ON ALEXANDER OF MACEDON (Jacobs II. 89, xxxv.).
Translated by Dr. Croly.

Troy fell with Hector, and no champion's spear,
From that o'erwhelming hour, taught Greece to fear.
With Alexander perished Pella's name;

Thus one great mind is life and power and fame.

Homer makes Achilles thus exult at Hector's death (Iliad, Book XXII. 475, Pope's Translation):

Since now at length the powerful will of heav'n
The dire destroyer to our arm has giv'n,

Is not Troy fallen already? Haste, ye pow'rs!
See, if already their deserted tow'rs

Are left unmann'd; or if they yet retain

The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain?

So, of Napoleon's destruction at Waterloo, Sir Walter Scott says ("The Field of Waterloo"):

On the dread die thou now hast thrown,

Hangs not a single field alone,

Nor one campaign-thy martial fame,

Thy empire, dynasty, and name,

Have felt the final stroke.

ANTIPATER OF THESSALONICA.
Flourished A.D. 50.

THE DYING FATHER TO HIS DAUGHTER (Jacobs II. 107, xlvi.)
Translated by C.

Antigenes of Gela, when oppress'd

By death's cold hand, his daughter thus address'd:
My own, my sweet-faced child! thy distaff's aid
Will earn, for humble life, enough of bread :
And, for thy dower, if led to Hymen's shrine,
Be thy Greek mother's saintly manners thine.

LEONIDAS OF ALEXANDRIA.

Flourished A.D. 60.

UPON VENUS PUTTING ON THE ARMS OF MARS
(Jacobs II. 179, xxiv.).

Translated by Crashaw.

What? Mars his sword? fair Cytherea say,
Why art thou arm'd so desp'rately to-day?
Mars thou hast beaten naked, and, oh then,
What need'st thou put on arms against poor men?

This translation, by a poet of the 17th century, is more concise than elegant, but it is interesting as a link in the chain of evidence which may be adduced, to show the esteem in which the Greek epigrams have been held in every age by scholars and poets.

There is another epigram in the Anthology, by an unknown author, which has also been translated by Crashaw (Jacobs IV. 168, ccxlix.). Pallas saw Venus arm'd, and straight she cried, "Come if thou dar'st, thus, thus let us be tried." "Why fool!" says Venus, "thus provok'st thou me, That being naked, thou know'st could conquer thee?"

Beattie has an Ode, addressed "To Lady Charlotte Gordon; dressed in a Tartan Scotch Bonnet with Plumes, &c.," the last stanza of which may be compared with these Greek epigrams:

The plumy helmet and the martial mien,
Might dignify Minerva's awful charms;
But more resistless far th' Idalian queen-
Smiles, graces, gentleness, her only arms.

THE MOTHER AND CHILD (Jacobs II. 180, xxix.).
Translated by C.

Lysippe's infant near'd the steep cliff's brow,
And instant would have past to depths below;
But the fond, love-taught mother bared her breast,
And back he sprung to that safe home of rest.

This beautiful epigram has been paraphrased in such graceful numbers by Rogers, that his rendering, though wide of the original, cannot be omitted:

While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.

Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there.

PHILIPPUS OF THESSALONICA.

Flourished about A.D. 60. He is usually styled "the second collector," as he carried on the work, which had been commenced by Meleager, of gathering together the fragments of Grecian poetry, and combining them in one collection.

XERXES AND THE DEAD LEONIDAS (Jacobs II. 212, lx.).

Translated by C.

When Xerxes saw proud Sparta's chieftain dead,
Who then for Greece self-sacrific'd had bled,

He o'er the corse his purple mantle spread.

When from the hollow earth a voice was heard,

"I scorn thy gift, a traitor's gift abhorr'd!

My shield's my burial-place: Down! Persia's pride:
I pass to Hades; but, as Spartan, died."

When Alexander saw the body of the unfortunate Darius Codomanus, he wept, and taking off his military cloak threw it over the corpse, but no voice was heard to scorn the gift, for Darius, sensible that his royal enemy was more noble than his own faithless followers, had just before his death delivered a message for Alexander full of sentiments of admiration. (Rollin's "Ancient History.")

ON A BRIDE WHO DIED ON HER MARRIAGE-DAY
(Jacobs II. 218, lxxix.).

Translated by C.

The hymns were sung upon thy bridal day,
The mellow flutes and pipes did sweetly play;
But Sorrow in her sable garb and state,
Unseen and silent at the banquet sat.

O'er the pale brow of the yet virgin-bride

Dim shadows pass'd; she bow'd her head, and died.
Oh Death! stern ravisher! who could'st dispel
The dawning joys of those who lov'd so well!

This subject is a favourite one with the Greek epigrammatists; and as the death of young maidens was considered peculiarly sad, the epitaphs on them are almost invariably couched in language of the most touching tenderness. Sappho, who flourished B. c. 610, gives one of the earliest examples of a monumental inscription on the tomb of a maid (Jacobs I. 50, iii.). The translation is by Fawkes, with slight alteration:

The much-lov'd Timas sleeps in this dark tomb,
By death insatiate ravish'd in her bloom;
Ere yet a bride, the beauteous maid was led
To dreary coasts, and Pluto's mournful bed.
Her lov'd companions pay the rites of woe,
And on her urn their sever'd locks bestow.

Erinna, whose date is the same as Sappho's, has an epitaph on a bride, in which the following lines occur (Jacobs I. 51, iii.), translated by Merivale :

The very torch that laughing Hymen bore

To light the virgin to the bridegroom's door,

With that same torch the bridegroom lights the fire

That dimly glimmers on her funeral pyre.

Meleager, too, has a fine epigram on the same subject (Jacobs I. 38, cxxv.); and Herrick, with the Greek originals as his guides, has produced one of much beauty:

That morne which saw me made a bride,

The ev'ning witnest that I dy'd.

Those holy lights wherewith they guide
Unto the bed the bashfull bride,

Serv'd but as tapers, for to burne,
And light my reliques to their urne.
This Epitaph, which here you see,
Supply'd the Epithalamie.

Shakespeare expresses the same ideas in "Romeo and Juliet " (Act IV. sc. 5), when Capulet, in answer to the friar's question, “Is the bride ready to go to church?" says:

The terrible idea, that Death carries off the young and beautiful for the purpose of marriage, seems in ancient times to have been peculiar to the Greeks. It occurs in the above epigram by Philippus; in that by Meleager (though not expressed in Herrick's imitation); and in the one by Sappho.

Among the Latins it is not found, unless it may be thought Tibullus alludes to it in the following line (Book I. iii. 65):

Illic est, cuicumque rapax mors venit amanti.

And Ovid, in an elegy on the death of Tibullus (Amor III. ix. 19): Scilicet omne sacrum mors importuna profanat;

Omnibus obscuras injicit illa manus.

It is found, however, where it might be least expected, in a religious poem by Balde, a German Jesuit, born in 1603, who, speaking of the death of the young Queen Leopoldina, says (Trench's "Sacred Latin Poetry"):

Ubi cervix et manus eburna?
Heu funebri jacent in urnâ!
Atra nives imminuit sors

Colla pressit tam candida mors.

And again, we find it in an English writer, Henry Chettle, who, in "England's Mourning Garment," 1603, writes of the death of Queen Elizabeth in strains as though she were young, which she was not, and beautiful, which she thought herself to be:

Nor doth the silver-tongued Mélicert

Drop from his honied muse one sable tear
To mourn her death that graced his desert,
And to his lays open'd her royal ear.

Shepherd, remember our Elizabeth,

And sing her rape, done by that Tarquin, Death.

EMILIANUS.

Nothing is known of this author's history.

He is supposed to have

flourished in the first century after Christ.

THE DEAD MOTHER AND HER INFANT (Jacobs II. 251, i.).

Translated by C.

Take, take, poor babe! the last warm stream that now,
Pierc'd by their swords, thy mother can bestow;
Ah! still she gives, unconscious though she be,
From her dead breast, the source of life to thee.