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Classical Epigrams and Epitaphs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

The epitaphs and other verse inscriptions which are preserved for us in literature impose on us a certain caution. The good-will which our authors have brought to the reading of monuments is like what we bring to the singing of hymns: when lulled by the authority of the verse-form and of the occasion, we can accept things which the poet cannot have intended. I take as example the ‘green hill far away Without a city wall.’ The poet does not say that the hill is unwalled but that it is outside Jerusalem: yet to understand him to say the former is both easy and common.

The moral is important. What generations of intelligent piety can acquiesce in is one thing: what the poet can have meant is another. We must not, therefore, be shocked to find Herodotos also acquiescing in what the poet never meant him to believe. Recording the Battle of Thermopylai, and concluding with the action in which (he says) only Spartans and Thespians fought, he then names the bravest of the Spartans, and then of the Thespians.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1933

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