Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/228

* SIMON. 184 SIMONIS. 1078 when Simon undertook the publication of a book which he had long had in preparation, the Hisloirc critique dii 'ieux Testumcnt. At the instigation of Bossuet, incited bj' Arnauld, the greater part of the edition was burned. The book is a critical history of the text, transla- tions, and expounders of tlic Old Testament and anticipates nianj' of the conclusions as well as the methods of modern scliolars. Besides his great work, already mentioned, Simon published: Bis- toire critique du texte du Nouveau Testament (1680) ; Histoire critique des versions du Sou- veau Testament (1G90); Histoire critique des principitua; comriientateiirs du Xouveau Testa-- ment (1093), which called forth Bossuet's De- fense dc la tradition ct des saints pcrcs (1753) ; and a French translation of the New Testament (1702). Consult: Bernus, Richard Simon et son histoire- critique du ^'ieux Testament (Lausanne, 1809) : id.. Notice bibliographique sur B. Simon (Basel. 1882). SIMONE DA PESARO, se-mo'na d:i pa'- za-ro. A name sometimes applied to the Italian painter Simone Cantarini ( q.v. ). SIMONIDES, si-mon'i-dez (Lat., from Gk. Si//oW(57)f) (B.C. 556-468). A Greelt lyric poet, born on the island of Ceos. He was a finished literary craftsman in many forms of verse rather than a sublime or greatly original poet. His long life almost bridged the century from Pisistra- tus to Pericles, and in his multifarious and wide- ly dispersed literary activity he represents the transition from the earlier parochial isolation of the Greek cantons to the cosmopolitan culture of the Sophistic enlightenment. His poetic career began with the guidance of Apolline choruses in his native isle. Thence he was called by rich gifts to the Court of Hipparchus at Athens, where he met Anacreon and competed with Lasus of Hermione, the teacher of Pindar. After the assassination of Hipparchus, he attached himself to' the great ruling families of Thessaly, the Sco- padoe and the Aleuadoe. His dirge in memory of Antiochus of Larissa was greatly admired. A strange poem in which he praises or apologizes for Scopas by 'debasing the moral currency' is anal.vzed and interpreted in Plato's Protagoras. He further displayed his detachment of mind by com])osing an epigram for the statue of Harmo- dius in which the assassination of Hipparchus is greeted as 'a great light rising upon Athens.' Returning to Athens, now a democracy, he bore away the prize from .Kschyhis with an elegy on the warriors who fell at Marathon. Two epigrams dating from the year B.C. 476 inform us that he won the prize for the dithyramb in that year, and that no man could vie in powers of memory with Simonides at the age of eighty. A year later we meet him in Sicily in the role of a mediator between Hiero and Theron. The re- mainder of his life was probably spent chiefly at the Court of Hiero. He died about the year 468. Simonides wrote for many clients in a gi-eat variety of form.s — epigrams, hymns, pieans. skolia, epinikia, dithyrambs, hyporchemes (dance songs), threnoi (dirges). Though an Ionian, he used the modified Doric traditional in these forms of the Dorian chloral lyric. To him, perhaps, after the initiative of Ibycus, may be attributed the full development of the encomian and epinl- cian hymn in praise of living men in which the two other representatives of 'universal melic' won chief fame. His main opportunity came with the Persian wars. He understood as no other how to crystal- lize the sentiment of the great national crisis into Uawless gems of epigram, lifting memorials for the glorious dead of Thermopyhe, Salamis, and Plata^a. Nothing is more truly Greek than these epigrams in their simple adequacy, their chaste reserve, their exquisite finish of form. Ruskin with pardonable exaggeration pronoiuices the inscription for those who fell at Therniopylte the most beautiful thing in the world: "Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their laws." The 'tears of Simonides,' the pathos of his dirges, were proer- bial. The English reader may form some notion of it from Slilman's translation of the beautiful lament of Danae exposed to the waves in a chest with her infant Perseus. The vicissitudes of human destiny so amjily exemplified in the century of history which he witnessed evoke from Simonides a noble but somewhat conventional strain of melancholy moralizing. For this 'criticism of life' Matthew Arnold ranks him with .Fsehylus. Pindar, and Sophocles as a prophet of the 'imaginative rea- son.' His style is chaste, polished, and unobtru- sively rhetorical rather than profoundly imagina- tive. The extant remains of his works may be found in Bergk's Lyric Poets or in the A»i- thologia Lyrica of the Teubner texts. SIMONIDES (or SEMONIDES) OF AMOR- GOS. A Greek poet who lived about B.C. 600. He ranked as second, both in time and reputa- tion, of the three principal iambic poets of the early period of Greek literature, namely, Archi- lochus, Simonides, and Hipponax. He was born in Samos, whence he led a colony to the island of Amorgos. His writings are distinguished from those of his contemporary, Archilochus, by the fact that they attacked entire classes rather than single persons, and contained more genera] reflections on the constant characteristics of human nature. Of the extant fragments of his writings the most important is Ile/jl Tvvtu.Kwv, a satire on women, in which he gives a general description of female characters, deriving their various, though generally bad, qualities from the characteristic qualities of the animals from which he represented them to be descended. Con- sult Bergk, Poet a: Lyrici Grwci (Leipzig, 1843; 4th ed. 1882). SIMONIS, se'mo'ne', Eugi>ne (1810-82). A Belgian sculptor, born at Li6ge. Having first frequented the academy there, he continued his studies in Rome (1829-36) under Matthias Kes- sels (1784-1836) and Carlo Finelli, and on his re- turn won reputation with some ideal and genre figures. Appointed professor at the academy of Li&ge, he soon removed to Brussels, where he be- came director of the academy in 1863. Of six works he exhibited in 1838, especial mention should be made of "Charity." adorning the mon- ument of Canon Triest (Cathedral. Brussels), and "Innocence" (Museum, ib.) : but his talent appears fully developed only in his monumental efforts, to wit: the equestrian statue of Godfrey de Bouillon (1848, Place Royale. Brussels), the figures of "Freedom of Public Worship." and of "The Nine Provinces of Belgium." also the "Two Lions" (Colonne du Congrfes, ib.), the statue of