Simonides

“ One single mistake would have been fatal, and such is the knowledge which antiquaries now possess of the exact changes of Greek letters in every century that here, too, one single mistake in the outline of the old uncial letters would have betrayed the forger.
When Simonides had finished his masterpiece, he boldly offered it to the highest tribunal, the Royal Berlin Academy. The best chemists of the time examined it microscopically, and could find no flaw. ”

“ When we reflect what would have become of the civilization of the world but for these Greek victories—when we remember that the events which these few couplets record transcend in importance those of any other single period of history—we are almost appalled by the contrast between the brevity of the epigrams and the world-wide vastness of their matter. In reviewing the life of Simonides, after admitting that he was greedy of gain and not adverse to flattery, we are bound to confess that, as a poet, he proved himself adequate to the age of Marathon and Salamis. ”

“ The evening of his days Simonides passed in Syracuse, the ornament of Hi’ero’s court, the recipient of royal favors during his life, and at his death of the highest funeral honors. It was here that the poet, who was somewhat of a philosopher, confessed his inability to answer the question of the Syracusan monarch, “What is God?”
Simonides was remarkably successful in adapting the elegy to funeral songs and epitaphs, and thus embalming Grecian heroism for the contemplation of future ages. He lived in the time of the Persian War, and commemorated its worthies. ”

“ Simonides—so called, not because he was a descendant of the poet Simonides, but (with a long î) because his ancestor was one Simon, a Jew—addressed the librarian half in ancient Greek, half in modern English. He knew both equally well. His manners were most engaging. The librarian was equally polite, and began to examine some of the Greek MSS. “These are of small value,” Simonides said, “they are modern. What century would you assign to them?” The librarian assigned the thirteenth century to them, and Simonides fully agreed. ”

“ Simonides had difficulty in dragging himself onward. Fortunately the distance was not great; in ancient times the houses were small, supplied with numerous corners, it is true, but covering little space. Supported by Lycon’s arm, Simonides walked through the short colonnade outside of the men’s rooms; in the little peristyle of the women’s apartment, where he was forced to stop a moment to rest, no human being appeared and the small chambers occupied by the slaves,—half a score of dungeon-like cells,—all stood empty. The same state of affairs existed in the women’s work-room. ”

“ Yet he was popular, for he knew every one of the citizens by name, and gave impartial judgment in all cases referred to him as arbitrator. Once, when Simonides of Keos asked him to strain a point in his favour, Themistokles, who was a general at the time, answered that Simonides would be a bad poet if he sang out of tune; and he would be a bad magistrate if he favoured men against the law. At another time he rallied Simonides on his folly in abusing the Corinthians, who inhabited so fine a city, and in having his own statue carved, though he was so ugly. ”

“ Simonides exercised his calling of chorus-teacher at Carthæa in Ceos, and lived at the χορηγεῖον, or resort of the chorus, near the temple of Apollo. But the greater portion of his life, after he had attained celebrity, was passed with patrons—with Hipparchus, who invited him to Athens, where he dwelt at amity with Anacreon, and at enmity with Pindar's master, Lasos; with the Scopads and Aleuads of Thessaly, for whom he composed the most touching threnoi and the most brilliant panegyrics, of which fragments have descended [Pg 329] to us ”

“ The young man’s blood rose over his cheeks and forehead, and he said earnestly, ’Who but a Herod can be king while Rome endures?’"
"Meaning what?"
"That the empire must be destroyed before there could be another rule."
Simonides gazed for a time at the ships and their shadows slowly swinging together in the river; when he looked up, it was to end the interview.
"Enough, Malluch," he said. "Get you to eat, and make ready to return to the Orchard of Palms; you must help the young man in his coming trial. Come to me in the morning. ”

“ Smart Fable XXI.
THE SHIPWRECK OF SIMONIDES.
A learned man has always a fund of riches in himself.
Simonides, who wrote such excellent lyric poems, the more easily to support his poverty, began to make a tour of the celebrated cities of Asia, singing the praises of victors for such reward as he might receive. After he had become enriched by this kind of gain, he resolved to return to his 423 native land by sea; (for he was born, it is said, in the island of CeosIV.32) . Accordingly he embarked in a ship, which a dreadful tempest, together with its own rottenness, caused to founder at sea. ”

“ Simonides did as he was told, and, with an injured expression, walked away. Next day he wrote a Greek letter to the librarian, bitterly complaining about the Apage, and offering some more MSS. for his inspection. But all was in vain; too much had been discovered about him in the meantime. He was certainly a most extraordinary man—a scholar who, if he had applied his ingenuity to editing instead of forging Greek MSS., might have held a very high position. His greatest achievement was, of course, the newly discovered Greek text of the history of ancient Egypt by Uranios. ”

“ For a time Simonides gaze swam among his swimming ships, though they had no place in his mind.
"Well, thou art a good child, Esther, of genuine Jewish shrewdness, and of years and strength to hear a sorrowful tale. Wherefore give me heed, and I will tell you of myself, and of thy mother, and of many things pertaining to the past not in thy knowledge or thy dreams—things withheld from the persecuting Romans for a hope’s sake, and from thee that thy nature should grow towards the Lord straight as the reed to the sun.... I was born in a tomb in the valley of Hinnom, on the south side of Zion. ”

“ He was well liked by the common people, would salute every particular citizen by his own name, and always showed himself a just judge in questions of business between private men; he said to Simonides, the poet of Ceos, who desired something of him when he was commander of the army that was no reasonable, "Simonides, you would be no good poet if you wrote false measure, nor should I be a good magistrate if for favor I made false law." ”

“ Simonides answered,
“The great sums you have given to the Church here in Antioch, I am witness to. Now, instantly almost with this gift of the generous sheik’s, comes the news of the persecution of the brethren in Rome. It is the opening of a new field. The light must not go out in the capital.” ”

“ Now, for the first time, poets began to sell their songs of praise for money. Simonides introduced the practice, which had something shocking in it to Greek taste, and which Plato especially censures as sophistic and illiberal in his Protagoras. Now, too, poets became the friends and counsellors of princes, mixing freely in the politics of Samos, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Thessaly; aiding the tyrants Polycrates, Hiero, Theron, the Scopads, with their advice. ”

“ Sometimes he is cynical, sometimes practical and acute, but he is never very poetical or interesting. The Elegiacs of Simonides, whose lyrics have been already noticed, are mostly epitaphs on those fallen in the war, or on men with whom he had some special tie of interest. ”

“ Simonides, it is related, upon landing in a strange Country, found the Corse of an unknown person, lying by the Sea-side; he buried it, and was honoured throughout Greece for the piety of that Act. Another ancient Philosopher, chancing to fix his eyes upon a dead Body, regarded the same with slight, if not with contempt; saying, "see the Shell of the flown Bird!" But it is not to be supposed that the moral and tender-hearted Simonides was incapable of the lofty movements of thought, to which that other Sage gave way at the moment while his soul was intent only upon the indestructible being ”

“ If one examines the types of women that Simonides describes, and the objections that he urges against them, and compares these with the types one encounters in Juvenal, for instance, a noteworthy fact at once becomes apparent. The faults which Simonides blames, as well as the virtues he somewhat grudgingly commends, are simply those which concern woman as a housekeeper ”

“ Not only in the popular poetry, but in the public manners as well, was manifested that refined grace and equanimity between excessive freedom and coarse formality, which was embodied in sculpture as its highest form. The second desire of Simonides, was, that he might possess a handsome figure, and the gymnastic exercises customary in the healthful serenity of his native land, did much to realize the wish. The most eminent men in their youth, sought renown in the development of natural qualities, and thereby laid a substantial basis for the magnificence of acquired accomplishments. ”

“ I have seen him," Simonides replied, ing, after a pause during which he thoughtfully watched the haughty pontiff, "And now am I convinced. With such assurance as proceeds from clear enlightenment of the spirit—with absolute assurance—now know I that he who first goes yonder with the inscription about his neck is what the inscription proclaims him—King of the Jews. ”

“ You know that a man who has lived for years as a free citizen cannot become a bondsman.”
“Well, by Hera!” exclaimed Simonides laughing, “you are a strange mortal. Yesterday you were all humility, and to-day you dictate what I am to do. Yet I like Lycon better to-day than yesterday! Take one of my slaves with you, look about the city and return at dinner time; by that time I shall have considered what will serve you best.”
VIII.
Accompanied by the gigantic Conops, who had volunteered his services, Lycon went to the market. ”

“ In one given in this selection, [12] a great poet has bent to this light and trivial style. The high note of Simonides is as clear and certain here as in his lines on the Spartans at Thermopylae or in the cry of grief over the young man dead in the snow-clogged surf of the Saronic sea. With such exceptions, the only touch of poetry is where a graver note underlies their light insolence. "Drink with me," runs the Greek song, "be young with me; love with me, wear garlands with me ”

“ The life of Simonides was a long one, reaching from 556 to 469 B.C. "Coming forward at a time," says MAHAFFY, "when the tyrants had made poetry a matter of culture, and dissociated it from politics, we find him a professional artist, free from all party struggles, alike welcome at the courts of tyrants and among the citizens of free states ”

“ Simonides being asked which was most estimable, riches or learning, replied that he was puzzled to give an answer, because he frequently saw the learned running to pay their court to the rich and powerful, but that he never remarked the same attention of [Pg 282] the rich to the learned; so that if in those ancient times the learned paid homage to the rich, what must the vulgar have done? Hope and fear, are the two main springs, which give motion to the human heart, but disinterested love, operates in very few individuals. ”

“ Some scorn their own father and mother, deny brothers and sisters, with the rest of their kindred and friends, and will not suffer them to come near them, when they are in their pomp, accounting it a scandal to their greatness to have such beggarly beginnings. Simon in Lucian, having now got a little wealth, changed his name from Simon to Simonides, for that there were so many beggars of his kin, and set the house on fire where he was born, because no body should point at it. ”

“ The spirit of this invective is derived in a great measure from Hesiod, whose myth of Pandora marked his estimate of women, and whose precepts concerning the choice of a wife must have depressed the Bœotian bachelors with the certainty that nine women out of ten would prove a curse. This is precisely the proportion of bad to good that Simonides establishes. His tenth and virtuous wife is praised because she is industrious and quiet, and the mother of many children. We here get the primitive ideal of the helpmeet for man. Modern theorists would condemn it as the model of a slave. ”

“ I give first thanks to the Lord, who has not abandoned me, and my next to thee, O Simonides. Thy faithfulness outweighs the cruelty of others, and redeems our human nature. ‘There is nothing I cannot do:’ be it so. Shall any man in this my hour of such mighty privilege be more generous than I? Serve me as a witness now, Sheik Ilderim. Hear thou my words as I shall speak them—hear and remember. And thou, Esther, good angel of this good man! ”

“ Guided by no supernatural revelation, with no Mosaic law for conduct, they trusted their αἴσθησις, delicately trained and preserved in a condition of the utmost purity. This tact is the ultimate criterion in all matters of art—a truth which we recognize in our use of the word æsthetic, though we too often attempt to import the alien elements of metaphysical dogmatism and moral prejudice into the sphere of beauty. This tact was also for the Greeks the ultimate criterion of ethics. Ὑγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνατῷ, says Simonides. ”