Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/396

 364 HISTOhV OF GREECE. with the contemporary world, constituted the soul of those short effusions which gave them so much celebrity : l and in the few re- mains of the elegiac poets preserved to us Kallinus, Mimner- mus, Tyrtaeus the impulse of some present motive or circum stance is no less conspicuous. The same may also be said of So Ion, Theognis and Phokylides, who preach, encourage, censure, 01 complain, but do not recount and in whom a profound ethical sensibility, unknown to the Homeric poems, manifests itself: the form of poetry (to use the words of Solon himself) is made the substitute for the public speaking of the agora. 2 Doubtless all these poets made abundant use of the ancient rnytb.es, but it was by turning them to present account, in the way of illustration, or flattery, or contrast, a tendency which we may usually detect even in the compositions of Pindar, in spite of the lofty and heroic strain which they breathe through- out. That narrative or legendary poetry still continued to be composed during the seventh and sixth centuries before the Chris- tian aera is not to be questioned; but it exhibited the old epical 1 See Quintilian, x. 1, 63. Herat Od. i. 32; ii. 13. Aristot. Polit. iii. 10, 4. Dionys. Halic. observes (Vett. Scriptt. Censur. v. p. 421) respecting Alkaens TfoT&axov yovv TO /lerpov el TIC neptsNoi, pijTopiKijv uv evpoi There was a large dash of sarcasm and homely banter aimed at neighbors and contemporaries in the poetry of Sappho, apart from her impassioned love- songs aTiKus aKUKTet, TOV uypoiicov vvjitytov nal TQV "Dvpupbv TOV iv Totf -yu.fj.oif, eiiTeTieaTara Kal iv Trefrif ovoaaai /iu/U,oi> T) iv TTOIT)TI.KOIC . "flare ai)TTj(puK'h.dv tdTi TU iroir/uaTa ravra SiaMy;3$ai r) uSeiv ovft 1 uv upfioaai npbf Tbv xopov j) Trpbe TTJV Xitpav, el firj Tif elij ^opof diaheKTiKof (Demetr. Phaler, De Interpret, c. 167). Compare also Herodot. ii. 135, who mentions the satirical talent of Sap- pho, employed against her brother for an extravagance about the courtezan Rhodopis. 2 Solon, Fragm. iv. J, ed. Schneidewin : AvTbf Ktjpv!; rj^ov up Ifieprfj^ 2aAa/uvof Koffftov kneuv 6r)v UVT' ayopjjs &e[i.evof, etc. See Brandis, Handbuch der Griechischen Philosophic, sect, xxiv.-xxr Plato states that Solon, in his old age, engaged in the composition of an epic poem, which he left unfinished, on the subject of the supposed island of Atlantis and Attica (Plato, Timacus, p. 21, and Kritias, p. 113). Plu- tarch, Solon, c. 31.
 * and Strabo (xiii. p. 617), TU aTaaiuructi Kahovfieva TOV 'A/l/catou