Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/145

123 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 123 you only a transient feeling*." " I have given you wings, with which you will fly over sea and land, and will be present at all banquets, as young men will sing of you to the flute. Even in future times your name will be dear to all the lovers of song, so long as the earth and sun endure. But to me you shew but little respect, deceiving me with words like a little boy f." It is plain that Cyrnus did not place in Theognis that entire confidence which the poet desired. It cannot, however, be doubted that these affectionate appeals and tender re- proaches are to be taken in the sense of the earlier and pure Doric cus- tom, and that no connexion of a criminal nature is to be understood, with which it would be inconsistent that the poet recommends a married life to the youth J. Cyrnus also is sufficiently old to be sent as a sacred envoy (deiopog) to Delphi, in order to bring back an oracle to the city. The poet exhorts him to preserve it faithfully, and not to add or to omit a word §. The poems of Theognis, even in the form in which they are extant, place us in the middle of a circle of friends, who formed a kind of eat- ing society, like the philitia of Sparta, and like the ancient public tables of Megara itself. The Spartan public tables are described to us as a kind of aristocratic clubs ; and these societies in Megara might serve to awaken and keep alive an aristocratic disposition. Theognis himself thinks that those who, according to the original constitution of Megara, possessed the chief power, were the only persons with whom any one ought to eat and drink, and to sit, and whom he should strive to please ||. It is therefore manifest that all the friends whom Theognis names, not only Cyrnus and Simonides, but also Onomacritus, Clearistus, Denio- cles, Demonax, and Timagoras, belonged to the class of the "good," although the political maxims are only addressed to Cyrnus. Various events in the lives of these friends, or the qualities which each shewed at their convivial meetings, furnished occasions for separate, but probably short elegies. In one the poet laments that Clearistus should have made an unfortunate' voyage, and promises him the assistance which is due to one connected with his family by ancient ties of hospitality^ : in ano- ther he wishes a happy voyage to the same or another friend **. To Simonides, as being the chief of the society, he addresses a farewell elegy, exhorting him to leave to every yuest his liberty, not to detain any one desirous to depart, or to waken the sleeping, &C.ft; and to Onoma- critus the poet laments over the consequences of inordinate drinking Jj, Few of the persons whom he addresses appear to have been without this circle of friends, although his fame had even in his lifetime spread § v. 805. seq. || v. 36, seq. ^ v.511, seq. ** v. 6?j .,,,/. v. 409, seq. v. 305, seq
 * v. 65J, seq. f v. 237, seq. v. 1225.