Stesichorus, we should mention that he had several daughters, whose talents for music and poetry were considered only inferior to those of their father; that he is reputed the inventor of pastoral lyrics, and the author of the well-known fable of the horse who requested the assistance of man against the stag, repeated by Horace, and now to be found in the common Æsopic collection. He addressed this fable, by way of advice, to the people of Himera, when they were about to solicit the assistance of Phalaris. Ibycus of Rhegium, in Italy, was contemporary with Stesichorus, and may be fitly noticed next to him. He is more known by the circumstances related of his death than by anything now remaining of him. The story is, that he was waylaid by thieves, who murdered him; and that, in dying, he remarked some cranes flying overhead, and said, that perhaps those birds would be the avengers of his death! Afterwards, two of the murderers, being seated in the theatre, one of them saw some cranes, and said jocularly to his fellow, Behold the avengers of Ibycus!' * This was overheard, suspicion was excited, and ultimately the truth was discovered. Hence 'Ißinov endino, became proverbial of a culprit punished, or felony brought to light. He was almost exclusively an amatory poet, and the warmth of his images, and the vehemence of his expressions were so excessive, that he is called by Suidas paroμavioratos-most love-mad of poets; * Æli. V. H., x. 18. and and Cicero says,* that he appeared from his works-maxime omnium flagrâsse amore-to have outdone all men in his passion. There are two short fragments preserved, which leave a strong impression of his fiery temperament, and of the splendour and picturesqueness of his language: Ευρύαλο, γλυκίων Χαρίτων θάλος, καλλικόμων μελέδημα, 'O, my Euryalus! thou bud and care With eyelids softly fair, In rose-flower cradle nourish'd thee a child!' And, as for Ibycus, says Athenæus, he cries out and shoutsβοᾷ καὶ κέκραγεν— Ηρι μὲν αἵ τε Κυδώνιαι μηλίδες—κ. τ. λ. 'In spring, bedew'd with river-streams In shadow and in breeze; That sleepeth never an hour, From Venus rushing, burneth with desire, As with the lightning fire; Black as the Thracian wind, And in the centre of my soul Keeps empire for a child, beyond my own control!' Next see a lady and her lovers twain'-Sappho, Alcæus and Anacreon. Who come forward to support this tableau? Has the mantle of any one of these three fallen upon living shoulders? But we forget; we have no business now with any but Greeks, and old Greeks too. First, then, we must decree a divorce à vinculo between Sappho and the Teian; this gives us pain, but we are sitting as judges. The lady died, in middle life, in the reign of Alyattes, whose death took place B.C. 559; Anacreon was alive at Athens in the time of Hipparchus, and survived his death in B.C, 514; how is it possible, then, that Sappho could *Tusc. iv. 33. have meant the words, Tios peoßùs-even if those words were hers-of a man so much younger than herself? The truth is, as Athenæus distinctly states, the verses in question are none of Sappho's any more than those preceding them are Anacreon's; and he supposes that Hermesianax, whose lines he quotes, must have indulged in a mere wilful play of fancy in bringing the poet and poetess together, just as Diphilus had made even Archilochus and Hipponax her lovers in his drama. called by her name. But although we are obliged to deprive Sappho of the services of Anacreon, we leave her the full glory of her conquest of Alcæus, a man of a different temper, no doubt, in some things, but whose poetical genius was not less highly esteemed in the old world. He was born at Mitylene in Lesbos, and probably something older than his famous countrywoman. The story is, that having co-operated with Pittacus in the deliverance of his native state from tyranny, he became disgusted, when, in due course of revolution, the people of Mitylene raised Pittacus to a despotic authority over his fellow-citizens. Alcæus wrote fiery odes and bitter lampoons against Pittacus, and was at length driven into banishment with all his partizans. Afterwards, in a desperate attempt made to effect his return by force, Alcæus fell into the hands of his ancient friend, but now insulted conqueror. Pittacus gave him his liberty at once, saying that forgiveness was better than revenge. That this wise man may have the full credit of his good temper, it is right that our readers should know or remember that, amongst other savoury epithets, Alcæus had called him 'splay-foot,' and draggle-foot,' and ' fingertoed,'-' puff-cheek' and 'paunch-belly,'-' mole-eyed' and 'dirty pig.' Alcæus stands in the foremost rank of the Greek lyric poets; all antiquity is full of his praises. There is hardly a scrap of his poetry remaining of which we may not detect a close imitation by Horace, who succeeded in no part of his attempt to Latinize the metres and spirit of the old Greek lyre so well as in the Alcaic ode. Indeed, we are very much inclined to think that the Alcaic stanza-surely one of the noblest and most expressive measures of the old classic verse after the hexameter-did not receive its complete development till it came into the hands of Horace; and we set it down as a unique instance of a species or form of poetry -purely Greek in its origin-being bettered by Roman naturalization. There is a remarkable dignity in the Latin Alcaic, partly to be attributed, as we think, to the fine taste of Horace in discountenancing the construction of the first two lines without a cæsura after the fifth syllable; and in abolishing the usage of shortening the fifth syllable of the third line, the effect of which is to change entirely the rhythm of the most important verse in the stanza. This This is more sensibly felt by us, who pay no attention to quantity in any syllable of Greek and Latin words but the penultimate, when this fifth syllable is shortened in a word constituting by itself a Cretic foot, as for example ;—♬ Baxxí Çágpanov d'ägirov :—whilst precisely the same difference from the Latin rhythm would have been perceived by a Greek, or cultivated Roman ear, in such lines asμελιχρόν· αὗτας ἀμπί κόρσα —ἐγείνατ' εὐπέδιλος Ίρις, We read these lines just as if the quantities were distributed respectively, as in-Alcæe, plectro dura navis— Diffinget, infectumque reddet-, which if any poet or actor had done at Athens, whole theatres would have burst out upon * him. Alcæus was a soldier, a rebel, an exile, a lover, and a good liver. His poetry smacked of all these characters and propensities. Athenæus that excellent gossip, for whom we have an unspeakable regard-makes sure that Alcæus drank very hard,-all times and seasons were the same-a bottle never came amiss to him. First, see how he drinks in winter “χει μὲν ὁ Σδεύς, ἐκ δ ̓ ὀρανῶ μέγας 'Jove rains apace-the storm from heav'n is blowing; In spring- ρος άνθεμοῦντος ἐπαῖον ἐρχομένοιο. τ. λ. 'Hark! I hear the florid May, Coming, coming on this way. Quick, oh! quick, thou boy of mine, In summer-τέγγε πνεύμονα οἴνῳ· τὸ γὰρ ἄστρον περιτέλλεται κ. τ. λ. See the Dog-star is returning,' &c. In misfortune-οὐ χρὴ κακοίσιν θυμὸν ἐπιτρέπην κ. τ. λ. Yield not thy soul to adverse fortune's keeping !- But, friend, this will the mischief heal To quaff wine till we reel !' We have had put into our hands lately a little paper, containing directions for the use of the Eton boys in the construction of the Alcaic stanza, with reference to the practice of Horace, and the effect of accent on the rhythm. It has been drawn up, we believe, by Mr. Hawtrey, to whom Eton already owed so much; and it points out the difference of the rhythm from the metre in a way that must be striking to the boys. Perhaps the neatness and utility of this table, which should not be confined to Eton, might be increased by noticing the differences presented by the Greek Alcaie, to which we have called attention in the text; and which Sappho in her one Alcaic stanza (a marked compliment, by the by, to her suitor) adopts. + Vides ut alta stet nive candidum, &c. Hor. Carm, i, 9, In joy— νῦν χρὴ μεθύσκην καὶ χθόνα πρὸς βίαν παίην, ἐπειδὴ κάτθανε Μύρτιλος. 'Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero for Myrsilus is dead!' (This merciless triumph was occasioned by a Tory opponent having been knocked in the head by a mob.) At night—πίνωμεν· τί τὰ λύχν ̓ ἀμμένομεν; δάκτυλος ἀμέρα, το διο The finger-top will serve for sight. Boy, pour the flasks, one, two, the whole Thence, as we put the wine about, Let one cup drive the other out!' And, finally, in a general way he recommends, that, if you plant any tree at all, you plant the vine first μηδὲν ἄλλο φυτεύσης πρότερον δένδρεον ἀμπέλω, 'Nullam, Vare, sacrâ vite prius severis arborem.' How ill the Latin bears the foreign measure! There are amongst the fragments several passages of bitter invective against Pittacus, which are valuable as showing the style of such personal attacks, and also that the tyrant was next to universally popular amongst his fellow-countrymen, How curious these lines are!— τὸν κακοπάτριδα Πιττακὸν πόλεος τᾶς ἀχόλω καὶ βαρυδαίμονος ἐστάσαντο τύραννον μέγ' ἐπαινοῦντες ἀρλλέες. The indignant patriot confesses, that the people in a mass hugely lauding Pittacus, made him rúpavvos-premier! One remark we think holds good, of the character of all this poet's verses, so far as it may be reasonable to judge him from the shreds and patches of his mantle; that is, that his strength did not lie so much in fancy or imagination, or a musical soul, as in a robust sense, a declamatory spirit, and a clear and vigorous diction. In this respect, we should say, that the difference is particularly noticeable between Ibycus and Alcæus; every half-line we possess of the former absolutely rings with music to the ear, whereas the verses of Alcæus are singularly prosaic in words and texture, Prosaic is a questionable term, to be sure; we allow dignity to him, but what we miss is that sound, and splendour, and figure, which are, as it were, the natural life and breath of the Greek poetic style, and which no poet of Greece, as it appears to us, has so little of as this famous master of the lyre. The consequence is, that Alcæus seems more Roman in his tone than any of his fellows; Horace, we know, found him the most convenient for imi 2 c2 tation |