Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/258

 240 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. Little need be said of the iambic trimeters and trochaic tetrameters, so well adapted to narrative which was not of epic size and dignity ; adapted also to personal attack and satire. These metres were not suited to pure song, and in a lyric time could hardly hold their own. Yet Archilochus expresses himself as a true Greek in them and bids his soul consider the rhythmic beat of destiny : " Soul, soul ! stricken with overwhelming troubles, bear up ! and cast back the opposing evil, breast to foe ! and neither, conquer- ing, foolishly exult, nor, conquered, wail and cry. But in joys delight, and in evils grieve — not over- much ; so learn what rhythm holds men." ^ The verses of Sappho give voice to the Greek passion for beauty, beauty the vision j they are poems of the passion with which beauty fires the senses. The intensity of these molten verses has never been surpassed. Yet the emotion is utterly Greek in its expression — limpid, definite, complete, perfect in form, free from vagueness and mysticism. It is controlled and modulated in the exquisite metre through which it is vocalized; nothing unmeasurable is suggested. Eeading the two odes which are entire, one is struck with the definiteness of statement as to the cause and nature of the emotion, and the finiteness of the emo- tion itself. ^ 0VIX.4, Ovfi.' aiitixavoiari Ki^SeaKeo}i • Koi firire vikmv afi(^a5i)v dyaXAeo, (ui)jTe viKifBeXi ev oi>c Karaneaiav 6£vpeo • dXAa x'H*'^'*^*'^^*'  X'^^P^ ""^^ kokoIctlv dtrxdAa li.il Aii}V yiyvuffKt S' otof pvo-/ibs avOputirov^ exei. — Archilochus, Fr. 6G.