verse-maker rather than an original poet. Affectation and studied ornament mar his compositions, and make them labored and unnatural. Still, some of his pieces exhibit tenderness, pathos, and poetic beauty. With the exception of "Megara, the Wife of Hercules," the poems of Moschus are written in Doric. They have been translated into every language of modern Europe.

THE LAMENT FOR BION.

YE mountain valleys, pitifully groan!

Rivers and Dorian springs, for Bion weep!

Ye plants, drop tears! ye groves, lamenting moan!
Exhale your life, wan flowers; your blushes deep
In grief, anemonies and roses, steep!

In softest murmurs, hyacinth! prolong

The sad, sad woe thy lettered petals keep ;*
Our minstrel sings no more his friends among—
Sicilian Muses! now begin the doleful song.

Ye nightingales, that 'mid thick leaves let loose
The gushing gurgle of your sorrow, tell
The fountains of Sicilian Arethuse

That Bion is no more-with Bion fell
The song, the music of the Dorian shell.

Ye swans of Strymon, now your banks along

Your plaintive throats with melting dirges swell For him who sang like you the mournful song: Discourse of Bion's death the Thracian nymphs among;

The Dorian Orpheus, tell them all, is dead.

His herds the song and darling herdsman miss,
And oaks, beneath whose shade he propped his head:
Oblivion's ditty now he sings for Dis [Pluto]:
The melancholy mountain silent is;

His pining cows no longer wish to feed,

But mourn for him: Apollo wept, I wis,

For thee, sweet Bion, and in mourning weed

The brotherhood of Fauns, and all the satyr breed.

*The Greeks fancied they could discern on the hyacinth the letters AI, an exclamation of woe.

The tears by Naiads shed are brimful bourns ;
Afflicted Pan thy stifled music rues ;

Lorn Echo 'mid her rocks thy silence mourns,
Nor with mimic tones thy voice renews;

The flowers their bloom, the trees their fruitage lose;
No more their milk the drooping ewes supply;
The bees to press their honey now refuse;
What need to gather it and lay it by,

When thy own honey-lip, my Bion! thine is dry?

Me with thy minstrel skill as proper heir,

Others thou didst endow with thine estate.
Alas! alas! when in a garden fair

Mallows, crisp dill, or parsley yields to fate,
These with another year regerminate;
But when of mortal life the bloom and crown,

The wise, the good, the valiant, and the great
Succumb to death, in hollow earth shut down
We sleep-forever sleep-forever lie unknown.

Thus art thou pent, while frogs may croak at will;
I envy not their croak. Thee poison slew-
How kept it in thy mouth its nature ill?

If thou didst speak, what cruel wretch could brew The draught? He did, of course, thy song eschew. But justice all o'ertakes. My tears fast flow

For thee, my friend! Could I, like Orpheus true, Odysseus, or Alcides, pass below

To gloomy Tartarus, how quickly would I go,

To see and haply hear thee sing for Dis!
But in the Nymph's ear warble evermore,
My dearest friend! thy sweetest harmonies:
For whilom, on her own Etnæan shore,
She sang wild snatches of the Dorian lore.
Nor will thy singing unrewarded be;

Thee to thy mountain haunts she will restore,

As she gave Orpheus his Eurydice.

Could I charm Dis with songs, I too would sing for thee.

CALLIMACHUS.

CALLIMACHUS may be regarded as the archetype of Greek scholars, grammarian poets, and men of letters of the Alexandrian period in the third century before Christ. A native of Cyrene in Libya, he traced his ancestry to Battus, the founder of that city. He set out in life as a schoolmaster in Eleusis, near Alexandria, but soon won consideration for himself by his writings, and became librarian under Ptolemy Philadelphus. This office he conducted for twenty years with consummate ability and benefit to future generations. He died in 240 B.C. Callimachus was distinguished by high talents, vast learning and scholarship, and great literary ambi tion. His diligent study of the earlier Greek classics and mythology incited him to attempt poetical composition. His productions display elegance, brilliancy of expression, and great ingenuity, but the vital spark is not in them. They are all comparatively short with the exception of the "Hecale," which he wrote for the express purpose of showing that he could compose a long poem. Otherwise, he put in practice. his own saying: "A great book is a great evil." Yet altogether he is said to have published eight hundred pieces in prose and verse. His prose has perished, but some hymns, epigrams and elegies remain. The Roman Catullus, although himself a greater poetical genius, adopted Callimachus as his model for taste and style.

THE STORY OF TIRESIAS.

(From his Hymn on "The Bath of Pallas.")

In times of old, Minerva loved

A fair companion with exceeding love

The mother of Tiresias; nor apart

Lived they a moment. Whether she her steeds
Drove to the Thespians old, or musky groves

Of Coronæa, and Curalius' banks,

That smoke with fragrant altars, or approached

To Haliartus, and Boeotia's fields;

Still in the chariot by her side she placed

The nymph Chariclo; nor the prattlings sweet,
Nor dances of the nymphs, to her were sweet,
Unless Chariclo spoke, or led the dance.
Yet for the nymph Chariclo was reserved
A store of tears; for her, the favored nymph,
The pleasing partner of Minerva's hours.
For once, on Helicon, they loosed the clasps
That held their flowing robes, and bathed their limbs
In Hippocrene, that beauteous glided by;

While noonday stillness wrapped the mountain round.
Both laved together; 'twas the time of noon;

And deep the stilly silence of the mount,
When, with his dogs of chase, Tiresias trod

That sacred haunt. The darkening down just bloomed
Upon his cheek. With thirst unutterable

Panting, he sought that fountain's gushing stream,
Unhappy; and involuntary saw

What mortal eyes not blameless may behold.

Minerva, though incensed, thus pitying spoke:
"Who to this luckless spot conducted thee,
O son of Everes? who sightless hence
Must needs depart!" she said, and darkness fell
On the youth's eyes, astonished where he stood:
A shooting anguish all his nerves benumbed,
And consternation chained his murmuring tongue.
Then shrieked the Nymph: "What, Goddess, hast thou done
To this my child? Are these the tender acts
Of Goddesses? Thou hast bereaved of eyes
My son. O miserable child! thy gaze
Has glanced upon the bosom and the shape
Of Pallas; but the sun thou must behold
No more.
O miserable me! O shades
Of Helicon! O mountain, that my steps
Shall ne'er again ascend! for small offence
Monstrous atonement! thou art well repaid
For some few straggling goats and hunted deer

With my son's eyes!" The Nymph then folded close,
With both her arms, her son so dearly loved;

And uttered lamentation, with shrill voice,
And plaintive, like the mother nightingale.

The Goddess felt compassion for the Nymph,
The partner of her soul, and softly said:

"Retract, divinest woman! what thy rage
Erring, has uttered. 'Tis not I that smite
Thy son with blindness. Pallas hath no joy
To rob from youths the lustre of their eyes.
The laws of Saturn thus decree:-Whoe'er
Looks ou a being of immortal race,
Unless the willing God consent, must look
Thus at his peril, and atoning pay
The dreadful penalty. This act of fate,
Divinest woman, may not be recalled.
So spun the Destinies his mortal thread
When thou didst bear him. Son of Everes!
Take then thy portion. But, what hecatombs
Shall Aristæus and Autonoë,

Hereafter, on the smoking altars lay,

So that the youth Actæon, their sad son,

Might be but blind, like thee! for know that youth

Shall join the great Diana in the chase;

Yet, not the chase, nor darts in common thrown,
Shall save him; when his undesigning glance
Discerns the goddess in her loveliness

Amidst the bath. His own unconscious dogs

Shall tear their master, and his mother cull

His scattered bones, wild-wandering through the woods. That mother, Nymph! shall call thee blest, who now Receivest from the mount thy sightless son.

Oh, weep no more, companion! for thy sake

I yet have ample recompense in store
For this thy son. Behold! I bid him rise
A prophet, far o'er every seer renowned
To future ages. He shall read the flights
Of birds, and know whatever on the wing
Hovers auspicious, or ill-omened flies,
Or void of auspice. Many oracles
To the Boeotians shall his tongue reveal;
To Cadmus, and the great Labdacian tribe.
I will endow him with a mighty staff,
To guide his steps aright; and I will give
A lengthened boundary to his mortal life;
And, when he dies, he only, midst the dead,
Shall dwell inspired, and, honored by that king
Who rules the shadowy people of the grave."