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121.

Or the early Greek poets of the names of Orpheus
and Musæus. Of Thamyris and others. Of Hesiod
and the Sybils.

122. Of Homer and his works.

128. Of the originality of Homer's epic, and of his translator
Mr. Pope. A sample of translation in heroic metre.
124. Of Hesiod as compared with Homer. The causes of
his popularity. More particular account of the bards
of the name of Musaus. Of Archilochus, Stesichorus,
Epimenides, Aristeas, Simonides, Alcaus, and others.
125. Fragment of Hermesianax of Colophon, addressed to
his mistress Leontium, describing the amours of the
Greek poets. Of the seven wise men. Of the ca-
lendar of the Greeks and other nations. Of Thales.
A letter from Pherecydes to that philosopher.

126. Of the origin and introduction of the drama. Of
Thespis's pretensions to be considered as the father of
tragedy.

127. Of the nature and character of the first drama.

128. Athenian history resumed, and continued from the
death of Pisistratus to that of Hipparchus.

129. The same continued, to the expulsion of Hippias.
130. Concluded with the battle of Marathon.

131. The subject of the drama resumed. Of the old tragic
poets Pratinas and Phrynichus.

132. Of the poet Eschylus.

133. Of Eschylus as compared with Sophocles and Euripides.
134. Of the tragedies of Eschylus.

135. Of the Greek comedy. Of Aristotle's definition and
chronology of the first comedy. Of Epicharmus, con-
sidered as the first writer of comedy.

136. Fragments of Epicharmus. Account of Phormis, Chioni-

des, Magnes, and Dinolochus, the founders of comedy.
157. Of Cratinus and his comedy in reply to the satire of
Aristophanes. Of Eupolis; his fragments compared
with certain passages in Ben Jonson.

THE

OBSERVER.

NUMBER CXXI.

I Now propose to review the state of literature in Greece antecedent to the time when Pisistratus founded his library in Athens.

Letters, or the alphabet, were probably imported into Greece from Phoenicia: this is ascribed to the poet Linus: this poet, according to the fabulous taste of the times, was of divine origin, being reputed the son of Apollo by Terpsichore, according to other accounts of either Mercury, or Amphimarus, by Urania: if in a pedigree so doubtful we may chuse for ourselves, Mercury, as inventor of the lyre, seems to have a preferable claim to Amphimarus or Apollo, for Linus is said to have been the father of lyric poetry; he is also recorded as the instructor of Hercules in letters, but if the elder Orpheus was also his disciple, he must have been of too early an age to have been contemporary with Hercules, for Orpheus is placed eleven ages before the siege of Troy. Hercules may have been instructed by the Theban Linus, who was considerably

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junior to this of Chalcedon: Linus of Thebes was the son of the poet Eumolpus, and imparted to Greece the knowledge of the globes; he also before the time of Hesiod composed a poem, in which he gives the genealogy of the deities; all we know respecting it is that it differs in some particulars from Hesiod's Theogony: he paid dearly for the honour of being Hercules's preceptor, for that deified hero put Linus to death; though he gave the genealogy of the heathen gods, he is supposed to have taught a sublimer doctrine of the Unity of the Supreme Being.

Of the name of Orpheus grammarians reckon no fewer than five epic poets; their histories are involved in fable, and their distinctions uncertain and obscure. The Thracian Orpheus, who is the elder of the name, is said to have been the disciple of Linus, and to have lived before the Trojan war eleven ages he was a prophet as well as a poet, and instituted many ceremonies in the Pagan theology; he delivered precepts in verse relative to the modes of initiation: the mysterious rites of Ceres and Bacchus are supposed to have originated with him, but as it is pretty clear that these rites were Egyptian, they might be introduced, but not invented, by Orpheus.

The second Orpheus was sirnamed Ciconæus or Arcas, and was also of Thracian extraction; he is said to have flourished two generations before the siege of Troy; he also was an heroic poet and wrote fables and hymns addressed to the deities. Orpheus Odrysius and Orpheus Camarinæus were epic poets, but he, who was sirnamed Crotoniates, was contemporary with Pisistratus, and lived in great favour and familiarity at the Athenian court; he is said to have written the Argonautics; the

6

hymns and the poems de Lapidibus' now in our hands.

The antients, in the true spirit of fable, ascribed miraculous powers to the harmony of Orpheus's lyre, and almost all the Roman poets have echoed his praises in the same fanciful strain. Ovid gives us a list of forest trees that danced to his lyre, as long as a gardener's calendar: (Metam. fab. 2. lib. 10.) Seneca in his Hercules Furens' gives him power over woods, rivers, rocks, wild beasts, and infernal spirits (Herc. Fer. 569.) Horace adds to these the winds, and Manilius places his lyre amongst the constellations, having enumerated all his supernatural properties in the following short but comprehensive and nervous description,

At lyra diductis per cælum cernibus inter

Sidera conspicitur, qua quondam ceperat Orpheus
Omne quod attigerat cantu; manesque per ipsos
Fecit iter, domuitque infernas carmine leges.
Huic similis honos, similisque potentia causa:
Tunc silvas et saxa trahens, nunc sidera ducit,
Et rapit immenfum mundi revolubilis orbem.

MANIL

Of the name of Musæus there were also several poets; the elder, or Athenian Musæus, son of Antiphemus, was the scholar of Orpheus. The poetry of these antient bards was chiefly addressed to the services of religion; their hymns were chaunted as parts of divine worship, and the power of divination was ascribed to them, as the natural tribute of a barbarous multitude to men of superior and enlightened talents: the knowledge of simples, and their use in healing diseases or wounds, was amongst the arts by which these early benefactors to mankind attracted the reverence of the vulgar, and Musæus is said to have composed a poem on the cure

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