Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/98

76 76 HISTORY OF THE by means of his power of divination, succeeded in discovering the thief; so that the two sons of Zeus form at the end the closest intimacy, after an interchange of their respective gifts. This story is narrated in a light and pointed style, the poet seems to aim at rapid transitions, and especially at the beginning he indicates the marvellous exploits of Hermes in an enig- matic manner ; thus he says that " Hermes, by finding a tortoise, had gained unspeakable wealth : he had in truth known how to make the tortoise musical.*" This style is evidently far removed from the genuine Homeric tone ; although some instances of this arch simplicity occur both in the Iliad and Odyssey, and the story of the loves of Ares and Aphrodite, in the Odyssey, appears to belong to nearly the same class of compositions as this hymn. But a considerably later age is indicated by the circumstance that the lyre or the cithara — for the poet treats these two instruments as identical, though distinguished in more precise language — is described as having been at the very first provided with seven strings f; yet the words of Terpander are still extant in which he boasts of having introduced the seven-stringed cithara in the place of the four-stringed. Hence it is plain that this poem could not have been composed till some time after the 30th Olympiad, perhaps even by a poet of the Lesbian school, winch had at that time spread to Peloponnesus§. § 6. The hymn to Aphrodite relates how this goddess (who sub- jects all the gods to her power, three only excepted) is, according to the will of Zeus himself, vanquished by love for Anchises of Troy, and meets him in the form of a Phrygian princess by the herds on Mount Ida. At her departure she appears to him in divine majesty, and an- nounces to him the birth of a son, named iEneas, who will come to reign himself, and after him his family, over the Trojans ||. It is an obvious conjecture that this hymn (the tone and expression of which have much of the genuine Homer) was sung in honour of princes of the family of .Eneas, in some town of the range of Ida, where the same line continued to reign even until the Peloponnesian war. § 7. The hymn to Demeteh is chiefly intended to celebrate the sojourning of this goddess among the Eleusinians. Demeter is seeking for her daughter, who has been carried away by Hades, until she learns from the god of the sun that the god of the infernal regions is the ravisher. She then dwells among the Eleusinians, who have hospitably received her, as the old attendant of Demophoon, until her divinity becomes evident ; upon which the Eleusinians build her a temple. In this she conceals herself as a wrathful deity, and withholds her gifts from § We know that the Lesbian lyric poet Alcseus treated the mythus of the birth of Hermes and the robbery of the cattle in a very similar manner, but of course in a lyric form. — See below, Chap. xiii. § 25. j| Hymn iv. 196, seq. Compare Iliad., xx. 307.
 * Hymn iii. v. 24, 25, &c. f v. 51.
 * Euclides Introduct. Harmon, in Meibomius, Script. Mus. p. 19.