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INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE EPIGRAMS.

UNDER the title of Epigrams are classed a few verses on different subjects, chiefly Addresses to cities or private individuals. There is one short Hymn to Neptune, which seems out of its place here. In the fourth Epigram, Homer is represented as speaking of his blindness and his itinerant life.

Κῆρα δ ̓ ἐγώ, τήν μοι θεὸς ὄπασε γεινομένῳ περ,
Τλήσομαι, ἀκράαντα φέρων τετληότι θυμῷ·
Οὐδέ τι μοὶ φίλα γυῖα μένειν ἱεραῖς ἐν ἀγυιαῖς
Κύμης ὁρμαίνουσι, μέγας δέ με θυμὸς ἐπείγει
Δῆμον ἐς ἀλλοδαπῶν ἰέναι ὀλίγον περ ἐόντα. *
The fate, which God allotted at my birth,
With patient heart will I endure on earth;
But not in Cyme's sacred streets to dwell,
Idle for ever thus, like I so well,
As, my great mind still leading me before,
Weak though I be, to seek a foreign shore.

* Epig. IV. v. 13– 17.

The Poet addresses, also, the following thoughtful couplet to Thestorides :

Θεστορίδη, θνητοῖσιν ἀνωΐστων πολέων περ,
Οὐδὲν ἀφραστότερον πέλεται νοὸς ἀνθρώποισι.
Many things obscure, Thestorides, -
But nought obscurer than the Mind of Man!

*

I reserve some remarks on the very peculiar character of the Greek Epigram till hereafter it is sufficient at present to say, that it is so far from being the same with, or even like to, the Epigram of modern times, that sometimes it is completely the reverse. In general, the Songs in Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Waller, and, where he writes with simplicity, in Moore, give a better notion of the Greek Epigrams than any other species of modern composition.

* Epig. VI.

21*

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

THE FRAGMENTS.

THE Fragments, as they are called, consist of a few scattered lines, which are said to have been formerly found in the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the other supposed works of Homer, and to have been omitted as spurious, or dropped by chance from their ostensible context. Besides these, there are some passages from the Ilias Parva, or Little Iliad, and a string of verses taken from Homer's answers in the old work, called the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, which I have mentioned before. A passage from the Little Iliad, to which I have previously alluded, is worth notice, as containing an account of the fortunes of Eneas utterly at variance both with the Iliad, the Hymn to Venus, and the Æneid, and also as showing the tone and style of these works, which were so popular in former ages, but which have now almost entirely perished. The subject of the Little Iliad was the continuation of the Trojan war from the death of Hector.

Αὐτὰρ Αχιλλῆος μεγαθύμου φαίδιμος υἱὸς
Εκτορέην ἄλοχον κάταγεν κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας·
Παῖδα δ ̓ ἑλὼν ἐκ κόλπου ἐϋπλοκάμοιο τιθήνης
Ρίψε, ποδὸς τεταγὼν, ἀπὸ πύργου· τὸν δὲ πεσόντα
Ελλαβε πορφύρεος θάνατος καὶ μοῖρα κραταίη·
̓Εκ δ' έλετ' ̓Ανδρομάχην, ἢΰζωνον παράκοιτιν
Ἕκτορος· ἦν τέ οἱ αὐτῷ ἀριστῆες παναχαιῶν
Δῶκαν ἔχειν, ἐπίηρον ἀμειβόμενοι γέρας ἀνδρί·
Αὐτόν τ' Αγχίσαο γόνον κλυτὸν ἱπποδάμοιο,
Αἰνείαν, ἐν νηυσὶν ἐβήσατο ποντοπόροισιν,
̓Εκ πάντων Δαναῶν, ἀγέμεν γέρας ἔξοχον ἄλλων. *
But great Achilles' glorious son led down
The wife of Hector to the hollow ships;
And from the bosom of the fair-haired nurse
Seized by the foot her child, and from the tower
Hurled headlong to dark death and final fate.
He out of all chose Hector's bright-zoned spouse,
Andromache, whom the assembled chiefs

Gave to the Hero, valor's meet reward.
And he, Anchises' famous son, embarked
Captive Æneas in the seaward ship,

Midst all the Greeks a great selected prize.

There is a very remarkable couplet amongst these Fragments, found indeed in Plato, † but which seems almost Christian in its turn of thought. That thought was never expressed with more brevity or energy than thus :

* Fragm. e Tzetze ad Lycophr. 1263.

+ Alcibid. II.

240

INTRODUCTION TO THE FRAGMENTS.

Ζεῦ βασιλεῦ, τὰ μὲν ἐσθλὰ καὶ εὐχομένοις καὶ ἀνεύκτοις Αμμι δίδου τὰ δὲ λυγρὰ καὶ εὐχομένων ἀπάλαλκε. Asked and unasked, Thy blessings give, Ο Lord ! The Evil that we pray for, from us ward!

Half of the following is also found in Hesiod : *

— Αεὶ Θεῷ εἶχε ἄνακτι,

Η μὲν ὅτ ̓ εὐνάζῃ, καὶ ὅταν φάος ἱερὸν ἔλθῃ.

-"Pray always to the King divine, At bed time, and when sacred dawn doth shine.

* Op. et Di. v. 339,

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