Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/141

119 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 119 power, anil both were protected by a firm shield*. But this feeling of culm satisfaction was not of long continuance, as Solon observed and soon expressed his opinion in elegies, '' that the people, in its ignorance, was bringing itself under the yoke of a monarch (Pisistratus), and that it was not the gods, but the thoughtlessness with which the people put the means of obtaining the sovereign power into the hands of Pisistra- tus, which had destroyed the liberties of Athens f." Solon's elegies were therefore the pure expression of his political feel- ings; a mirror of his patriotic sympathies with the weal and woe of his country. They moreover exhibit an excited tone of sentiment in the poet, called forth by the warm interest which he takes in the allairs of the community, and by the dangers which threaten its welfare. The prevailing sentiment is a wide and comprehensive humanity. When Solon had occasion to express feelings of a different cast — when he placed himself in a hostile attitude towards his countrymen and contem- poraries, and used sarcasm and rebuke, he employed not elegiac, but iambic and trochaic metres. The elegies of Solon are not indeed quite free from complaints and reproaches ; but these flow from the regard for the public interests, which animated his poetry. The repose which always follows an excited state of the mind, and of which Solon's elegies would naturally present the reflection, was found in the expression of hopes for the future, of a calm reliance on the gods who had taken Athens into their protection, and a serious contemplation of the conse- quences of good or evil acts. From his habits of reflection, and of reli- ance on his understanding, rather than his feelings, his elegies contained more general remarks on human affairs than those of any of his prede- cessors. Some considerable passages of this kind have been preserved ; one in which he divides human life into periods of seven years, and assigns to each its proper physical and mental occupations J; another in which the multifarious pursuits of men are described, and their inability to command success ; for fate brings good and ill to mortals, and man cannot escape from the destiny allotted to him by the gods§. Many maxims of a worldly wisdom from Solon's elegies are likewise pre- served, in which wealth, and comfort, and sensual enjoyment are recommended, but only so far as was, according to Greek notions, con- sistent with justice and fear of the gods. On account of these general maxims, which are called yj'ojhzcu, sayings or apophthegms, Solon has been reckoned among the gnomic poets, and his poems have been denominated gnomic elegies. This appellation is so far correct, that the gnomic character predominates in Solon's poetry ; nevertheless it is to be borne in mind that this calm contemplation of mankind cannot t Fragg. 18, 19. The fragnj. 18 has received an additional distich from Diod Exc. I. vii.- x. in Mai Script, vit. Nov. ( oil. vol. ii. p. 21. ! Fragm. I !. ^ Fragm. .'>.
 * Fr,igm. 20.