Epigram

“ From looking too exclusively at the Latin epigrammatists, who all belonged to a debased period in literature, some persons have been led to speak of the Latin as distinct from the Greek sense of the word "epigram". But in the Greek Anthology the epigrams of contemporary writers have the same quality. The fault was that of the age, not of the language. No good epigram sacrifices its finer poetical qualities to the desire of making a point; and none of the best depend on having a point at all. ”

“ In general I don't see how an epigram, being a pure bolt from the blue, with no introduction or cue, ever gets itself writ. ”

“ Epigram is a sword with one edge; but antithesis is a blade with two. I should at the same time be expressing to some extent the characteristics of these verbal forms. Antithesis defines by differences; epigram emphasizes a single idea. One confesses its artificiality by its balanced structure; the other endeavors to hide it under an appearance of lucky spontaneity. Antithesis is obviously deliberate; epigram must have an air of quickness, as if it were the birth of the moment. The former belonged to the elaborate style of a [Pg 115] more ceremonious age ”

“ The present selection for example includes epigrams found in an anonymous Life of Aeschylus: in the Onamasticon of Julius Pollux, a grammarian of the early part of the third century, who cites from many lost writings for peculiar words or constructions: and from the works of Athenaeus , Diogenes Laërtius, Plutarch, and Suidas mentioned above. The more famous the author of an epigram was, the more likely does it become that his work should be preserved in more than one way. ”

“ II While the epigram is thus somewhat incapable of strict formal definition, for all practical purposes it may be confined in Greek poetry to pieces written in a single metre, the elegiac couplet, the metre appropriated to inscriptions from the earliest recorded period. [1] Traditionally ascribed to the invention of Archilochus or Callinus, this form of verse, like the epic hexameter itself, first meets us full grown. ”

“ Yet on the other hand, whatever creeps close to earth and never lifts its head is, if it be prolonged, wearisome. To stand, to rest, to rise up, to be thrown down, this is what every reader or listener desires, and from this derives the driving necessity for variety, for the mingling of the majestic and slight, excited and calm, high and low. But it may seem that this consideration has little pertinence to the epigram, which is brief and so in less need of variety. ”

“ In fact, Amory did most of the strutting and tried painfully to make every remark an epigram, than which, if one is content with ostensible epigrams, there are many feats harder. ”

“ I write chiefly to avoid idleness, and print to avoid the imputation; and as others do it to live after they are dead, I do it only not to be thought dead whilst I can live. Epigram in general is a quick and short kind of writing, rather a slight than any great force of the spirit, and therefore the more fit for me, who love not to take pains in any thing, and rather affect a little negligence than too great curiosity. ”

“ Domitian had taste, although his talents did not deserve the adulatory commendations of Quintilian; [1142] but he encouraged learned men: and to his encouragement we owe those distinguished contemporary writers who, for one generation, arrested the downward progress of Roman literature.
Epigram. The Greek Epigram was originally, as the word implies, simply an inscription. It was therefore short and concise; its metre elegiac, as especially suited to the periodic structure of the sentiment, and its characteristic qualities, terseness and neatness. ”

“ Instances which deal with literature directly are the noble lines of Alpheus on Homer, the interesting epigram on the authorship of the /Phaedo/, the lovely couplet on the bucolic poets. [2] Some are inscriptions for libraries or collections; [3] others are on particular works of art. Among these last, epigrams on statues or pictures dealing with the power of music are specially notable; the conjunction, in this way, of the three arts seems to have given peculiar pleasure to the refined and eclectic culture of the Graeco-Roman period. ”

“ The epigrams extant in literature which are not in the Anthology are, with a few exceptions, collected in the appendix to the edition of Jacobs, and are reprinted from it in modern texts. They are about four hundred in number, and raise the total number of epigrams in the Anthology to about four thousand five hundred; to these must be added at least a thousand inscriptional epigrams, which increase year by year as new explorations are carried on. It is, of course, but seldom that these last have distinct value as poetry. ”

“ In 1727 in a "critical dissertation prefix'd" to A Collection of Epigrams, the anonymous editor of the work argued that the epigram itself "is a species of Poetry, perhaps, as old as any other whatsoever: it has receiv'd the approbation of almost all ages and nations...." In the book proper, he found room for a number of epigrams which he evidently copied from London window panes. Here is an example:
CLX. To a Lady, on seeing some Verses in Praise of her, on a Pane of Glass. Let others, brittle beauties of a year,
See their frail names, and lovers vows writ here ”

“ The transition from the monumental to the purely literary character of the epigram was favoured by the exhaustion of more lofty forms of poetry, the general increase, from the general diffusion of culture, of accomplished writers and tasteful readers, but, above all, by the changed political circumstances of the times, which induced many who would otherwise have engaged in public affairs to addict themselves to literary pursuits. These causes came into full operation during the Alexandrian era, in which we find every description of epigrammatic composition perfectly developed. ”

“ There is a longer epigram, also by an uncertain author, in the First Book of the Anthologia, the first lines of which differ but slightly. It runs thus:
Ἐλπὶς καὶ σὺ Τύχη, μέγα χαίρετε· τὴν ὁδὸν εὗρον·
Οὐκ ἔτι γὰρ σφετέροις ἐπιτέρπομαι· ἔῤῥετε ἄμφω,
Οὕνεκεν ἐν μερόπεσσι πολυπλανέες μάλα ἐστέ.
κ. τ. λ.
The epigram has been very frequently translated. We have Latin versions by W. Morel, Grotius, and others; and several Italian and French versions. Mr. Merivale has thus rendered it:
"Fortune and Hope farewell! ”

“ Epigenesis, ep-i-jen′e-sis, n. the development of the organism by the growth and differentiation of a single germ—i.e. by the division or segmentation of a fertilised egg-cell.—n. Epigen′esist.—adj. Epigenet′ic. [Gr. epi, upon, genesis, genesis.]
Epiglottis, ep-i-glot′is, n. the cartilage at the root of the tongue that partly closes the aperture of the larynx.—adj. Epiglott′ic. [Gr. epi, upon, glōtta (glōssa) , the tongue.]
Epigram, ep′i-gram, n. any concise and pointed or sarcastic saying: a short poem on one subject ending with an ingenious thought.—adjs. ”

“ These productions, with many others, were designed as a method of inculcating moral precepts and political lessons under a fictitious or romantic garb. The facetious adaptation was a later growth, and first manifests itself in the French and Latin fabliaux in prose or verse edited for us by Méon and Wright.
Next in the scale of antiquity to the Apologue and Riddle we may be warranted in ranking the Epigram; and this, too, like the two others to which I have been referring, was in its inception and early employment satirical rather than burlesque for the [31] most part. ”

“ Once more, the fragments of idyllic poetry which by chance have come down to us incorporated in the Anthology, [14] beautiful as they are, are in no sense epigrams any more than the lyrics ascribed to Anacreon which form an appendix to the Palatine collection, or the quotations from the dramatists, Euripides, Menander, or Diphilus, [15] which have also at one time or another become incorporated with it. ”

“ What is an Epigram? a dwarfish whole,
Its body brevity, and wit its soul. ”

“ There is no more useful motto for a man in quest of solid learning than Grotius' line: "Not to know some things is a large part of wisdom." [7]
The editor added to the epigrams a collection of sententiae since the two forms are quite cognate, the sententia being a kind of shorter epigram, for the principal part of an epigram, the conclusion, usually consists in a sententia. It is true that such collections have come in bad repute, and not wholly unjustly, but the thing itself is worth doing. For what is our aim in reading books except to nourish and fashion judgement? ”

“ This heading requires no comment.
(2) {Anathematika}, dedicatory pieces, consisting of votive prayers and dedications proper.
(3) {Epitumbia}, sepulchral pieces: consisting partly of epitaphs real or imaginary, partly of epigrams on death or on dead persons in a larger scope. Thus it includes the epigram on the Lacedaemonian mother who killed her son for returning alive from an unsuccessful battle; [2] that celebrating the magnificence of the tomb of Semiramis; [3] that questioning the story as to the leap of Empedocles into Etna ”

“ I would be glad to see the most valuable printed by themselves, those which ought not to be seen, burned immediately, and the others that have gone abroad, printed separately like opuscula, or rather be stifled and forgotten. I thought your epitaph was immediately to be engraved, and therefore I made less scruple to give a copy to lord Orrery, who earnestly desired it, but to nobody else; and he tells me, he gave only two which he will recal. I have a short epigram of his upon it, wherein I would correct a line, or two at most, and then I will send it you, with his permission. ”

“ Cf. also Suidas, s.v. {Agathias}.
[22] Anth. Pal. iv. 3.
[23] Schol. on Anth. Pal. iv. 1.
[24] Anth. Pal. vii. 429.
[25] {Konstantinos o Kephalas o makarios kai aeimnestos kai tripothetos anthrepos}.
V When any selection of minor poetry is made, the principle of arrangement is one of the first difficulties. In dealing with the Greek epigram, the matter before us, as has been said already, consists of between five and six thousand pieces, all in the same metre, and varying in length from two to twenty-eight lines, [1] but rarely exceeding twelve. ”

“ Selections from his own poems occupy pages 439–647 of the first volume, divided into three sections, Parerga, Epigrammata and Musae Aulicae. He published a volume of epigrams at Aberdeen in 1632. In these pieces he shows himself at his best. ”

“ In other types the epiblast is several cells deep even before the differentiation of a medullary plate. In the Anura, the nervous layer of the epidermis alone is thickened in the formation of the central nervous system (fig. 72) ; and after the closure of the medullary canal, the epidermic layer fuses for a period with the nervous layer, though on the subsequent formation of the central epithelium of the nervous canal, there can be little doubt that it becomes again distinct. ”

“ The embryo which is developed from them is also quite different, in its internal arrangement and outer configuration, from the complete organism. There is no trace whatever of preformation or in-folding of organs. To-day we can scarcely call epigenesis a theory, because we are convinced it is a fact, and can demonstrate it at any moment with the aid of the microscope. ”

“ The epiblast cells have undergone division to a considerable extent, and in the middle part, especially, are decidedly more columnar than at an earlier stage, and distinctly divided into two rows, the nuclei of which form two more or less distinct layers. ”

“ First of all an account is given of the development of the external epiblast, which is followed by a description of the organs derived from the mesoblast and of the notochord.
External Epiblast.
During stages G to I the epiblast [192] is formed of a single layer of flattened cells; and in this, as in the earlier stages, it deserves to be especially noticed that the epiblast is never more than one cell deep, and is therefore incapable of presenting any differentiation into nervous and epidermic layers. ”

“ Of these Priestley remarks:—“It is not easy to say whether we are most pleased with the simplicity and perspicuity with which the author proposes every hypothesis of his own, or the noble frankness with which he relates his mistakes, when they were corrected by subsequent experiments.”
[35] “The atomic philosophy of Epicurus, in its mere physical contemplation, allows of nothing but matter and space, which are equally infinite and unbounded, which have equally existed from all eternity, and from different combinations of which every visible form is created. ”

“ The epigonion was invented, or at least introduced into Greece, by Epigonus, a Greek musician of Ambracia in Epirus, who was admitted to citizenship at Sicyon as a recognition of his great musical ability and of his having been the first to pluck the strings with his fingers, instead of using the plectrum. [1] The instrument, which Epigonus named after himself, had forty strings. ”

“ Epithalamium, ep-i-tha-lā′mi-um, n. a song or poem in celebration of a marriage.—adj. Epithalam′ic. [Gr. epithalamion—epi, upon, thalamos, a bedchamber, marriage.]
Epithelium, ep-i-thē′li-um, n. the cell-tissue which invests the outer surface of the body and the mucous membranes connected with it, and also the closed cavities of the body.—adj. Epithē′lial.—n. Epitheliō′ma, carcinoma of the skin.—adj. Epitheliom′atous. [Gr.,—epi, upon, thēlē, nipple.]
Epithem, ep′i-them, n. (med.) a soft external application. [Gr. epithema—epi, upon, tithenai, to place.] ”