PAULUS SILENTIARIUS.

Flourished A.D. 530. He was a Christian-a friend of Agathias, and probably assisted him in his collection of fugitive epigrams. "Silentiarius" was the title of an assessor in the Privy Council at the Byzantine Court, an office which Paulus held.

LOVE NOT EXTINGUISHED BY AGE (Jacobs IV. 43, viii.).
Translated by Bland.

For me thy wrinkles have more charms,
Dear Lydia, than a smoother face!
I'd rather fold thee in my arms

Than younger, fairer nymphs embrace.
To me thy autumn is more sweet,
More precious than their vernal rose,
Their summer warms not with a heat

So potent as thy winter glows.

There is an epigram in the Anthology by an uncertain author, which very prettily expresses the same thought. The translation is by Merivale (Jacobs IV. 130, lxii.):

Whether thy locks in jetty radiance play,

Or golden ringlets o'er thy shoulder stray,

There beauty shines, sweet maid, and should they bear

The snows of age, still love would linger there.

A piece by Thomas Carew, a poet of the reign of Charles I., is very similar in sentiment to the epigram by Paulus. It is entitled, "Unfading Beauty." The first two stanzas are given:

Hee that loves a rosie cheek,

Or a coral lip admires,

Or from star-like eyes doth seeke
Fuell to maintaine his fires.
As old Time makes these decay

So his flames must waste away.

But a smooth and stedfast mind,
Gentle thoughts and calm desires,
Hearts with equal love combined,
Kindle never-dying fires;
Where these are real, I despise
Lovely cheekes, or lips, or eyes.

CUPID AT REST (Jacobs IV. 47, xx.).

Translated in the late Dr. Wellesley's "Anthologia Polyglotta."

Fear no more Love's shafts, for he
Hath all his quiver spent on me.

Fear not his wings; since on this breast
His scornful foot the victor prest,

Here sits he fast, and here must stay,
For he hath shorn his wings away.

Eubulus, a native of Atarna in Lesbos, who flourished B.C. 375, expresses the same thought in an epigram addressed to a painter. The translation is by Cumberland in the "Observer," No. 104:

Why, foolish painter, give those wings to Love?

Love is not light, as my sad heart can prove;
Love hath no wings, or none that I can see;

If he can fly-oh! bid him fly from me!

GARDEN DECORATION (Jacobs IV. 61, lxii.),
Translated by Bland.

Here strive for empire, o'er the happy scene,
The nymphs of fountain, sea, and woodland green;
The power of grace and beauty holds the prize
Suspended even to her votaries,

And finds amazed, where'er she casts her eye,
Their contest forms the matchless harmony.

This is supposed to be descriptive of the gardens of Justinian at Heræum, on the Asiatic shore of the Propontis, of which Gibbon says ("Decline and Fall," ed. 1846, III. 524, chap. 40): "The poets of the age have celebrated the rare alliance of nature and art, the harmony of the nymphs of the groves, the fountains and the waves."

There is a Latin poem by Charles Dryden (son of the great poet) on the gardens of the Earl of Arlington, near the Green Park, where Arlington Street now stands, which has been translated by Samuel Boyse. The following passage bears much resemblance to the epigram of Paulus (Nichols' "Collection of Poems," II. 164, 1780):

Thy beauteous gardens charm the ravish'd sight,
And surfeit every sense with soft delight;
Where'er we turn our still transported eyes,
New scenes of art with nature join'd arise;
We dwell indulgent on the lovely scene,
The lengthen'd vista or the carpet green;
A thousand graces bless th' enchanted ground
And throw promiscuous beauties all around,

UNKNOWN AUTHORS.

CLYTEMNESTRA'S ADDRESS TO HER SON ORESTES, AS HE WAS IN THE ACT OF SLAYING HER TO AVENGE HIS FATHER, WHOM SHE HAD MURDERED (Jacobs IV. 113, xvi.).

Translated by C.

Strike! At my womb? It bore thee. At my breast? It nurtur'd thee in infancy to rest.

When the mother of Coriolanus entreated him to forego his vengeance against Rome, Shakespeare makes her say ("Coriolanus," Act V. sc. 3):

If I cannot persuade thee

Rather to show a noble grace to both parts,

Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner
March to assault thy country, than to tread

(Trust to 't, thou shalt not) on thy mother's womb,
That brought thee to this world.

THE LOVER'S WISH (Jacobs IV. 129, lviii.).
Translated by Shepherd.

Oh that I were the wind! whose gentle gales
Thy vest expand, and cool thy breast of snow:
Oh that I were a rose! which sweets exhales,
That on thy beauteous bosom I might blow.

The 20th Ode of Anacreon, to his Mistress, is in parts very similar. Broome translates a passage thus:

Oh were I made thy folding vest,

That thou might'st clasp me to thy breast.

A very sandal I would be,

To tread on-if trod on by thee.

There are several modern examples of the same idea. The most notable is Dumain's song in "Love's Labour's Lost" (Act IV. sc. 3): On a day (alack the day!)

Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom, passing fair,
Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,

All unseen, 'gan passage find;

That the lover, sick to death,

Wish'd himself the heaven's breath.

Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
Air, would I might triumph so!
But alack, my hand is sworn,

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn.

Spenser has the same thought, but with the figure varied. See his 76th Sonnet. Kirke White has a song which, no doubt, has its origin in the Greek, probably in that of Anacreon. The first two stanzas are given:

Oh that I were the fragrant flower that kisses
My Arabella's breast that heaves on high!
Pleased should I be to taste the transient blisses,
And on the melting throne to faint, and die.
Oh that I were the robe that loosely covers
Her taper limbs, and Grecian form divine!
Or the entwisted zones, like meeting lovers,
That clasp her waist in many an aëry twine.

INSCRIPTION UNDER A STATUE OF PAN
(Jacobs IV. 171, cclix.).
Translated by Shepherd.

The god Pan speaks.

Come, stretch thy limbs beneath these shady trees,
That wave their branches to the western breeze,
Where, by yon limpid stream that gently flows,
My rustic pipe shall soothe thee to repose.

The translator, following Stephens, ascribes this epigram to Her

mocreon.

There are many epigrams in the Anthology of a similar character to this. They refer to one of the customs of the Greeks most pleasant to contemplate their sympathy with way-worn travellers. These shady spots, hallowed by the statue of the wood-god Pan, offered repose to tho weary, who were invited by the god himself to stretch their limbs beneath the trees, and to seek the sleep they needed, soothed by the pipe which he deigned to play for their pleasure. The enthusiastic Greeks felt for their minstrel-god the reverence and the gratitude which is excited in the breast of the Italian or the Swiss, when, in some lonely spot, he finds the image of the holy Virgin, and, worn with toil, casts himself at her feet to seek repose, confident in the protection she will afford him, and the sweet sleep she will send him.

F

THE STATUE OF A BACCHANTE IN THE PORTICO OF A TEMPLE (Jacobs IV. 175, cclxxviii.).

Translated by C.

Stop that Bacchante! see, tho' form'd of stone,
She has gain'd the threshold-Stop her, or she's gone.

Among the fragments of Cratinus, who flourished B.C. 454, there is an epigram on the loss of a statue, which, being the workmanship of Dædalus, the most ingenious artist of his age, was supposed to have escaped from its pedestal. The translation is by Cumberland (“Observer," No. 74):

My statue's gone! By Dædalus 'twas made;

It is not stolen therefore; it has stray'd.

Plato Comicus, who flourished B.C. 428, has a fragment on a statue of Mercury by the same artist, which Cumberland thus translates "Observer," No. 78):

"Hoa there! Who art thou? Answer me. Art dumb?”
"Warm from the hand of Daedalus I come,

My name Mercurius; and, as you may prove,

A statue; but his statues speak and move."

INSCRIPTION ON A BATH AT SMYRNA
(Jacobs IV. 190, cccxliii.).

Translated in the "Poetical Register" for 1802.

The Graces bathing on a day,
Love stole their robes and ran away;
So naked here they since have been,
Ashamed in daylight to be seen.

The beautiful imitation of this epigram by Thomas Warton is well known:

The Graces sought in yonder stream

To cool the fervid day,

When Love's malicious godhead came,

And stole their robes away.

Proud of the theft, the little god
Their robes bade Delia wear;
While they ashamed to stir abroad,
Remain all naked here.