'A Monkey once, far from his race, It is said that in both these fables Lycambes was meant by the fox, and that Archilochus, like Pindar, took the eagle to himself. Yet in the common Æsopian fable, which we now have, the eagle is very clearly the wrong-doer. As to the appropriation of Jacco, we cannot speak. In our Fox and Monkey, although Reynard behaves like a great rogue, yet Monkey behaves like a greater fool; and Archilochus certainly thought himself neither one nor the other. And so we must part with the poet of Paros-the most wise Archilochus-as Plato calls him, after quoting from another of his fragments the earliest notice of a solar eclipse which we remember in classic literature. (Polit. ii. xvi.) It seems to have amazed him as a new phenomenon.- Χρημάτων δ ̓ ἄελπτον οὐδέν ἐστιν— Πολιο Well! now, I swear no wonder's left man need despair to see, Since Jove at noon hath made it night, and sunshine dark to be!' &c. Of Alcman-so the Spartans contracted Alcmæon, the true name of this famous poet who lived and flourished amongst them, but whom, according to Paterculus,* they falsely called their fellow-countryman-of Alcman we can hardly say that we have more than the name and character left; the page or two of single phrases and disjointed lines to be found in our collections being inadequate materials for any judgment whatever of our own on the merits of his poetry. He was esteemed by common consent the father and master of pure love lyrics; and his six books of what were called Parthenia, formed, with the songs of Terpander, the staple poetry of Sparta, and procured him the common title of Txuxus-the Sweet. These Parthenia were odes composed in praise of women, and sung by choruses of virgins; they were very popular amongst the Spartans. We may judge of his combustible disposition by his own words:—Έρως με δ' αὖτι, Κύπριδος ἕκατι, γλυκὺς κατείβων καρδίαν ἰαίνει. Desire again, by Venus willing, ἄψυχος, χαλεπῇσι θεῶν ὀδύνησιν ἕκητι Mollis inertia cur, &c., is from The whole line, πεπαρμένος δι ̓ ὀστέων—ad xxiv. Scribere versiculos || amore perculsum gravi, is from ἀλλά μ' ὁ λυσιμελής, || ὦ ταῖρε, δάμναται πόθος—xxvi. Alemana Lacones falso sibi vindicant, i. c. 18. It is said by some that he was son of a Lydian slave, and born in Sparta; and again, that he was a native of Sardis. Statius notices his peculiar popularity in Laconia: tetricis Alcman cantatus Amyclis. His mistress's name was Megalostrata-a pretty poetess herself, as is said—yet had it not been for a morsel of her lover's verse, which, it may be, she but lightly regarded at the time, neither her beauty nor her books would have saved her from that oblivious fate, to which many a lady-poet has submitted, and to which many a lady-poet must hereafter submit.— τοῦθ ̓ ἁδεῖαν Μουσᾶν ἔδειξε δῶρον μάκαιρα παρθένων The fair-hair'd Megalostrate- We think it is Plutarch who somewhere preserves the saying of Alcman, that Fortune is the daughter of Prudence, and the sister of Order and Persuasion. Stesichorus, a native of Himera in Sicily, was born в.c. 632, and died B.C. 556, about seventy-six years old. Poetry (especially lyric poetry) seems to have been favourable to longevity amongst the old Greeks; Alcman, Stesichorus, Anacreon, Simonides, and Pindar, all lived to extreme old age; and, without citing Homer, we may remark the same of Hesiod, Eschylus, and Sophocles. As far as we know, all these worthies understood good living as well as good poetry, and hence, perhaps, and by not being over studious of books, they were not so liable to be cut off in the flower of youth by a consumption, or an article, as in our degenerate days. It is said that the original name of our poet was Tisias, and that he acquired the more expressive one by which he is known from having first established, and generally arranged, the movements of the chorus, or from having first introduced the episode or stationary union of the two parts or divisions. Whatever may be thought of this, certain it is that the strophe, antistrophe, and epode of the chorus, became so associated with the name of Stesichorus, as inventor, that—οὐδὲ τὰ τρία Στησιχόρου ἔγνωκας— 'thou knowest not even the triad of Stesichorus,' was a proverbial expression in use throughout Greece, towards an extremely ignorant person. The collection of the fragments of Stesichorus is rather more numerous than of those of Alcman, but much too meagre to enable us to form any original opinion of the general quality of his poetry. His brilliant fame we know, and some of the passages remaining sufficiently bear out the character of epic grandeur attributed to his odes by Dionysius and Quinctilian.+ In * *Stesichorus et est, et fuit tota in Græcia summo propter ingenium honore et nomine.-Cic. in Verr., Act. ii. L. ii. 35. + Dion. De vet. Script. cens.; Quinct. Inst. x. 1. 62-Epici carminis onera lyra sustinentem, &c. this path of lyric verse Stesichorus seems, as we mentioned before, to have followed the footsteps of Xanthus ; and it was Quinctilian's opinion, that if he had known how to control the luxuriance of his powers, he would have approached nearer to Homer than any one else had ever done. Alexander did in fact class him with Homer, as the two poets worthy to be read by kings and commanders. His works extended to no less than twenty-six books, and the names of some of them still preserved show that he must have composed several great poems on heroic subjects. Yet it is said that these poems were all properly lyrical, and for this purpose Stesichorus appears, like most of the great poets of that age, to have invented metres of his own. Amongst others, one which became particularly known by his name, was the heptameter; as for example Ταρτησσοῦ ποταμοῦ παρὰ παγὰς ἀπείρονας ἀργυρορίζους from his Geryonis. We hear of no other poet employing this epico-lyric style, and we have great reason to lament that no considerable specimen has reached us. Perhaps we may guess that something of the spirit of such a union may be found in the Kehama and Marmion of modern times; the narrative parts of Pindar are quite different, as we shall hereafter point out. One of the remarkable stories told of Stesichorus is, that in consequence of having dealt rather freely with the character of Helen, in his poem on that heroine, he was struck blind by Venus; and it may be that a few lines of this poem still preserved were amongst those to which Helen's patroness took exception : Οἵνεκα Τυνδάρεως ῥέζων πᾶσι θεοῖσι, μιᾶς Κυπρίδος λάθετ' ἠπιοδώρου, μους τριγάμους τε τίθησι, καὶ λιπισήνορας. For whereas Tyndarus, 'Midst all his rites to all the gods above, Wroth with the daughters for the father's sake, Twice, thrice, their nuptial-bands to break, And each desert her mate.' But although Venus suffered Homer and Milton to end their days in darkness, she had a favour towards our Sicilian poet for many a passionate song he had written and might write, and something, perhaps, for the very name of his native town, for surely Love was worshipped in Himera; and, accordingly, Stesichorus received a suggestion-whether from Olympus, or his own knowledge knowledge of that better heaven, a woman's heart, is uncertainthat if he would appease the spirit of Helen by a sufficient palinodia, he might recover his sight. The sensible man made no difficulty, and we doubt if all the newspapers in London, for the last two years, contain a more satisfactory recantation: Οὐκ ἔστ ̓ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος • There's not a word of truth in what I said;' οὐ γὰρ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν ἐϋσσέλμοις, οὐδ ̓ ἵκει πέργαμα Τροίας. *For in the well-built ships thou didst not leave our clime, Nor e'er in truth arrive the towers of Troy sublime.' And he afterwards accounts for the mistake, by stating that the Trojans, in fact, carried off a mere counterfeit image of Helen :Τρῶες οἳ τοτ ̓ ἴσαν, Ἑλένης εἰδωλον ἔχοντες. 6 : Madam, as I am alive, I took you for Miss!' This anti-Homeric fetch, for the honour of Helen, became common enough afterwards; but we forget whether Jacob Bryant quotes this early deposition of Stesichorus in its behalf. After all, can we much mend fair Helena by taking from her her Paris and her Troy? She is well enough where and what she is, we think: let is remember the 24th Iliad, and leave the heroine alone with all her glory. The very names of the various poems of Stesichorus seem, as we said before, to prove their grave and epic character. Besides the Helen and its Palinodia, we read of the Destruction of Troy, the Eriphyle, Europa, Calyce, Cycnus, Rhadine, Scylla, Suotheræ, Orestea, in which he had borrowed largely from Xanthus ; and an Encomium on Minerva, in which, according to the scholiast on Apollonius,* the first mention was made of the fable of that goddess breaking out of the head of Jupiter. Hence it may be inferred, that the critic did not hold the Homeric hymn to Minerva, genuine; otherwise the very splendid description of this allegoric birth could hardly have been overlooked. τὴν αὐτὸς ἐγείνατο μητίετα Ζεὺς σεμνῆς ἐκ κεφαλῆς—κ. τ. λ. Her, the deep-thoughted Jove, In golden arms all shining, first begot And shook a dreadful dart; the vast heav'n quak'd Groan'd terribly the while ;-the sea was mov'd * Argon. vi. 1310. The The Geryonis was a poem on the story of the expedition of Hercules against the Spanish monster Geryon, who lived in Cadiz; and there is a fragment preserved, in which, perhaps, the earliest mention is made of that ancient mystic legend of the sun's passing over the sea in a golden cup, which cup was lent to Hercules, for his voyage through the Mediterranean, and has given occasion to more learned criticism than any other cup, heathen or Christian, glass, metal, or wood, in the world :— ̓Αέλιος δ' Ὑπεριονίδας δέπας ἐσκατέβαινε χρύσεονκ. τ. λ. Now did the Sun of old Hyperion hight, In golden cup embark, That o'er the ocean sailing, He might by day-light failing, Reach the recesses dark Of sacred Night; Where dwell his mother and his youthful wife, What time into the laurel grove Before we leave Stesichorus, we should mention that he had several daughters, whose talents for music and poetry were considered only inferior to those of their father; that he is reputed the inventor of pastoral lyrics, and the author of the well-known fable of the horse who requested the assistance of man against the stag, repeated by Horace, and now to be found in the common Æsopic collection. He addressed this fable, by way of advice, to the people of Himera, when they were about to solicit the assistance of Phalaris. Ibycus of Rhegium, in Italy, was contemporary with Stesichorus, and may be fitly noticed next to him. He is more known by the circumstances related of his death than by anything now remaining of him. The story is, that he was waylaid by thieves, who murdered him; and that, in dying, he remarked some cranes flying overhead, and said, that perhaps those birds would be the avengers of his death! Afterwards, two of the murderers, being seated in the theatre, one of them saw some cranes, and said jocularly to his fellow, Behold the avengers of Ibycus!' * This was overheard, suspicion was excited, and ultimately the truth was discovered. Hence 'Ißúxov endino, became proverbial of a culprit punished, or felony brought to light. He was almost exclusively an amatory poet, and the warmth of his images, and the vehemence of his expressions were so excessive, that he is called by Suidas parouavioratos-most love-mad of poets; *Eli. V. H., x. 18. and |