Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology Part 5

and once more the bride renders thanks for perfect felicity to the G.o.ds who have given her "a stainless youth and the lover whom she desired."[9] Many of the most beautiful of the dedicatory epigrams are thanksgivings after the birth of children; in one a wife says that she is satisfied with the harmonious life that she and her husband live together, and asks no further good.[10] Even death coming at the end of such a life is disarmed of terror. In one of the most graceful epitaphs of the Roman period[11] the dead man sums up the happiness of his long life by saying that he never had to weep for any of his children, and that their tears over him had no bitterness. The inscription placed by Androtion over the yet empty tomb, which he has built for himself and his wife and children, expresses that placid acceptance which finds no cause of complaint with life.[12] Family affection in an unbroken home; long and happy life of the individual, and still longer, that of the race which remains; the calm acquiescence in the law of life which is also the law of death, and the desire that life and death alike may have their ordinary place and period, not breaking use and wont; all this is implied here rather than expressed, in words so simple and straightforward that they seem to have fallen by accident, as it were, into verse. Thus too in another epigram the dying wife's last words are praise to the G.o.ds of marriage that she has had even such a husband, and to the G.o.ds of death that he and their children survive her.[13] Or again, where there is a cry of pain over severance, it is the sweetness of the past life that makes parting so bitter; "what is there but sorrow," says Marathonis over the tomb of Nicopolis,[14] "for a man alone upon earth when his wife is gone?"

[1] Anth. Pal. ix. 649.

[2] Ibid. vi. 267, 280, 340.

[3] Ibid. vi. 226, vii. 156.

[4] {Dunatai to ploutein kai philanthropous poiein}, Menand., {Alieis} fr. 7; Anth. Pal. ix. 172.

[5] Anth. Pal. vi. 308, ix. 326.

[6] Ibid. v. 297.

[7] Ibid. vi. 266.

[8] Ibid. vi. 353, v. 124.

[9] Ibid. vi. 59.

[10] Ibid. vi. 209.

[11] Ibid. vii. 260.

[12] Ibid. vii. 228.

[13] Anth. Pal. vii. 555.

[14] Ibid. vii. 340.

IX

"Even this stranger, I suppose, prays to the immortals," says Nestor in the Odyssey,[1] "since all men have need of G.o.ds." When the Homeric poems were written the Greek temper had already formed and ripened; and so long as it survived, this recognition of religious duty remained part of it. The deeper and more violent forms of religious feeling were indeed always alien, and even to a certain degree repugnant, to the Greek peoples. Mysticism, as has already been observed, had no place with them; demons and monsters were rejected from their humane and rationalised mythology, and no superst.i.tious terrors forced them into elaboration of ritual. There was no priestly caste; each city and each citizen approached the G.o.ds directly at any time and place. The religious life, as a life distinct from that of an ordinary citizen, was unknown in Greece. Even at Rome the perpetual maidenhood of the Vestals was a unique observance; and they were the keepers of the hearth-fire of the city, not the intermediaries between it and its G.o.ds. But the Vestals have no parallel in Greek life.

Asiatic rites and devotions, it is true, from an early period obtained a foothold among the populace; but they were either discountenanced, or by being made part of the civic ritual were disarmed of their mystic or monastic elements. An epitaph in the Anthology commemorates two aged priestesses as having been happy in their love for their husbands and children;[2] nothing could be further from the Eastern or the medieval sentiment of a consecrated life. Thus, if Greek religion did not strike deep, it spread wide; and any one, as he thought fit, might treat his whole life, or any part of it, as a religious act. And there was a strong feeling that the observance of such duties in a reasonable manner was proper in itself, besides being probably useful in its results; no gentleman, if we may so translate the idea into modern terms, would fail in due courtesy to the G.o.ds. That piety sometimes met with strange returns was an undoubted fact, but that it should be so inexplicable and indeed shocking even to the least superst.i.tious and most dispa.s.sionate minds.[3]

With the diffusion of a popularised philosophy religious feeling became fainter among the educated cla.s.ses, and correspondingly more uncontrolled in the lower orders. The immense ma.s.s of dedicatory epigrams written in the Alexandrian and Roman periods are in the main literary exercises, though they were also the supply of a real and living demand. The fas.h.i.+on outlived the belief; even after the suppression of pagan wors.h.i.+p scholars continued to turn out imitations of the old models. One book of the Anthology of Agathias[4] consisted entirely of contemporary epigrams of this sort, "as though dedicated to former G.o.ds." But of epigrams dealing with religion in its more intimate sense there are, as one would expect, very few in the Anthology until we come to collections of Christian poetry. This light form of verse was not suited to the treatment of the deepest subjects.

For the religious poetry of Greece one must go to Pindar and Sophocles.

But the small selection given here throws some interesting light on Greek thought with regard to sacred matters. Each business of life, each change of circ.u.mstance, calls for wors.h.i.+p and offering. The sailor, putting to sea with spring, is to pay his sacrifice to the harbour-G.o.d, a simple offering of cakes or fish.[5] The seafarer should not pa.s.s near a great s.h.i.+ne without turning aside to pay it reverence.[6] The traveller, as he crosses a hill-pa.s.s or rests by the wayside fountain, is to give the accustomed honour to the G.o.d of the ground, Pan or Hermes, or whoever holds the spot in special protection.[7] Each shaded well in the forest, each jut of cliff on the sh.o.r.e, has its tutelar deity, if only under the form of the rudely-carved stake set in a garden or on a lonely beach where the sea-gulls hover; and with their more sumptuous wors.h.i.+p the houses of great G.o.ds, all marble and gold, stand overlooking the broad valley or the s.h.i.+ning s.p.a.ces of sea.[8] Even the wild thicket has its rustic Pan, to whom the hunter and fowler pray for success in their day's work, and the image of Demeter stands by the farmer's thres.h.i.+ng- floor.[9] And yet close as the G.o.ds come in their daily dealings with men, scorning no offering, however small, that is made with clean hands, finding no occasion too trifling for their aid, there is a yet more homely wors.h.i.+p of "little G.o.ds"[10] who take the most insignificant matters in their charge. These are not mere abstractions, like the lesser deities of the Latin religion, Bonus Eventus, Tutilina, Iterduca and Domiduca, but they occupy much the same place in wors.h.i.+p. By their side are the heroes, the saints of the ancient world, who from their graves have some power of hearing and answering. Like the saints, they belong to all times, from the most remote to the most recent. The mythical Philopregmon, a shadowy being dating back to times of primitive wors.h.i.+p, gives luck from his monument on the roadside by the gate of Potidaea.[11] But the traveller who had prayed to him in the morning as he left the town might pay the same duty next evening by the tomb of Brasidas in the market-place of Amphipolis.[12]

But alongside of the traditional wors.h.i.+p of these mult.i.tudinous and multiform deities, a grave and deep religious sense laid stress on the single quality of goodness as being essentially akin to divinity, and spoke with aversion of complicated ritual and extravagant sacrifice. A little water purifies the good man; the whole ocean is not sufficient to wash away the guilt of the sinner.[13] "Holiness is a pure mind,"

said the inscription over the doorway of a great Greek temple.[14] The sanctions of religion were not indeed independent of rewards and punishments, in this or in a future state. But the highest Greek teachings never laid great stress on these; and even where they are adduced as a motive for good living, they are always made secondary to the excellence of piety here and in itself. Through the whole course of Greek thought the belief in a future state runs in an undercurrent.

A striking fragment of Sophocles[15] speaks of the initiated alone as being happy, since their state after death is secure. Plato, while he reprobates the teaching which would make men good in view of the other world, and insists on the natural excellence of goodness for its own sake, himself falls back on the life after death, as affected for good or evil by our acts here, in the visions, "no fairy-tales,"[16] which seem to collect and reinforce the arguments of the /Phaedo/ and the /Republic/. But the ordinary thought and practice ignored what might happen after death. Life was what concerned men and absorbed them; it seemed sufficient for them to think about what they knew of.[17] The revolution which Christianity brought into men's way of thinking as regards life and death was that it made them know more certainly, or so it seemed, about the latter than about the former. Who knows, Euripides had long ago asked, if life be not death, and death life?

and the new religion answered his question with an emphatic affirmation that it was so; that this life was momentary and shadowy, was but a death, in comparison of the life unchangeable and eternal.

The dedicatory epigram was one of the earliest forms of Greek poetry.

Herodotus quotes verses inscribed on offerings at Thebes, written in "Cadmean letters," and dating back to a mythical antiquity;[18] and actual dedications are extant which are at least as early as 600 B.C.[19] In this earlier period the verses generally contained nothing more than a bare record of the act. Even at a later date, the anathematic epigrams of Simonides are for the most part rather stiff and formal when set beside his epitaphs. His nephew Bacchylides brought the art to perfection, if it is safe to judge from a single flawless specimen.[20] But it is hardly till the Alexandrian period that the dedication has elaborate pains bestowed upon it simply for the feeling and expression as a form of poetry; and it is to this period that the ma.s.s of the best prayers and dedications belong.

Ranging as they do over the whole variety of human action, these epigrams show us the ancient world in its simplest and most pleasant aspect. Family life has its offerings for the birth of a child, for return from travel, for recovery from sickness. The eager and curious spirit of youth, and old age to which nothing but rest seems good, each offer prayer to the guardians of the traveller or of the home.[21] The most numerous and the most beautiful are those where, towards the end of life, dedications are made with thanksgiving for the past and prayer for what remains. The Mediterranean merchantman retires to his native town and offers prayer to the protector of the city to grant him a quiet age there, or dedicates his s.h.i.+p, to dance no more "like a feather on the sea," now that its master has set his weary feet on land.[22] The fisherman, ceasing his labours, hangs up his fish-spear to Poseidon, saying, "Thou knowest I am tired." The old hunter, whose hand has lost its suppleness, dedicates his nets to the Nymphs, as all that he has to give. The market-gardener, when he has saved a competence, lays his worn tools before Priapus the Garden- Keeper. Heracles and Artemis receive the aged soldier's s.h.i.+eld into their temples, that it may grow old there amid the sound of hymns and the dances of maidens.[23] Quiet peace, as of the greyness of a summer evening, is the desired end.

The diffusion of Greece under Alexander and his successors, as at a later period the diffusion of Rome under the Empire, brought with the decay of civic spirit a great increase of humanity. The dedication written by Theocritus for his friend Nicias of Miletus[24] gives a vivid picture of the gracious atmosphere of a rich and cultured Greek home, of the happy union of science and art with harmonious family life and kindly helpfulness and hospitality. Care for others was a more controlling motive in life than before. The feeling grew that we are all one family, and owe each other the service and thoughtfulness due to kinsfolk, till Menander could say that true life was living for others.[25] In this spirit the sailor, come safe ash.o.r.e, offers prayer to Poseidon that others who cross the sea may be as fortunate; so too, from the other side of the matter, Pan of the sea-cliff promises a favourable wind to all strangers who sail by him, in remembrance of the pious fisherman who set his statue there, as guardian of their trawling-nets and eel-baskets.[26]

In revulsion from the immense acc.u.mulation of material wealth in this period, a certain refined simplicity was then the ideal of the best minds, as it was afterwards in the early Roman Empire, as it is in our own day. The charm of the country was, perhaps for the first time, fully realised; the life of gardens became a pa.s.sion, and hardly less so the life of the opener air, of the hill and meadow, of the shepherd and hunter, the farmer and fisherman. The rules of art, like the demands of heaven, were best satisfied with small and simple offerings. "The least of a little"[27] was sufficient to lay before G.o.ds who had no need of riches; and as the art of the epigrammatist grew more refined, the poet took pride in working with the slightest materials. The husbandman lays a handful of corn-ears before Demeter, the gardener a basket of ripe fruit at the feet of Priapus; the implements of their craft are dedicated by the carpenter and the goldsmith; the young girl and the aged woman offer their even slighter gift, the spindle and distaff, the reel of wool, and the rush-woven basket.[28] A staff of wild-olive cut in the coppice is accepted by the lord of the myriad-boughed forest; the Muses are pleased with their bunch of roses wet with morning dew.[29] The boy Daphnis offers his fawnskin and scrip of apples to the great divinity of Pan;[30] the young herdsman and his newly-married wife, still with the rose-garland on her hair, make prayer and thanksgiving with a cream cheese and a piece of honeycomb to the mistress of a hundred cities, Aphrodite with her house of gold.[31] The hard and laborious life of the small farmer was touched with something of the natural magic that saturates the Georgics; "rich with fair fleeces, and fair wine, and fair fruit of corn," and blessed by the gracious Seasons whose feet pa.s.s over the furrows.[32] On the green slope Pan himself makes solitary music to the shepherd in the divine silence of the hills.[33] The fancy of three brothers, a hunter, a fowler, and a fisherman, meeting to make dedication of the spoils of their crafts to the country-G.o.d, was one which had a special charm for epigrammatists; it is treated by no less than nine poets, whose dates stretch over as many centuries.[34] Sick of cities, the imagination turned to an Arcadia that thenceforth was to fill all poetry with the music of its names and the fresh chill of its pastoral air; the lilied banks of Ladon, the Erymanthian water, the deep woodland of Pholoe and the grey steep of Cyllene.[35] Nature grew full of a fresh and lovely divinity. A spirit dwells under the sea, and looks with kind eyes on the creatures that go up and down in its depths; Artemis flashes by in the rustle of the windswept oakwood, and the sombre shade of the pines makes a roof for Pan; the wild hill becomes a sanctuary, for ever unsown and unmown, where the Spirit of Nature, remote and invisible, feeds his immortal flock and fulfils his desire.[36]

[1] Od. iii. 47.

[2] Anth. Pal. vii. 733; cf. also v. 14 in this selection.

[3] Cf. Thuc. vii. 86.

[4] Anth. Pal. iv. 3, ll. 113-116.

[5] Ibid. vi. 105; x. 14.

[6] Ibid. vi. 251; cf. v. 3 in this selection.

[7] App. Plan. 227; Anth. Pal. x. 12.

[8] App. Plan. 291; Anth. Pal. vi. 22, 119, ix. 144, x. 8, 10.

[9] Anth. Pal. x. 11, vi. 98.

[10] Ibid. ix. 334.

[11] Ibid. vii. 694.

[12] Thuc. v. 11; Arist. Eth. v. 7.

[13] Anth. Pal. xiv. 71.

[14] v. 15 in this selection.

[15] Fr. anon. 719.

[16] {ou mentoi soi Alkinou ge apologon ero}, Plato, Rep. 614 B.

[17] {To zen gar ismen tou thanein d apeiria Pas tis phobeitai phos lipein tod eliou}--Eurip. Phoenix, fr. 9.

[18] Hdt. v. 60, 61.

[19] See Kaibel, Epigr. Gr. 738-742.

[20] Anth. Pal. vi. 53.

[21] Anth. Pal. x. 6, vi. 70.