Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/208

186 186 HISTORY OF THE combining two Ionic feet, so that the last long syllable of the first foot was shortened and the first short syllable of the second foot was lengthened ; by which change the second foot became a trochaic dipody *. By this process, called by the ancients a.bendi7ig, or refraction (avckXao-ig), the metre obtained a less uniform, and at the same time a softer, expression ; and thus, when distributed into short verses, it became peculiarly suited to erotic poetry. The only traces of this metre, before Anacreon's time, occur in two fragments of Sappho. Anacreon, however, formed upon this plan a great variety of metres, particularly the short Anacreontic verse (a dimeter lonicus), which occurs so frequently, both in his "■enuine fragments and in the later odes imitated from his style. Ana- creon used the trochaic and iambic verses in the same manner as Arehi- lochus, with whom he has as much in common, in the technical part of his poetry, as with the iEolic lyric poets. The composition of verses in strophes is less frequent with Anacreon than with the Lesbian poets ; and when he forms strophes, it often happens that their conclusion is not marked by a verse different from those that precede ; but the divi- sion is only made by the juxtaposition of a definite number of short verses (for example, four Ionic dimeters), relating to a common subject. § 15. It is scarcely possible to treat of the genuine remains of the poetry of Anacreon, without adverting to the collection of odes, preserved under his name. Indeed, these graceful little poems have so much influenced the notion formed of Anacreon, that even now the admiration bestowed upon him is almost entirely founded upon these productions of poets much later than him in date, and-very different from him in poetical character. It has long since been proved that these Anacre- ontics are not the work of Anacreon ; and no further evidence of their spuriousness is needed than the fact, that out of about 150 citations of passages and expressions of Anacreon, which occur in the ancient writers, only one (and that of recent date) refers to a poem in this collection. But their subject and form furnish even stronger evi- dence. The peculiar circumstances under which Anacreon wrote his poetry never appear in these odes. The persons named in them (as, for example, Bathyllus) lose their individual reality; the truth and vigour of life give place to a shadowy and ideal existence. Many of the common places of poetry, as an old age of pleasure, the praise of love and wine, the power and subtlety of love, &c, are unquestion- ably treated in them with an easy grace and a charming simplicity. But generalities of this kind, without any reference to particular events or persons, do not consist with the character of Anacreon's poetry, which was drawn fresh from the life. Moreover, the principal topics in these poems have an epigrammatic and antithetical turn : the strength of the weaker sex, the power of little Eros, the happiness of dreams, the
 * So that oo./_ j o o .£ _ is changed into u o / u | / o '. ,