Livingstone, On the Ancient Greek Literature

Page 18

A few instances of directness will give a better idea of it than many definitions. The epigram quoted a few pages back shows how the Greek writer lets his subject speak instead of expressing his own feelings about it. So does the following epitaph, placed by a father on his son's grave.

Δωδεκετη τον παιδα πατηρ απεθηκε Φιλιππος ενθαδε την πολλην ελπιδα Νικοτελην.[118]

{Dôdeketê ton paida patêr apethêke Philippos enthade tên pollên elpida Nikotelên.}

[118] Callimachus, Epigr. 20: 'His father Philip laid here to rest his twelve-year old son, his high hope, Nicoteles.'

The bereaved father says nothing of his sorrow, or the greatness of his loss, but records his son's name and age and says that he was his father's 'high hope', and so doing gives us everything. Simonides does not express his own feelings about the heroism of the Spartan dead; their grave speaks for them to the passer-by. Nor is this a mere literary method, a way of writing which states facts and leaves them to make an impression by their own weight, unaided by comment or explanation. A comparison of Ben Jonson's epigram with the Greek epitaph, will show that directness is much more than this. The fancies with which Jonson closes are pretty; but they are false, for they are really incompatible with deep feeling: the Greek directness never loses from sight the dead child; it sees only that and the father's sorrow.

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R. W. Livingstone
On the Ancient Greek Literature

Learned Freeware

R. W. Livingstone On the Ancient Greek Literature

Learned Freeware

R. W. Livingstone
On the Ancient Greek Literature