Array Anacreon - The Greatest Classics of Ancient Greece

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When, in the carven chest,

The winds that blew and waves in wild unrest

Smote her with fear, she, not with cheeks unwet,

Her arms of love round Perseus set,

And said: "Ο child, what grief is mine!

But thou dost slumber, and thy baby breast

Is sunk in rest,

Here in the cheerless brass-bound bark,

Tossed amid starless night and pitchy dark.

Nor dost thou heed the scudding brine

Of waves that wash above thy curls so deep,

Nor the shrill winds that sweep,—

Lapped in thy purple robe's embrace,

Fair little face!

But if this dread were dreadful too to thee,

Then wouldst thou lend thy listening ear to me;

Therefore I cry,—Sleep, babe, and sea, be still,

And slumber our unmeasured ill!

Oh, may some change of fate, sire Zeus, from thee

Descend, our woes to end!

But if this prayer, too overbold, offend

Thy justice, yet be merciful to me!"

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Of those who at Thermopylae were slain,

Glorious the doom, and beautiful the lot;

Their tomb an altar: men from tears refrain

To honor them, and praise, but mourn them not.

Such sepulchre, nor drear decay

Nor all-destroying time shall waste; this right have they.

Within their grave the home-bred glory

Of Greece was laid: this witness gives

Leonidas the Spartan, in whose story

A wreath of famous virtue ever lives.

1Danaë was imprisoned in a tower by her father Acrisius, in consequence of an oracle which predicted that he would be slain by his daughter's son. Nevertheless Zeus visited her in a shower of gold, and she bore a son, Perseus. She and her child were then shut up in a chest by her father, and thrown out to sea.

2When the Persians invaded Greece in 480 B. C., Leonidas, king of Sparta, went to hold the pass of Thermopylae against them. When by a circuitous route the Persians entered the pass, Leonidas dismissed his army except three hundred Spartans and seven hundred Thespians, who died on the field faithful to their trust.

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Naught that is human dureth long:

And well the old-world poem ran —

"As fall the leaves, so falleth man."

Yet who will heed that warning song?

The ear, but not the heart, we ope,

When come those words to us addressed;

For still there burneth in the breast

The oft delusive fire of Hope.

Life's happy flowers resolved to tend

Through sunshine hours, presumptuous man

Formeth bold scheme and daring plan,

Which never gain their purposed end.

We live as though there were no death —

As though our being's boundless wealth

No limit knew, nor failing health

Came ever down to stop the breath.

O fools and blind, to quite forget

How soon our youth-tide passeth by:

How soon within the darkening sky

Our very sun of life shall set!,

Then be life's lesson, from' life's goal,

Well laid to heart and understood —

In all that's beautiful and good

Delight betimes, O man, thy soul.

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The Life and Work of Bacchylides

Athena

The Cloud of Fate

The High Immortal Gods are Free

Not to be Born 'twere Best

Of Happiness to Mortal Man

Peace in all Her Sweetness Hail

Peace on Earth

Theseus

Truth

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Simônides's nephew, BACCHYLIDES, lived also at Hiero's court, and wrote under the influences both of his uncle and of Pindar. He was imitated by Horace, and admired for his moral tone by the Emperor Julian -- a large share of 'immortality' for one who is generally reckoned a second-class poet. And it appears that more is in store for him. The British Museum has recently acquired a papyrus of the first century B.C., containing several epinikian odes of Bacchylides intact, as well as some fresh fragments. It would be an ungracious reception to a new-comer so illustrious in himself, to wish that he had been some one else-Alcæus, for instance, or Sappho or Simônides. But we may perhaps hope that the odes will not all be about the Games, as Pindar's are. The headings of three of them, 'Theseus,' 'Io,' and 'Idas,' seem to suggest a more varied prospect; but similar titles are sometimes found in MSS. of Pindar, and merely serve to indicate the myths which the particular 'Epinîkoi', contain. The longest of the new odes is in honour of Hiero, and celebrates the same victory as Pindar's first Olympian -- a poem, by the way, which has been thought to contain an unkind reflection upon Bacchylides. The style is said to be much simpler than Pindar's, though it shows the ordinary lyric fondness for strange compound words, such as μεγιστοFáνασσα. The most interesting of the fragments heretofore published is in praise of Peace.

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Folded arms and sauntering pace

Come not nigh this holy place.

She whose image here is seen,

Golden-Ægis-bearing queen,

Dread Itonia, doth ordain

For the suppliants at her fane

Other services than these--

Tributes rare from bended knees.

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Peaceful wealth, or painful toil,

Chance of war, or civil broil,

'Tis not for man's feeble race

These to shun, or those embrace.

But that all-disposing Fate

Which presides o'er mortal state,

Where it listeth, casts its shroud

Of impenetrable cloud.

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The high immortal gods are free

From taint of man's infirmity;

Nor pale diseases round them wait,

Nor pain distracts their tranquil state.

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Not to be born 'twere best,

Nor view the light of the sun;

Since to be ever blest

Is given to none:

And Fate deals out his share,

To each alike, of pain and care.

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Of happiness to mortal man

One is the road, and one the goal--

To keep unburthen'd, all he can,

From loads of care the tranquil soul.

But whoso toileth night and day,

Nor day nor night permits sweet rest.

To steal him from himself away,

Or still the fever of his breast,

Nought will it profit, though he bear

On gloomy brow the stamp of care.

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Peace in all her sweetness hail!

No more the clarions ravish sleep;

Red rust-stains o'er the lances creep;

Gray spider-meshes gather on the mail:

Glad youths with girls the Comus-carols share;

In our feastful bowers

Song puts forth her flowers:

Peace with thy children, hail! Hail, Wealth and Order fair!

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To mortal men Peace giveth these good things:

Wealth, and the flowers of honey-throated song;

The flame that springs

On craven altars from fat sheep and kine,

Slain to the gods in heaven; and, all day long,

Games for gold youths, and flutes, and wreaths, and circling wine.