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ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL (Jacobs I. 43, xiv.).

Translated by the late Colonel Mure, of Caldwell.
My soul, my soul, by cares past all relief
Distracted sore, bear up! with manly breast,
And dauntless mien, each fresh assault of grief
Encountering. By hostile weapons pressed,
Stand firm. Let no unlooked-for triumph move
To empty exultation; no defeat

Cast down. But still let moderation prove

Of life's uncertain cup the bitter and the sweet. Philemon shows that an equable frame of mind is the possession of a wise man. Cumberland thus translates the epigram in the "Observer

(No. 139):

Extremes of fortune are true wisdom's test,
And he's of men most wise, who bears them best.

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Agathias in an amusing epigram (Jacobs IV. 25, lxiv.) shows the result of unexpected good fortune. The translation is by Philip Smyth:

Euseia, rich in gold and land,
To a poor fisher gave her hand.
Ophion, dazzled with his gain,
Grew haughty, petulant, and vain.
Venus, says Fortune, looking sly,

Who play'd this trick, pray-you or I?

SAPPHO.

This poetess flourished B.c. 610. She was a native of Mitylene in the island of Lesbos. She married, but was early left a widow. She is said to have fixed her affections on a youth named Phaon, who, however, did not return her love. In consequence of this she cast herself into the sea from a promontory in Acarnania, called Leucate; the belief being that those who survived the leap would be cured of hopeless love. She perished in the experiment. Unfortunately little more than fiagments of the beautiful poetry of Sappho have come down to us, and only three epigrams by her are preserved in Jacobs' Anthologia. Her celebrity, however, is attested by many Greek epigrams. This, by Antipater of Sidon (Jacobs II. 19, xlvi.), is translated by Dr. Wellesley:

Amazement seized Mnemosyné

At Sappho's honey'd song:

"What, does a tenth Muse, then," cried she,
"To mortal men belong!"

And a joyous epigram by an uncertain author (Jacobs IV. 227, dxxi.)

is thus translated by C.:

Come, Lesbian maids, to blue-eyed Juno's shrine,
And with light soundless feet the dance begin.

Your own lov'd Sappho with her golden lyre

Shall sweep the strings, and lead the laughing choir;
And as she plays your joyous bands among
You'll deem you hear the very Muse of Song.

EPITAPH ON A PRIESTESS OF DIANA (Jacobs I. 49, i.).
Translated in Merivale's Edition of Bland's Collections.

Does any ask? I answer from the dead:
A voice that lives is graven o'er my head:
To dark-ey'd Dian, ere my days begun,
Aristo vow'd me, wife of Saon's son:

Then hear thy priestess, hear, O Virgin power!
And thy best gifts on Saon's lineage show'r.

EPITAPH ON A FISHERMAN (Jacobs I. 50, ii.).
Translated by Elton.

This oar, and net, and fisher's wicker'd snare,
Themiscus plac'd above his buried son-
Memorials of the lot in life he bare,

The hard and needy life of Pelagon.

It was the custom of the ancients to carve on the tombs of their friends, devices emblematic of the profession or trade which they exercised when alive; of this we have many examples in the Anthology, and in the works of Homer and Virgil. In the case of the clergy the custom has extended to modern times, as it was, and is again becoming, usual to engrave on their tombs a chalice, to denote their Priesthood. Granger (Biog. Hist. 1779, I. 81) mentions a picture in the Lexington Collection, with a device which seems to be borrowed from the Greek. It is traditionally supposed to be a portrait of a daughter of Sir Thomas More. It represents a female standing on a tortoise, with a bunch of keys by her side, her finger on her lips, and a dove on her head. On the frame is a Latin inscription, believed to be by Sir Thomas More, which has been thus translated:

Be frugal, ye wives, live in silence and love,
Nor abroad ever gossip and roam!

This learn from the keys, the lips, and the dove,
And tortoise still dwelling at home.

This inscription seems to have been suggested, not only by the general custom of the Greeks, but particularly by an epitaph on Lycidice by Antipater of Sidon, thus translated by C. (Jacobs II. 31, lxxxvii., from which four lines are omitted in the translation in accordance with other authorities. See Jacobs' Notes, and Potter's "Antiquities of Greece," Book IV. Chap. vii.):

Tell me, Lycidice, what meanings have

These sculptur'd emblems on thy pillar'd grave?—
The Owl, my labours at the wool doth tell:
The Bridle that I rul'd my household well:
The Muzzles fitted for the mouth express
The silent lip and soul's reservedness.

ERINNA.

Flourished B.C. 610. She was contemporary with Sappho, to whom she is said to have been as superior in hexameters as she was inferior, in lyrics. She was celebrated as well for her beauty as for her genius, and was tenderly mourned by the poets on account of her early death, as in the following epigram by Antipater of Sidon, translated by Major Macgregor (Jacobs II. 19, xlvii.):

Few were Erinna's words, and brief her lays,
Yet these obtained for her the deathless bays:
Therefore she is not from our memory swept,
Nor under the dark wing of black night kept:
But we the myriad minstrels of to-day,
Waste in oblivion, insect-like away.

Thus of one swan more joy the soft notes bring
Than thousand jackdaws clamorous in spring.

ON A PORTRAIT (Jacobs I. 50, i.).
Translated by Major Macgregor.

Skill'd hands these traits, O best Prometheus! drew—
E'en men may match in cleverness with you—
So like to life, whoe'er has painted her,

Had she but voice, this Agatharcis were.

It is doubtful whether this epigram can be rightly ascribed to Erinna at a date so early. The conceit embodied in it is foreign to the extreme simplicity of her age.

That men could match Prometheus was a thought often adopted by the Epigrammatists at a later period, as, for instance, by Antipater of Sidon in one of the many epigrams on Myron's Cow (Jacobs II. 21, lv.):

This heifer sure will low;
Prometheus, 'tis not thou,
That only makes things live,
For Myron life can give.

A modern epigram describes a portrait, which, unlike that of Agatharcis, would not have represented the original, had voice been added:

A lord of senatorial fame

Was by his portrait known outright;
For so the painter play'd his game,
It made one even yawn at sight.
""Tis he-the same-there's no defect,
But want of speech," exclaim'd a flat.
To whom the limner-" Pray, reflect,
"Tis surely not the worse for that."

EPITAPH ON A DECEASED COMPANION (Jacobs I. 50, ii.).
Translated by Major Macgregor.

Cold pillars! Sirens mute! and thou, sad urn!
Who holdest my poor dust for Hades stern,
Bid those all hail about my tomb who stand,
Or countrymen, or from another land;

Say that a virgin I lie here, by name
Baucis-my

father call'd me so-who came

Of Tenian race, and let them know my friend
Erinna for my tomb these verses penn d.

Erinna wrote another epitaph on Baucis, from which we learn that she died on her marriage day. On the similarly mournful fate of another maiden, Meleager wrote an epigram (Jacobs I. 38, cxxv.), thus translated by Archdeacon Wrangham:

Her virgin zone unloosed, Cleara's charms

Death clasps-stern bridegroom-in his iron arms.
Hymns at the bridal valves last night were sung-
Last night the bridal roof with revels rung-

This morn the wail was raised, and, hushed and low,
The strains of joy were changed to moans of woe;
And the bright torch to Hymen's hall which led,
With mournful glare now lighted to the dead.

Other epigrams on this subject will be found under Philippus.

A fragment in Athenæus gives the information that Erinna herself died in early youth and unmarried, which adds much to the interest of the epitaph which she wrote on her young companion, who died probably a very short time before her.

CLEOBULUS.

Flourished B.C. 586. He was Tyrant of Lindus, and one of the Seven Sages of Greece.

INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMB OF MIDAS (Jacobs I. 52, i.).

Translated by the late Colonel Mure, of Caldwell.

A maid of bronze am I, and here will stand
On Midas' tomb, as long as on the strand
The sea shall beat; as long as trees shall grow,
Sun rise, moon shine, or liquid waters flow;
So long by this sad tomb I'll watch and cry,
Midas lies here! to every passer by.

Simonides has an epigram (Jacobs I. 59, x.) in which he severely ridicules the idea of the maid of bronze enduring as long as the earth itself. It is too long for insertion, but the last few lines of Merivale's translation may be given:

The sculptur'd tomb is but a toy
Man may create, and man destroy.
Eternity in stone or brass ?—

Go, go! who said it, was-an ass.

But Cleobulus delighted in conundrums, and it is very probable, as Colonel Mure points out, that the inscription is of that character, requiring for its interpretation a knowledge of circumstances connected with its composition, which Simonides did not possess. It is not likely that Cleobulus seriously put forward such an extravagant assertion. If he did so, he might be answered in the words of Spenser in "The Ruines of Time":

In vaine doo earthly princes then, in vaine
Seeke with pyramides, to heaven aspired;
Or huge colosses, built with costlie paine;
Or brasen pillours, never to be fired;
To make their memories for ever live:
For how can mortall immortalitie give?

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All such vaine moniments of earthlie masse,

Devour'd of Time, in time to nought doo passe.

On the destructive power of Time, Plato has a distich of much beauty (Jacobs I. 106, xix.), thus translated by C.:

Time changes all things; and beneath his sway
Names, beauty, wealth, e'en Nature's powers decay.

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