Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/224

202 202 HISTORY OF THE The language of Stesichorus likewise accorded with the tone of his poetry. Quiutilian, and other ancient critics, state that it corresponded with the dignity of the persons described by him ; and that he might have stood next to Homer, if he had restrained the copiousness of his diction. It is possible that, in expressing this opinion, Quintilian did not sufficiently advert to the distinction between the epic and lyric styles. § G. We have subjoined these remarks to the longer lyric poems of Stesichorus, which were nearest to the epos, as it was in these that the peculiar character of his poetry was most clearly displayed. Stesi- chorus, however, also composed poems in praise of the gods, especially paeans and hymns ; not in an epic, but in a lyric form. There were also erotic poems of Stesichorus, differing as much as his other produc- tions from the amatory lyric poems of the Lesbians. They consisted of love-stories; as the Calyce, which described the pure but unhappy love of a maiden of that name ; and the Rhadina, which related the melancholy adventures of a Samian brother and sister, whom a Corin- thian tyrant put to death out of love for the sister, and jealousy of the brother *. These are the earliest instances in Greek literature of love- stories forming the basis of romantic poetry ; the stories themselves probably having been derived from the tales with which the inmates of the Greek gyneecea amused themselves. These stories (which were afterwards collected by Parthenius, Plutarch, and others) usually be- longed, not to the purely mythical period, but either to historical times, or to the transition period between fable and history. In this manner the story involved the ordinary circumstances of life, while extraordi- nary situations could be introduced, serving to show the fidelity of the lovers. Of a similar character was the bucolic poem, which Stesichorus first raised from a rude strain of merely local interest, to a classical branch of Greek poetry. Tiie first bucolic poem is said to have been sung by Diomus, a cowherd in Sicily, a country abounding in cattlet- The hero of this pastoral poetry was the shepherd Daphnis (celebrated in Theocritus), who had been beloved by a nymph, and deprived by her, out of jealousy, of his sight; and with whose laments all nature founded with that of Stesichorus. As this Proteus was converted by the Egyptian interpreters (gpwus) into a king of Egypt, this king was said to have taken Helen from Paris, and to have kept her for Menelaus. This was the story which Hero- dotus heard in Egypt, II. 112. Euripi<ies, in his Helen, gives quite a new turn to the tale. In this play, the gods form a false Helen, whom Paris takes to Troy ; the true Helen is carried by Hermes to the Egyptian king Proteus. In this manner, Proteus completely loses the character which he bears in the ancient Greek mythus ; but the events tend to situations which suited the pathetic tragedy of Euripides. for these love-stories is the long excursus in Athenaeus on the popular songs of the Greeks, XIV. p. G18. sqq. f houxoXiaa-fios, Epicharmus ap. Athen. XIV. p. 619. The song of Eriphanis, Muxgai loxtii. u tAyaXau appears to have been of native Sicilian origin.
 * Compare Strab. VIII. p. 347. D. with Pausan. VII. 5. 6. The chief authority