Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities Part 7

The history of Greek literature may be divided into three periods. The first, extending from remote antiquity to the age of Herodotus (484 B.C.), includes the earliest poetry of Greece, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric eras, the origin of Greek elegy, epigram, iambic, and lyric poetry, and the first development of Greek philosophy.

The second, or Athenian period, the golden age of Greek literature, extends from the age of Herodotus (484 B.C.) to the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.), and comprehends the development of the Greek drama in the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and of political oratory, history, and philosophy, in the works of Demosthenes, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle.

The third, or the period of the decline of Greek literature, extending from the death of Alexander the Great (323 B.C.) to the fall of the Byzantine empire (1453 A.D.), is characterized by the removal of Greek learning and literature from Athens to Alexandria, and by its gradual decline and extinction.

2. THE LANGUAGE.--Of all known languages none has attained so high a degree of perfection as that of the Greeks. Belonging to the great Indo- European family, it is rich in significant words, strong and elegant in its combinations and phrases, and extremely musical, not only in its poetry, but in its prose. The Greek language must have attained great excellence at a very early period, for it existed in its essential perfection in the time of Homer. It was, also, early divided into dialects, as spoken by the various h.e.l.lenic tribes that inhabited different parts of the country. The princ.i.p.al of these found in written composition are the Aeolic, Doric, Ionic, and Attic, of which the Aeolic, the most ancient, was spoken north of the Isthmus, in the Aeolic colonies of Asia Minor, and in the northern islands of the Aegean Sea. It was chiefly cultivated by the lyric poets. The Doric, a variety of the Aeolic, characterized by its strength, was spoken in Peloponnesus, and in the Doric colonies of Asia Minor, Lower Italy, and Sicily. The Ionic, the most soft and liquid of all the dialects, belonged to the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor and the islands of the Archipelago. It was the language of Homer, Hesiod, and Herodotus. The Attic, which was the Ionic developed, enriched, and refined, was spoken in Attica, and prevailed in the flouris.h.i.+ng period of Greek literature.

After the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, the Greek language, which had been gradually declining, became entirely extinct, and a dialect, which had long before sprung up among the common people, took the place of the ancient, majestic, and refined tongue. This popular dialect in turn continued to degenerate until the middle of the last century. Recently inst.i.tutions of learning have been established, and a new impulse given to improvement in Greece. Great progress has been made in the cultivation of the language, and great care is taken by modern Greek writers to avoid the use of foreign idioms and to preserve the ancient orthography. Many newspapers, periodicals, original works, and translations are published every year in Greece. The name Romaic, which has been applied to modern Greek, is now almost superseded by that of Neo-h.e.l.lenic.

3. THE RELIGION.--In the development of the Greek religion two periods may be distinguished, the ante-Homeric and the Homeric. As the heroic age of the Greek nation was preceded by one in which the cultivation of the land chiefly occupied the attention of the inhabitants, so there are traces and remnants of a state of the Greek religion, in which the G.o.ds were considered as exhibiting their power chiefly in the changes of the seasons, and in the operations and phenomena of outward nature.

Imagination led these early inhabitants to discover, not only in the general phenomena of vegetation, the unfolding and death of the leaf and flower, and in the moist and dry seasons of the year, but also in the peculiar physical character of certain districts, a sign of the alternately hostile or peaceful, happy or ill-omened interference of certain deities. There are still preserved in the Greek mythology many legends of charming and touching simplicity, which had their origin at this period, when the Greek religion bore the character of a wors.h.i.+p of the powers of nature.

Though founded on the same ideas as most of the religions of the East, and particularly of Asia Minor, the earliest religion of the Greeks was richer and more various in its forms, and took a loftier and a wider range. The Grecian wors.h.i.+p of nature, in all the various forms which it a.s.sumed, recognized one deity, as the highest of all, the head of the entire system, Zeus, the G.o.d of heaven and light; with him, and dwelling in the pure expanse of ether, is a.s.sociated the G.o.ddess of the earth, who, in different temples, was wors.h.i.+ped under different names, as Hera, Demeter, and Dione. Besides this G.o.ddess, other beings are united with the supreme G.o.d, who are personifications of certain of his energies powerful deities who carry the influence of light over the earth, and destroy the opposing powers of darkness and confusion as Athena, born from the head of her father, and Apollo, the pure and s.h.i.+ning G.o.d of light. There are other deities allied with earth and dwelling in her dark recesses; and as life appears not only to spring from the earth, but to return whence it sprung, these deities are, for the most part, also connected with death; as Hermes, who brings up the treasures of fruitfulness from the depths of the earth, and Cora, the child, now lost and now recovered by her mother, Demeter, the G.o.ddess both of reviving and of decaying nature. The element of water, Poseidon, was also introduced into this a.s.semblage of the personified powers of nature, and peculiarly connected with the G.o.ddess of the earth; fire, Hephaestus, was represented as a powerful principle derived from heaven, having dominion over the earth, and closely allied with the G.o.ddess who sprang from the head of the supreme G.o.d. Other deities form less important parts of this system, as Dionysus, whose alternate joys and sufferings show a strong resemblance to the form which religious notions a.s.sumed in Asia Minor. Though not, like the G.o.ds of Olympus, recognized by all the races of the Greeks, Dionysus exerted an important influence on the spirit of the Greek nation, and in sculpture and poetry gave rise to bold flights of imagination, and to powerful emotions, both of joy and sorrow.

These notions concerning the G.o.ds must have undergone many changes before they a.s.sumed the form under which they appear in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. The Greek religion, as manifested through them, reached the second period of its development, belonging to that time when the most distinguished and prominent part of the people devoted their lives to the affairs of the state and the occupation of arms, and in which the heroic spirit was manifested according to these ideas. On Olympus, lying near the northern boundary of Greece, the highest mountain of that country, whose summit seems to touch the heavens, there rules the a.s.sembly or family of the G.o.ds; the chief of which, Zeus, summons at his pleasure the other G.o.ds to council, as Agamemnon summons the other princes. He is acquainted with the decrees of fate, and able to control them, and being himself king among the G.o.ds, he gives the kings of the earth their powers and dignity.

By his side his wife, Hera, whose station ent.i.tles her to a large share of his rank and dominion; and a daughter of masculine character, Athena, a leader of battles and a protectress of citadels, who, by her wise counsels, deserves the confidence which her father bestows on her; besides these, there are a number of G.o.ds with various degrees of kindred, who have each their proper place and allotted duty on Olympus. The attention of this divine council is chiefly turned to the fortunes of nations and cities, and especially to the adventures and enterprises of the heroes, who being themselves, for the most part, sprung from the blood of the G.o.ds, form the connecting link between them and the ordinary herd of mankind. At this stage the ancient religion of nature had disappeared, and the G.o.ds who dwelt on Olympus scarcely manifested any connection with natural phenomena. Zeus exercises his power as a ruler and a king; Hera, Athena, and Apollo no longer symbolize the fertility of the earth, the clearness of the atmosphere, and the arrival of the serene spring; Hephaestus has pa.s.sed from the powerful G.o.d of fire in heaven and earth into a laborious smith and worker of metals; Hermes is transformed into the messenger of Zeus; and the other deities which stood at a greater distance from the affairs of men are entirely forgotten, or scarcely mentioned in the Homeric mythology.

These deities are known to us chiefly through the names given to them by the Romans, who adopted them at a later period, or identified them with deities of their own. _Zeus_ was called by them Jupiter; _Hera_; Juno; _Athena_, Minerva; _Ares_, Mars; _Artemis_, Diana; _Hermes_, Mercury; _Cora_, Proserpine; _Hephaestus_, Vulcan; _Poseidon_, Neptune; _Aphrodite_, Venus; _Dionysus_, Bacchus.

PERIOD FIRST.

FROM REMOTE ANTIQUITY TO HERODOTUS (484 B.C.),

1. ANTE-HOMERIC SONGS AND BARDS.--Many centuries must have elapsed before the poetical language of the Greeks could have attained the splendor, copiousness, and fluency found in the poems of Homer. The first outpourings of poetical enthusiasm were, doubtless, songs describing, in few and simple verses, events which powerfully affected the feelings of the hearers. It is probable that the earliest were those that referred to the seasons and their phenomena, and that they were sung by the peasants at their corn and wine harvests, and had their origin in times of ancient rural simplicity. Songs of this kind had often a plaintive and melancholy character. Such was the song "Linus" mentioned by Homer, which was frequently sung at the grape-picking. This Linus evidently belongs to a cla.s.s of heroes or demi-G.o.ds, of which many instances occur in the religions of Asia Minor. Boys of extraordinary beauty and in the flower of youth were supposed to have been drowned, or devoured by raging dogs, and their death was lamented at the harvests and other periods of the hot season. According to the tradition, Linus sprang from a divine origin, grew up with the shepherds among the lambs, and was torn in pieces by wild dogs, whence arose the festival of the lambs, at which many dogs were slain. The real object of lamentation was the tender beauty of spring, destroyed by the summer heat, and other phenomena of the same kind which the imagination of those times invested with a personal form, and represented as beings of a divine nature. Of similar meaning are many other songs, which were sung at the time of the summer heat or at the cutting of the corn. Such was the song called "Bormus" from its subject, a beautiful boy of that name, who, having gone to fetch water for the reapers, was, while drawing it, borne down by the nymphs of the stream.

Such were the cries for the youth Hylas, swallowed up by the waters of a fountain, and the lament for Adonis, whose untimely death was celebrated by Sappho.

The Paeans were songs originally dedicated to Apollo, and afterwards to other G.o.ds; their tune and words expressed hope and confidence to overcome, by the help of the G.o.d, great and imminent danger, or grat.i.tude and thanksgiving for victory and safety. To this cla.s.s belonged the vernal Paeans, which were sung at the termination of winter, and those sung in war before the attack on the enemy. The Threnos, or lamentations for the dead, were songs containing vehement expressions of grief, sung by professional singers standing near the bed upon which the body was laid, and accompanied by the cries and groans of women. The Hymenaeos was the joyful bridal song of the wedding festivals, in which there were ordinarily two choruses, one of boys bearing burning torches and singing the hymenaeos to the clear sound of the pipe, and another of young girls dancing to the notes of the harp. The Chorus originally referred chiefly to dancing. The most ancient sense of the word is a _place for dancing_, and in these choruses young persons of both s.e.xes danced together in rows, holding one another by the hand, while the citharist, or the player on the lyre, sitting in their midst, accompanied the sound of his instrument with songs, which took their name from the choruses in which they were sung.

Besides these popular songs, there were the religious and heroic poems of the bards, who were, for the most part, natives of that portion of the country which surrounds the mountains of Helicon and Parna.s.sus, distinguished as the home of the Muses. Among the bards devoted to the wors.h.i.+p of Apollo and other deities, were Marsyas, the inventor of the flute, Musaeus and Orpheus. Many names of these ancient poets are recorded, but of their poetry, previous to Homer, not even a fragment remains.

The bards or chanters of epic poetry were called Rhapsodists, from the manner in which they delivered their compositions; this name was applied equally to the minstrel who recited his own poems, and to him who declaimed anew songs that had been heard a thousand times before. The form of these heroic songs, probably settled and fixed by tradition, was the hexameter, as this metre gave to the epic poetry repose, majesty, a lofty and solemn tone, and rendered it equally adapted to the pythoness who announced the decrees of the deity, and to the rhapsodist who recited the battles of heroes. The bards held an important post in the festal banquets, where they flattered the pride of the princes by singing the exploits of their forefathers.

2. POEMS OF HOMER.--Although seven cities contended for the honor of giving birth to Homer, it was the prevalent belief, in the flouris.h.i.+ng times of Greece, that he was a native of Smyrna. He was probably born in that city about 1000 B.C. Little is known of his life, but the power of his transcendent genius is deeply impressed upon his works. He was called by the Greeks themselves, _the poet_; and the Iliad and the Odyssey were with them the ultimate standard of appeal on all matters of religious doctrine and early history. They were learned by boys at school, and became the study of men in their riper years, and in the time of Socrates there were Athenians who could repeat both poems by heart. In whatever part of the world a Greek settled, he carried with him a love for the great poet, and long after the Greek people had lost their independence, the Iliad and the Odyssey continued to maintain an undiminished hold upon their affections. The peculiar excellence of these poems lies in their sublimity and pathos, in their tenderness and simplicity, and they show in their author an inexhaustible vigor, that seems to revel in an endless display of prodigious energies. The universality of the powers of Homer is their most astonis.h.i.+ng attribute. He is not great in any one thing; he is greatest in all things. He imagines with equal ease the terrible, the beautiful, the mean, the loathsome, and he paints them all with equal force. In his descriptions of external nature, in his exhibitions of human character and pa.s.sion, no matter what the subject, he exhausts its capabilities. His pictures are true to the minutest touch; his men and women are made of flesh and blood. They lose nothing of their humanity for being cast in a heroic mould. He transfers himself into the ident.i.ty of those whom he brings into action; masters the interior springs of their spiritual mechanism; and makes them move, look, speak, and do exactly as they would in real life.

In the legends connected with the Trojan war, the _anger of Achilles_ and the _return of Ulysses_, Homer found the subjects of the Iliad and Odyssey. The former relates that Agamemnon had stolen from Achilles, Briseis, his beloved slave, and describes the fatal consequences which the subsequent anger of Achilles brought upon the Greeks; and how the loss of his dearest friend, Patroclus, suddenly changed his hostile att.i.tude, and brought about the destruction of Troy and of Hector, its magnanimous defender. The Odyssey is composed on a more artificial and complicated plan than the Iliad. The subject is the return of Ulysses from a land beyond the range of human knowledge to a home invaded by bands of insolent intruders, who seek to kill his son and rob him of his wife. The poem begins at that point where the hero is considered to be farthest from his home, in the central portion of the sea, where the nymph Calypso has kept him hidden from all mankind for seven years. Having by the help of the G.o.ds pa.s.sed through innumerable dangers, after many adventures he reaches Ithaca, and is finally introduced into his own house as a beggar, where he is made to suffer the harshest treatment from the suitors of his wife, in order that he may afterwards appear with the stronger right as a terrible avenger. In this simple story a second was interwoven by the poet, which renders it richer and more complete, though more intricate and less natural. It is probable that Homer, after having sung the Iliad in the vigor of his youthful years, either composed the Odyssey in his old age, or communicated to some devoted disciple the plan of this poem.

In the age immediately succeeding Homer, his great poems were doubtless recited as complete wholes, at the festivals of the princes; but when the contests of the rhapsodists became more animated, and more weight was laid on the art of the reciter than on the beauty of the poem he recited, and when other musical and poetical performances claimed a place, then they were permitted to repeat separate parts of poems, and the Iliad and Odyssey, as they had not yet been reduced to writing, existed for a time only as scattered and unconnected fragments; and we are still indebted to the regulator of the poetical contests (either Solon or Pisistratus) for having compelled the rhapsodists to follow one another according to the order of 'the poem, and for having thus restored these great works to their pristine integrity. The poets, who either recited the poems of Homer or imitated him in their compositions, were called Homerides.

3. THE CYCLIC POETS AND THE HOMERIC HYMNS.--The poems of Homer, as they became the foundation of all Grecian literature, are likewise the central point of the epic poetry of Greece. All that is most excellent in this line originated from them, and was connected with them in the way of completion or continuation. After the time of Homer, a cla.s.s of poets arose who, from their constant endeavor to connect their poems with those of this master, so that they might form a great cycle, were called the Cyclic Poets. They were probably Homeric rhapsodists by profession, to whom the constant recitation of the ancient Homeric poems would naturally suggest the idea of continuing them by essays of their own. The poems known as Homeric hymns formed an essential part of the epic style. They were hymns to the G.o.ds, bearing an epic character, and were called _proemia_, or preludes, and served the rhapsodists either as introductory strains for their recitation, or as a transition from the festivals of the G.o.ds to the compet.i.tion of the singers of heroic poetry.

4. POEMS OF HESIOD.--Nothing certain can be affirmed respecting the date of Hesiod; a Boeotian by birth, he is considered by some ancient authorities as contemporary with Homer, while others suppose him to have flourished two or three generations later. The poetry of Hesiod is a faithful transcript of the whole condition of Boeotian life. It has nothing of that youthful and inexhaustible fancy of Homer which lights up the sublime images of a heroic age and moulds them into forms of surpa.s.sing beauty. The poetry of Hesiod appears struggling to emerge out of the narrow bounds of common life, which he strives to enn.o.ble and to render more endurable. It is purely didactic, and its object is to disseminate knowledge, by which life may be improved, or to diffuse certain religious notions as to the influence of a superior destiny. His poem ent.i.tled "Works and Days" is so entirely occupied with the events of common life, that the author would not seem to have been a poet by profession, but some Boeotian husbandman whose mind had been moved by circ.u.mstances to give a poetical tone to the course of his thoughts and feelings. The unjust claim of Perses, the brother of Hesiod, to the small portion of their father's land which had been allotted to him, called forth this poem, in which he seeks to improve the character and habits of Perses, to deter him from acquiring riches by litigation, and to incite him to a life of labor, as the only source of permanent prosperity. He points out the succession in which his labors must follow if he determines to lead a life of industry, and gives wise rules of economy for the management of a family; and to ill.u.s.trate and enforce the princ.i.p.al idea, he ingeniously combines with his precepts mythical narratives, fables, and descriptions. The "Theogony" of Hesiod is a production of the highest importance, as it contains the religious faith of Greece. It was through it that Greece first obtained a religious code, which, although without external sanction or priestly guardians and interpreters, must have produced the greatest influence on the religious condition of the Greeks.

5. ELEGY AND EPIGRAM.--Until the beginning of the seventh century B.C., the epic was the only kind of poetry cultivated in Greece, with the exception of the early songs and hymns, and the hexameter the only metre used by the poets. This exclusive prevalence of epic poetry was doubtless connected with the political state of the country. The ordinary subjects of these poems must have been highly acceptable to the princes who derived their race from the heroes, as was the case with all the royal families of early times. The republican movements, which deprived these families of their privileges, were favorable to the stronger development of each man's individuality, and the poet, who in the most perfect form of the epos was completely lost in his subject, now came before the people as a man with thoughts and objects of his own, and gave free vent to the emotions of his soul in elegiac and iambic strains. The word _elegeion_ means nothing more than the combination of a hexameter and a pentameter, making together a distich, and an elegy is a poem of such verses. It was usually sung at the Symposia or literary festivals of the Greeks; in most cases its main subject was political; it afterwards a.s.sumed a plaintive or amatory tone.

The elegy is the first regularly cultivated branch of Greek poetry, in which the flute alone and neither the cithara nor lyre was employed. It was not necessary that lamentations should form the subject of it, but emotion was essential, and excited by events or circ.u.mstances of the time or place the poet poured forth his heart in the unreserved expression of his fears and hopes.

Tyrtaeus (fl. 694 B.C.), who went from Athens to Sparta, composed the most celebrated of his elegies on the occasion of the Messenian war, and when the Spartans were on a campaign, it was their custom after the evening meal, when the paean had been sung in honor of the G.o.ds, to recite these poems. From this time we find a union between the elegiac and iambic poetry; the same poet, who employs the elegy to express his joyous and melancholy emotions, has recourse to the iambus when his cool sense prompts him to censure the follies of mankind. The relation between these two metres is observable in Archilochus (fl. 688 B.C.) and Simonides (fl.

664 B.C.). The elegies of Archilochus, of which many fragments are extant (while of Simonides we only know that he composed elegies), had nothing of that spirit of which his iambics were full, but they contain the frank expression of a mind powerfully affected by outward circ.u.mstances. With the Spartans, wine and the pleasures of the feast became the subject of the elegy, and it was also recited at the solemnities held in honor of all who had fallen for their country. The elegies of Solon (592-559 B.C.) were pure expressions of his political feelings. Simonides of Scios, the renowned lyric poet, the contemporary of Pindar and Aeschylus, was one of the great masters of elegiac song.

The epigram was originally an inscription on a tombstone, or a votive offering in a temple, or on any other thing which required explanation.

The unexpected turn of thought and pointedness of expression, which the moderns consider the essence of this species of composition, were not required in the ancient Greek epigram, where nothing was wanted but that the entire thought should be conveyed within the limit of a few distichs, and thus, in the hands of the early poets, the epigram was remarkable for the conciseness and expressiveness of its language and differed in this respect from the elegy, in which full expression was given to the feelings of the poet.

It was Simonides who first gave to the epigram all the perfection of which it was capable, and he was frequently employed by the states which fought against the Persians to adorn with inscriptions the tombs of their fallen warriors. The most celebrated of these is the inimitable inscription on the Spartans who died at Thermopylae: "Foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians that we are lying here in obedience to their laws." On the Rhodian lyric poet, Timocreon, an opponent of Simonides in his art, he wrote the following in the form of an epitaph: "Having eaten much and drank much and said much evil of other men, here I lie, Timocreon the Rhodian."

6. IAMBIC POETRY, THE FABLE AND PARODY.--The kind of poetry known by the ancients as Iambic was created among the Athenians by Archilochus at the same time as the elegy. It arose at a period when the Greeks, accustomed only to the calm, unimpa.s.sioned tone of the epos, had but just found a temperate expression of lively emotion in the elegy. It was a light, tripping measure, sometimes loosely constructed, or purposely halting and broken, well adapted to vituperation, unrestrained by any regard to morality and decency. At the public tables of Sparta keen and pointed raillery was permitted, and some of the most venerable and sacred of their religious rites afforded occasion for their unsparing and audacious jests.

This raillery was so ancient and inveterate a custom, that it had given rise to a peculiar word, which originally denoted nothing but the jests and banter used at these festivals, namely, _Iambus_. All the wanton extravagance which was elsewhere repressed by law or custom, here, under the protection of religion, burst forth with boundless license, and these scurrilous effusions were at length reduced by Archilochus into the systematic form of iambic metre.

Akin to the iambic are two sorts of poetry, the fable and the parody, which, though differing widely from each other, have both their source in the turn for the delineation of the ludicrous, and both stand in close historical relation to the iambic. The fable in Greece originated in an intentional travesty of human affairs. It is probable that the taste for fables of beasts and numerous similar inventions found its way from the East, since this sort of symbolical narrative is more in accordance with the Oriental than with the Greek character. Aesop (fl. 572 B.C.) was very far from being regarded by the Greeks as one of their poets, and still less as a writer. They considered him merely as an ingenious fabulist, to whom, at a later period, nearly all fables, that were invented or derived from any other source, were attributed. He was a slave, whose wit and pleasantry procured him his freedom, and who finally perished in Delphi, where the people, exasperated by his sarcastic fables, put him to death on a charge of robbing the temple. No metrical versions of these fables are known to have existed in early times.

The word "parody" means an adoption of the form of some celebrated poem with such changes as to produce a totally different effect, and generally to subst.i.tute mean and ridiculous for elevated and poetical sentiments.

"The Battle of the Frogs and Mice," attributed to Homer, but bearing evident traces of a later age, belongs to this species of poetry.

7. GREEK MUSIC AND LYRIC POETRY.--It was not until the minds of the Greeks had been elevated by the productions of the epic muse, that the genius of original poets broke loose from the dominion of the epic style, and invented new forms for expressing the emotions of a mind profoundly agitated by pa.s.sing events; with few innovations in the elegy, but with greater boldness in the iambic metre. In these two forms, Greek poetry entered the domain of real life. The elegy and iambus contain the germ of the lyric style, though they do not themselves come under that head. The Greek lyric poetry was characterized by the expression of deeper and more impa.s.sioned feeling, and a more impetuous tone than the elegy and iambus, and at the same time the effect was heightened by appropriate vocal and instrumental music, and often by the figures of the dance. In this union of the sister arts, poetry was indeed predominant, yet music, in its turn, exercised a reciprocal influence on poetry, so that as it became more cultivated, the choice of the musical measure decided the tone of the whole poem.

The history of Greek music begins with Terpander the Lesbian (fl. 670 B.C.), who was many times the victor in the musical contests at the Pythian temple of Delphi. He added three new strings to the cithara, which had consisted only of four, and this heptachord was employed by Pindar, and remained long in high repute; he was also the first who marked the different tones in music. With other musicians, he united the music of Asia Minor with that of the ancient Greeks, and founded on it a system in which each style had its appropriate character. By the efforts of Terpander and one or two other masters, music was brought to a high degree of excellence, and adapted to express any feeling to which the poet could give a more definite character and meaning, and thus they had solved the great problem of their art. It was in Greece the constant endeavor of the great poets, thinkers, and statesmen who interested themselves in the education of youth, to give a good direction to this art; they all dreaded the increasing prevalence of a luxuriant style of instrumental music and an unrestricted flight into the boundless realms of harmony.

The lyric poetry of the Greeks was of two kinds, and cultivated by two different schools of poets. One, called the Aeolic, flourished among the Aeolians of Asia Minor, and particularly in the island of Lesbos; the other, the Doric, which, although diffused over the whole of Greece, was at first princ.i.p.ally cultivated by the Dorians. These two schools differed essentially in the subjects, as in the form and style of their poems. The Doric was intended to be executed by choruses', and to be sung to choral dances; while the Aeolic was recited by a single person, who accompanied his recitation with a stringed instrument, generally the lyre.

8. AEOLIC LYRIC POETS.--Alcaeus (fl. 611 B.C.), born in Mytilene in the island of Lesbos, being driven out of his native city for political reasons, wandered about the world, and, in the midst of troubles and perils, struck the lyre and gave utterance to the pa.s.sionate emotions of his mind. His war-songs express a stirring, martial spirit; and a n.o.ble nature, accompanied with strong pa.s.sions, appears in all his poems, especially in those in which he sings the praises of love and wine, though little of his erotic poetry has reached our time. It is evident that poetry was not with him a mere pastime or exercise of skill, but a means of pouring out the inmost feelings of the soul. Sappho (fl. 600 B.C.) the other leader of the Aeolic school of poetry, was the object of the admiration of all antiquity. She was contemporary with Alcaeus, and in her verses to him we plainly discern the feeling of unimpeached honor proper to a free-born and well-educated maiden. Alcaeus testifies that the attractions and loveliness of Sappho did not derogate from her moral worth when he calls her "violet-crowned, pure, sweetly smiling Sappho." This testimony is, indeed, opposed to the accounts of later writers, but the probable cause of the false imputations in reference to Sappho seems to be that the refined Athenians were incapable of appreciating the frank simplicity with which she poured forth her feelings, and therefore they confounded them with unblus.h.i.+ng immodesty. While the men of Athens were distinguished for their perfection in every branch of art, none of their women emerged from the obscurity of domestic life. "That woman is the best," says Pericles, "of whom the least is said among men, whether for good or for evil." But the Aeolians had in some degree preserved the ancient Greek manners, and their women enjoyed a distinct individual existence and moral character. They doubtless partic.i.p.ated in the general high state of civilization, which not only fostered poetical talents of a high order among women, but produced in them a turn for philosophical reflection. This was so utterly inconsistent with Athenian manners, that we cannot wonder that women, who had in any degree overstepped the bounds prescribed to their s.e.x at Athens, should be represented by the licentious pen of Athenian comic writers as lost to every sense of shame and decency.

Sappho, in her odes, made frequent mention of a youth to whom she gave her whole heart, while he requited her love with cold indifference; but there is no trace of her having named the object of her pa.s.sion. She may have celebrated the beautiful and mythical Phaon in such a manner that the verses were supposed to refer to a lover of her own. The account of her leap from the Leucadian rock is rather a poetical image, than a real event in the life of the poetess. The true conception of the erotic poetry of Sappho can only be drawn from the fragments of her odes, which, though numerous, are for the most part very short. Among them, we must distinguish the Epithalamia or hymeneals, which were peculiarly adapted to the genius of the poetess from the exquisite perception she seems to have had of whatever was attractive in either s.e.x. From the numerous fragments that remain, these poems appear to have had great beauty and much of that expression which the simple and natural manners of the times allowed, and the warm and sensitive heart of the poetess suggested. That Sappho's fame was spread throughout Greece, may be seen from the history of Solon, who was her contemporary. Hearing his nephew recite one of her poems, he said that he would not willingly die until he had learned it by heart. And, doubtless, from that circle of accomplished women, of whom she formed the brilliant centre, a flood of poetic light was poured forth on every side.

Among them may be mentioned the names of Damophila and Erinna, whose poem, "The Spindle," was highly esteemed by the ancients.

The genius of Anacreon (fl. 540 B.C.), though akin to that of Alcaeus and Sappho, had an entirely different bent. He seems to consider life as valuable only so far as it can be spent in wine, love, and social enjoyment. The Ionic softness and departure from strict rule may also be perceived in his versification. The different odes preserved under his name are the productions of poets of a much later date. With Anacreon ceased the species of lyric poetry in which he excelled; indeed, he stands alone in it, and the tender softness of his song was soon drowned by the louder tones of the choral poetry.

The Scolia were a kind of lyric songs sung at social meals, when the spirit was raised by wine and conversation to a lyrical pitch. The lyre or a sprig of myrtle was handed round the table and presented to any one who could amuse the company by a song or even a good sentence in a lyrical form.

9. DORIC, OR CHORAL LYRIC POETS.--The chorus was in general use in Greece before the time of Homer, and nearly every variety of the choral poetry, which was afterwards so brilliantly developed, existed at that remote period in a rude, unfinished state. After the improvements made by Terpander and others in musical art, choral poetry rapidly progressed towards perfection. The poets during the period of progress were Alcman and Stesichorus, while finished lyric poetry is represented by Ibycus, Simonides, his disciple Bacchylides and Pindar. These great poets were only the representatives of the fervor with which the religious festivals inspired all cla.s.ses. Choral dances were performed by the whole people with great ardor and enthusiasm; every considerable town had its poet, who devoted his whole life to the training and exhibition of choruses.

Alcman (b. 660 B.C.) was a Lydian of Sardis, and an emanc.i.p.ated slave. His poems exhibit a great variety of metre, of dialect, and of poetic tone. He is regarded as having overcome the difficulties presented by the rough dialect of Sparta, and as having succeeded in investing it with a certain grace. He is one of the poets whose image is most effaced by time, and of whom we can obtain little accurate knowledge. The admiration awarded him by antiquity is scarcely justified by the extant remains of his poems.

Stesichorus (fl. 611 B.C.) lived at a time when the predominant tendency of the Greek mind was towards lyric poetry. His special business was the training and direction of the choruses, and he a.s.sumed the name of Stesichorus, or leader of choruses, his real name being Tesias. His metres approach more nearly to the epos than those of Aleman. As Quintilian says, he sustained the weight of epic poetry with the lyre. His language accorded with the tone of his poetry, and he is not less remarkable in himself, than as the precursor of the perfect lyric poetry of Pindar.

Arion (625-585 B.C.) was chiefly known in Greece as the perfecter of the "Dithyramb," a song of Baccha.n.a.lian festivals, doubtless of great antiquity. Its character, like the wors.h.i.+p to which it belonged, was always impa.s.sioned and enthusiastic; the extremes of feeling, rapturous pleasure, and wild lamentation were both expressed in it.

Ibycus (b. 528 B.C.) was a wandering poet, as is attested by the story of his death having been avenged by the cranes. His poetical style resembles that of Stesichorus, as also his subjects. The erotic poetry of Ibycus is most celebrated, and breathes a fervor of pa.s.sion far exceeding that of any similar production of Greek literature.

Simonides (556-468 B.C.) has already been described as one of the great masters of the elegy and epigram. In depth and novelty of ideas, and in the fervor of poetic feeling, he was far inferior to his contemporary Pindar, but he was probably the most prolific lyric poet of Greece.

According to the frequent reproach of the ancients, he was the first that sold his poems for money. His style was not as lofty as that of Pindar, hut what he lost in sublimity he gained in pathos.

Bacchylides (fl. 450 B.C.), the nephew of Simonides, devoted his genius chiefly to the pleasures of private life, love, and wine, and his productions, when compared with those of Simonides, are marked by less moral elevation.

Timocreon the Rhodian (fl. 471 B.C.) owes his chief celebrity among the ancients to the hate he bore to Themistocles in political life, and to Simonides on the field of poetry.

Pindar (522-435 B.C.) was the contemporary of Aeschylus, but as the causes which determined his poetical character are to be sought in an earlier age, and in the Doric and Aeolic parts of Greece, he may properly be placed at the close of the early period, while Aeschylus stands at the head of the new epoch of literature. Like Hesiod, Pindar was a native of Boeotia, and that there was still much love for music and poetry there is proved by the fact that two women, Myrtis and Corinna, had obtained great celebrity in these arts during the youth of this poet. Myrtis (fl. 490 B.C.) strove with him for the prize at the public games, and Corinna (fl.

490 B.C.) is said to have gained the victory over him five times. Too little of the poetry of Corinna has been preserved to allow a judgment on her style of composition. Pindar made the arts of poetry and music the business of his life, and his fame soon spread throughout Greece and the neighboring countries. He excelled in all the known varieties of choral poetry, but the only cla.s.s of poems that enable us to judge of his general style is his triumphal odes. When a victory was gained in a contest at a festival by the speed of horses, the strength and dexterity of the human body, or by skill in music, such a victory, which shed honor not only on the victor, but also on his family, and even on his native city, demanded a public celebration. An occasion of this kind had always a religious character, and often began with a procession to an altar or temple, where a sacrifice was offered, followed by a banquet, and the solemnity concluded with a merry and boisterous revel. At this sacred and at the same time joyous festival, the chorus appeared and recited the triumphal hymn, which was considered the fairest ornament of the triumph. Such an occasion, a victory in the sacred games and its end, the enn.o.bling of a ceremony connected with the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds, required that the ode should be composed in a lofty and dignified style. Pindar does not content himself with celebrating the bodily prowess of the victor alone, but he usually adds some moral virtue which he has shown, and which he recommends and extols. Sometimes this virtue is moderation, wisdom, or filial love, more often piety to the G.o.ds, and he expounds to the victor his destiny, by showing him the dependence of his exploits on the higher order of things. Mythical narratives occupy much s.p.a.ce in these odes, for in the time of Pindar the mythical past was invested with a splendor and sublimity, of which even the faint reflection was sufficient to embellish the present.

10. ORPHIC DOCTRINES AND POEMS.--The interval between Homer and Pindar is an important period in the history of Greek civilization. In Homer we perceive that infancy of the mind which lives in seeing and imagining, and whose moral judgments are determined by impulses of feeling rather than by rules of conduct, while with Pindar the chief effort of his genius is to discover the true standard of moral government. This great change of opinion must have been affected by the efforts of many sages and poets.

All the Greek religious poetry, treating of death and of the world beyond the grave, refers to the deities whose influence was supposed to be exercised in the dark regions at the centre of the earth, and who had little connection with the political and social relations of human life.

They formed a cla.s.s apart from the G.o.ds of Olympus; the mysteries of the Greeks were connected with their wors.h.i.+p alone, and the love of immortality first found support in a belief in these deities. The mysteries of Demeter, especially those celebrated at Eleusis, inspired the most animating hopes with regard to the soul after death. These mysteries, however, had little influence on the literature of the nation; but there was a society of persons called the followers of Orpheus, who published their notions and committed them to literary works. Under the guidance of the ancient mystical poet, Orpheus, they dedicated themselves to the wors.h.i.+p of Bacchus or Dionysus, in which they sought satisfaction for an ardent longing after the soothing and elevating influences of religion, and upon the wors.h.i.+p of this deity they founded their hopes of an ultimate immortality of the soul. Unlike the popular wors.h.i.+pers of Bacchus, they did not indulge in unrestrained pleasure or frantic enthusiasm, but rather aimed at an ascetic purity of life and manners. It is difficult to tell when this a.s.sociation was formed in Greece, but we find in Hesiod something of the Orphic spirit, and the beginning of higher and more hopeful views of death.