COLLECTIONS.

PART I.

CONTAINING SPECIMENS OF THE EARLY LYRIC POETS.

ARCHILOCHUS.*

THE name of Archilochus is deservedly placed at the head of this Collection, as not only the earliest in date, but one of the foremost in celebrity, of those commemorated by Meleager as forming a part of his Wreath, or Crown, of Flowers, in the fanciful Prologue already noticed. A distich is there assigned him, descriptive alike of the pungency of his satire and the scarcity of the remnants of his poetry, under the emblem of a Thistle.

Ἐν δὲ καὶ ἐκ φορβῆς σκολιότριχος ἄνθος ἀκανθὲς
̓Αρχιλόχου, μικρὰς στράγγας ἀπ ̓ ὠκεανοῦ.

To the account which is given of him in almost every Biographical Dictionary, beginning with Bayle, by whom

* Jacobs, Anth. Græc. Lips. 1794. Tom. i. p. 40 et seq.

B

his name is connected with abundance of learned though whimsical illustration, little in substance will be found to have been added by the industry of his most learned commentators, amongst whom it is enough to refer to the "Recherches sur la Vie et sur les Ouvrages d'Archiloque," contained in the "Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions," t. xiv. p. 55, and to the late edition of his Works by Liebel (Lips. 1812). Of the many poetical compositions ascribed to him, we possess, with the exception of a single Epigram, comprised in a distich of antique simplicity, only a few scattered fragments; some elegiac-but mostly lyrical, and in the rapid trochaic measure, which in the ensuing versions it has been generally attempted to preserve: nothing, however, or next to nothing, that appears to justify the character assigned to him, and which we must presume to have been merited by his lost Iambics.

With respect to chronology, Archilochus is placed by Tatian, (see Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. i. p. 296,) as having flourished about the twenty-third Olympiad, corresponding with the year 688 B. C., towards the end of the reign of Gyges king of Lydia; that is to say, about five hundred years later than the date commonly ascribed to the Trojan war, and two hundred years previous to the battle of Marathon.

The memorial of his life, so far as is necessary to the explanation of the few fragments of his works which remain to us, may be reduced to the compass of the following facts. He was born at Paros, of one of the noblest families in that island, whence he emigrated, at the age of twenty, to Thasos, on the occasion of the foundation of a colony of Parians, an event which Herodotus has recorded. He is

among the first on the long list of soldier-poets; and, in the course of his military career, an event happened to him in the loss of his shield, which seems to have exposed him to the sarcasm of some of his contemporaries, and which forms the subject of an allusion in one of his ensuing Fragments. His marriage with Neobule, daughter of Lycambes, —which, as some say, proceeded no further than to a mere contract, broken by the avarice of the father-is a circumstance rendered memorable by the strange story attached to it of poetical vengeance, and of its fatal consequences. Horace, who made the writings of Archilochus, in his time extant, the subject both of his study and imitation, more than once alludes to this singular catastrophe; but in all that now survives of the poet we find, besides a few disjointed fragments, to which the ingenuity of commentators has been applied in detecting fancied allusions, only a single line containing any clear reference to the connexion which gave rise to it; and that line the exclamation, not of a furious satirist, but of a tender and passionate lover.

Εἰ γὰρ ὡς

ἐμοὶ γένοιτο χεῖρα Νεοβούλης θιγεῖν.

All that remains to be said in this place is, that the poet appears to have led a life of poverty and misfortune; the cause, perhaps, at once, and consequence, of the malevolent humour for which he is so distinguished.

FRAGMENTS.

[N.B. The figures prefixed to each poem denote the number in the Original Text.

The pieces marked with an asterisk (*) are those already published, with the number of the page annexed, in the edition of 1813.]

I. (1, 6, 7.) FROM AN ELEGY ON A SHIPWRECK.

* p. 179.

LOUD are our griefs, my friend; and vain is he
Would steep the sense in mirth and revelry.
O'er those we mourn the hoarse-resounding wave
Hath clos'd, and whelm'd them in their ocean grave.
Deep sorrow swells each breast. But Heaven bestows
One healing med'cine for severest woes,
-Resolv'd endurance-for Affliction pours
To all by turns,-today the cup is ours.
Bear bravely, then, the common trial sent,
And cast away your womanish lament!

Ah! had it been the will of Heav'n to save
His honour'd reliques from a nameless grave!
Had we but seen th' accustom'd flames aspire,
And wrap his corse in purifying fire!

M.

Yet what avails it to lament the dead?
Say, will it profit aught to shroud our head,
And wear away in grief the fleeting hours,
Rather than 'mid bright nymphs in rosy bowers?

II. (3.) ON THE LOSS OF HIS SHIELD. M.

THE foe-man glories in my shield—

I left it on the battle field;

I threw it down beside the wood,

Unscath'd by scars, unstain'd with blood.

And let him glory! Since, from death
Escap'd, I keep my forfeit breath,
I soon may find, at little cost,
As good a shield as that I've lost.

III. (4.) THE CLOSE FIGHT.
Bows will not avail thee,

Darts and slings will fail thee,
When Mars tumultuous rages

On wide embattled land.

Then with faulchions clashing,

Eyes with fury flashing,
Man with man engages

In combat, hand to hand.
But most Euboea's chiefs are known,
Marshal'd hosts of spearmen leading
To conflict whence is no receding,
To make this-war's best art-their own.

COME then, my friend, and seize the flask,

And while the deck around us rolls,

Dash we the cover from the cask,

And crown with wine our flowing bowls.

C. M.

M.