Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology ;
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Dim now and soiVd, Like the soiled tissue of white violets Left) freshly gathered, on their native bank. ARNOLD, Sohrab and Rustuni. PREFACE THE volume published under this title in 1890 has been for some years out of print. In reprinting it, the oppor- tunity has been taken to revise the text, translation and notes carefully throughout, to rewrite considerable portions of the introduction, and also to make some modifications in the contents of the selection. The purpose of this book, as stated in the preface to the original edition, was to present, in such a form as would appeal to the lover of literature and not be ungrateful to the scholar, a collection of all the best extant Greek epi- grams. Among the five hundred epigrams included in it less than one in ten of the whole number extant will be found, according to the editor's best judgment, all which are of the first excellence in any style. The definitions and exceptions subject to which this purpose has been carried out are explained in the introductory essay. It would be easy to agree on three-fourths of the matter to be included in such a scope. With regard to the remainder, perhaps hardly any two persons would be in exact accordance. Many epigrams have their special merit or interest, and also their special weakness or points of inferiority. With those which lie on the border-line and of these there are certainly scores and may be hundreds the decision has to be made on a balance of very slight considerations, and becomes in the last resort one of personal taste rather than of any strict or defin- able principle. The selection originally made has been received by viii GREEK ANTHOLOGY competent judges with a favour which I desire gratefully to and I have not been able to acknowledge ; improve upon it to any very considerable extent. It may be con- venient here to indicate the exact differences in content between this and the earlier edition. Ten epigrams II. formerly included have been omitted (I. 16, 20, 57; 14, 17; IV. 28; V. 16; X. 13, 34, 44). Twenty have been those numbered I. added ; namely, now 16, 19, 44, 57 5 II. 16, 24, 27; III. 6, 26, 40, 59; IV. 13, 34, 46; V. 16; VII. 6; VIII. 14; XL 26, 50; XII. 19. No author has from the collection five new authors are disappeared ; added to it Damascius, Isidorus, Phaennus, Phanias, and Thucydides. The net result is to give a slightly greater to as work but it preponderance Greek against Byzantine ; is so slight as to be hardly noticeable. As regards the Greek Anthology it still remains true that the work of Friedrich Jacobs remains unsuperseded after a century. His seventeen volumes, which appeared between 1794 and 1817, represented the high-water mark of the scholarship of their time. Until the great revival of classical studies in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the new life breathed into them by the creation of scientific archaeology and the application of the new historical method, little more remained to be done. But with the modern armament of scholarship it should be possible, and if possible it is certainly desirable, to bring the splendid work of a hundred years ago up to date. Much light has still to be thrown, not only on the contents and history of the Anthology, but on the whole of Greek life, art, and thought as illustrated by it with a fulness and intimacy which are in some respects unique. A solid beginning has been made towards this work by the critical edition of H. Stadtmliller now in course of appearance. The two volumes of this edition published in 1894 and 1899 PREFACE IX extend as far as the end of the seventh book of the Palatine Anthology. His work is so accurate and thorough that scholars must await the remaining volumes with an eagerness which it is difficult to keep from passing into impatience. When this new text is completed, 'and even before' in the phrase of Glaucon in the Republic, it may be hoped that some scholar or association of scholars in this country will base upon it a complete edition worthy of modern scholarship on its literary and historical, no less than on its textual side. No more important work than this remains in field of to be done the Greek letters ; and it is hardly to the credit of English scholarship that it still awaits accomplishment. The two editions of Jacobs have through time become not at all inaccessible and are rare, though ; they absolutely indispensable for any serious study of the Greek epigram throughout the sixteen centuries of its history. They are, Anthologia Graeca sive Poetarum Graecorum lusus ex recensione Brunckii ; indices et commentarium adiecit Frie- dericus Jacobs, Leipzig, 1794-1814: four volumes of text and nine of and indices, prolegomena, commentary, appendices ; and Anthologia Graeca ad fidem codicis olim Palatini mine Parisini ex apographo Gothano edita ; curavit epigrammata in Codice Palatino desiderata et annotationem criticam adiecit Fridericus Jacobs, Leipzig, 1813-1817: two volumes of text and two of critical notes. For ordinary purposes the only good text of the Anthology is that in Didot's Bibliotheque Grecque, with a Latin translation and a brief commentary various hands the first two volumes of edited by ; which, by F. Diibner, appeared in 1864, and the third, edited by E. Cougny, in 1890. This third volume contains a com- plete collection up to the date of its compilation of all extant Greek epigrams not in the Anthology. In such a collection there is of course no finality; fresh material x GREEK ANTHOLOGY continues, though slowly, to accumulate so long as fresh monuments are brought to light by research. At any moment a substantial addition might be made to the contents of our Anthology by the re-discovery of the lost MS. mentioned below on page 24 of the Introduction. It only remains to add a few words in explanation of the commentary in this volume. It is founded on Jacobs throughout, and what is derived in it from him is here acknowledged once for all. Readings or notes taken from subsequent critics are given with the name of their author. But the received text is printed without comment, except where it is doubtful or obscure, both in the epigrams taken from the Anthology proper, and in those selected from other sources. Among these, special mention should be made of G. Kaibel's very valuable work, Epigrammata Graeca ex lapidibus conlecta^ 1878. Epigrams from the Anthology are quoted by the sections of the Palatine Anthology (Anth. Pal.) and the appendix of epigrams in the Planudean Anthology which are not in the Palatine MS. (App. Plan.)> as numbered in the latter of Jacobs' two editions and in the Paris edition named above. The numbering in Stadtmuller's edition, which will doubtless become the vulgate when completed, varies from this throughout the fifth section, the Amatoria^ owing to the fact that he prints the three prefatory lines heading that section without a number, so that the remaining contents become Nos. 1-308 instead of 2-309 : his V. 309 being the epigram numbered VI. I* in the earlier editions. The references in the notes to Bergk's Lyrici Graeci are to the pages of the fourth edition. 6 PEMBROKE GARDENS, KENSINGTON, i September 1906. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION, I SELECT EPIGRAMS THE GARLAND OF MELEAGER, . 93 I. LOVE, ....... 96 v II. PRAYERS AND DEDICATIONS, . .129 III. EPITAPHS, ... 149 IV. LITERATURE AND ART, ... .174 V. RELIGION, . .194 VI. NATURE, . ... 202 VII. THE FAMILY, . ... 215 VIII. BEAUTY, ... 225 IX. FATE AND CHANGE, . .231 X. THE HUMAN COMEDY, ..... 245 XI. DEATH, ....... 263 XII. LIFE, . .285 BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF EPIGRAMMATISTS, . 305 NOTES, . 339 INDICES, 423 xi INTRODUCTION I ' ' THE Greek word epigram in its original meaning is pre- to the Latin word ' ' and cisely equivalent inscription ; it probably came into use in this sense at a very early period of Greek history, anterior even to the invention of prose. Inscriptions at that time, if they went beyond a mere name or set of names, or perhaps the bare statement of a simple fact, were necessarily in verse, then the single vehicle of organised expression. Even after prose was in use, an obvious propriety remained in the metrical form as being at once more striking and more easily retained in the while in the case of and dedications memory ; epitaphs for the earlier epigram falls almost entirely under these two heads religious feeling and a sense of what was due to ancient custom aided the continuance of the old tradition.