Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/134

112 112 HISTORY OF THE § 6. But the Eunomia was neither the only nor yet the first elegy in which Tyrtuous stimulated the Lacedaemonians to a bold defence against the Messenians. Exhortation to bravery was the theme which this poet took for many elegies*, and wrote on it with unceasing spirit and ever- new invention. Never was the duty and the honour of bravery im- pressed on the youth of a nation with so much beauty and force of language, by such natural and touching motives. In this we perceive the talent of the Greeks for giving to an idea the outward and visible form most befitting it. In the poems of Tyrtaeus we see before us the determined hoplite firmly fixed to the earth, with feet apart, pressing his lips with his teeth, holding his large shield against the darts of the distant enemy, and stretching out his spear with a strong hand against the nearer combatant. That the young, and even the old, rise up and yield their places to the brave ; that it beseems the youthful warrior to fall in the thick of the fight, as his form is beautiful even in death, while the aged man who is slain in the first ranks is a disgrace to his younger companion from the unseemly appearance of his body : these and similar topics are incentives to valour which could not fail to make a profound impression on a people of fresh feeling and simple character, such as the Spartans then were. That these poems (although the author of them was a foreigner) breathed a truly Spartan spirit, and that the Spartans knew how to value them, is proved by the constant use made of them in the military expe- ditions. When the Spartans were on a campaign, it was their custom, after the evening meal, when the paean had been sung in honour of the Gods, to recite these elegies. On these occasions the whole mess did not join in the chant, but individuals vied with each other in repeat- ing the verses in a manner worthy of their subject. The successful competitor then received from the polemarch or commander a larger portion of meat than the others, a distinction suitable to the simple taste of the Spartans. This kind of recitation was so well adapted to the elegy, that it is highly probable that Tyrteeus himself first published his elegies in this manner. The moderation and chastised enjoyment of a Spartan banquet were indeed requisite, in order to enable the guests to take pleasure in so serious and masculine a style of poetry : among guests of other races the elegy placed in analogous circumstances natu- rally assumed a very different tone. The elegies of Tyrtaeus were, how- ever, never sung on the march of the army and in the battle itself; for these a strain of another kind was composed by the same poet, viz., the anapaestic marches, to which we shall incidentally revert hereafter. § 7. After these two ancient masters of the warlike elegy, we shall pass to two other nearly contemporary poets, who have this characteristic in common, that they distinguished themselves still more in iambic lhan in verse.
 * Called 'Yrrofcx-ai V IXiyiUt (Suidas) i. e. Lessons and exhortations in elegiac