Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/234

212 212 HISTORY OF THE an ancient critic observes, was not as lofty as that of Pindar ; but what he lost in sublimity he gained in pathos *. While Pindar's soaring flights extolled the happiness of the dead who had finished their earthly course with honour, and enjoyed the glories allotted to them in another existence, Simonides gave himself up to the genuine feelings of human nature ; he expressed grief for the life that was extinguished ; the fond regret of the survivors ; and sought consolation rather after the manner of the Ionian elegiac poets, in the perishableness and weari- ness of human life. The dirges of Simonides on the hapless Scopad, and the Aleuad Antiochns, son of Echecratides t, were remarkable ex- amples of this style ; and doubtless the celebrated lament of Danae was part of a threne. Enclosed with her infant Perseus in a chest, and exposed to the raging of the storm, she extols the happiness of the un- conscious sleeping babe, in expressions full of the charm of maternal tenderness and devotion J. § 12. Simonides did not, like Pindar, in the overflowing riches of his genius, touch briefly on thoughts and feelings; he wrought out every thing in detail with care and finish § ; his verses are like a diamond which throws a sparkling light from each of its many polished faces. If we analyze a passage, like the fragment from the eulogy on the heroes of Thermopylae, we are struck with the skill and grace with which the hand of the master plays with a single thought ; the glory of a great action before which all sorrow disappears ; and the various lights under which he presents it. ''Those who fell at Thermopylae have an illustrious fate, a noble des- tiny : their tomb is an altar, their dirge a song of triumph. And neither eating rust, nor all-subduing time, shall obliterate this epitaph of the brave. Their subterranean chamber has received the glory of Hellas as its inhabitant. Of this, Leonidas, the king of Sparta, bears witness, by the fair and undying renown of virtue which he left behind him ||." Some idea may be formed of this same kind of description naturally leading to a light and agreeable tissue of thoughts ; of this easy graceful style of Simonides, so extremely dissimilar to that of Pindar, from a feeble prosaic translation of another fragment taken from an ode to a conqueror in the Pentathlon, which treats of Orpheus : " Countless birds flew around his head ; fishes sprang out of the dark waters at his beautiful song. Not a breath of wind arose to rustle the leaves of the trees, or to interrupt the honied voice which was Script, ii. 6. p. 420. Reiske. I The sou of the Echecratides, who was mentioned in ch. xiii. § 11. in connexion with Anacreon, and the elder brother of Orestes. J Diouys. Hal. da Verb. Comp. 26. Fr. 7. Gaisford. 50. Schneidewin. § Simonides said that poetry was vocal painting. Plutarch, de Glor. Ath. 3. M Diod. xi II Fr. 16. Gaisf. 9. Schneid.
 * To oiKTi^itrPai fit) [A,iyu.oT6iTu>: u; Til!vla.oo;, aX>.a Tufartxui;. Dion. Hal. Cens. Vet.