(Third Century b.c.)
Callimachus, the most learned of poets, was the son of Battus and Mesatme of Cyrene, and a disciple of Hermocrates, who like his more celebrated pupil was a grammarian, or a follower of belles-lettres, says Suidas. It is in this calling that we first hear of Callimachus, when he was a teacher at Alexandria. Here he counted among his pupils Apollonius Rhodius, author of the 'Argonautica,' and Eratosthenes, famous for his wisdom in science, who knew geography and geometry so well that he measured the circumference of the earth. Callimachus was in fact one of those erudite poets and wise men of letters whom the gay Alexandrians who thronged the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus called "The Pleiades." Apollonius Rhodius, Aratus, Theocritus, Lycophron, Nicander, and Homer son of Macro, were the other six. From his circle of clever people, the king, with whom he had become a prime favorite, called him to be chief custodian over the stores of precious books at Alexandria. These libraries, we may recall, were the ones Julius CÆsar partially burned by accident a century later, and Bishop Theophilus and his mob of Christian zealots finished destroying as repositories of paganism some three centuries later still. The collections said to have been destroyed by Caliph Omar when Amru took Alexandria in 640 a.d., on the ground that if they agreed with the Koran they were superfluous and if they contradicted it they were blasphemous, were later ones; but the whole story is discredited by modern scholarship. The world has not ceased mourning for this untold and irreparable loss of the choicest fruits of the human spirit.
Of all these precious manuscripts and parchments, then, Callimachus was made curator about the year b.c. 260. Aulus Gellius computes the time in this wise:—"Four-hundred-ninety years after the founding of Rome, the first Punic war was begun, and not long after, Callimachus, the poet of Cyrene in Alexandria, flourished at the court of King Ptolemy." At this time he must have been already married to the wife of whom Suidas speaks in his 'Lexicon,' a daughter of a Syracusan gentleman.
The number of Callimachus's works, which are reported to have reached eight hundred, testifies to his popularity in the Alexandrian period of Greek literature. It contradicts also the maxim ascribed to him, that "a great book is a great evil." Among the prose works which would have enriched our knowledge of literature and history was his history of Greek literature in one hundred and twenty books, classifying the Greek writers and naming them chronologically. These were the results of his long labors in the libraries. Among them was a book on the Museum and the schools connected with it, with records of illustrious educators and of the books they had written.
It is his poetry that has in the main survived, and yet as Ovid says—calling him Battiades, either from his father's name or from the illustrious founder of his native Cyrene—
"Battiades semper toto cantabitur orbe:
Quamvis ingenio non valet, arte valet."
(Even throughout all lands Battiades's name will be famous;
Though not in genius supreme, yet by his art he excels.)
Quintilian, however, says he was the prince of Greek elegiac poets. Of his elegies we have a few fragments, and also the Latin translation by Catullus of the 'Lock of Berenice.' Berenice, the sister and wife of Ptolemy Euergetes, who succeeded his father Philadelphus in b.c. 245, had sacrificed some of her hair, laying it on the altar of a temple, from which it was subsequently stolen. In his poem, Callimachus as the court poet sang how the gods had taken the tresses and placed them among the stars. The delicate and humorous 'Rape of the Lock' of Alexander Pope is a rather remote repetition of the same fancy.
We have also from Callimachus's hand six hymns to the gods and many epigrams, the latter of which, as will be seen by the quotations given below, are models of their kind. His lyric hymns are, in reality, rather epics in little. They are full of recondite information, overloaded indeed with learning; elegant, nervous, and elaborate, rather than easy-flowing, simple, and warm, like a genuine product of the muse. Many of his epigrams grace the 'Greek Anthology.'
Among the best editions of Callimachus is that of Ernesti (1761). The extant poems and fragments have been in part translated by William Dodd (1755) and H.W. Tytler (1856). His scattered epigrams have incited many to attempt their perfect phrasing.
HYMN TO JUPITER
At Jove's high festival, what song of praise
Shall we his suppliant adorers sing?
To whom may we our pÆans rather raise
Than to himself, the great Eternal King,
Who by his nod subdues each earth-born thing;
Whose mighty laws the gods themselves obey?
But whether Crete first saw the Father spring,
Or on LycÆus's mount he burst on day,
My soul is much in doubt, for both that praise essay.
Some say that thou, O Jove, first saw the morn
On Cretan Ida's sacred mountain-side;
Others that thou in Arcady wert born:
Declare, Almighty Father—which have lied?
Cretans were liars ever: in their pride
Have they built up a sepulchre for thee;
As if the King of Gods and men had died,
And borne the lot of frail mortality.
No! thou hast ever been, and art, and aye shalt be.
Thy mother bore thee on Arcadian ground,
Old Goddess Rhea, on a mountain's height;
With bristling bramble-thickets all around
The hallowed spot was curiously dight;
And now no creature under heaven's light,
From lovely woman down to things that creep,
In need of Ilithyia's holy rite,
May dare approach that consecrated steep,
Whose name of Rhea's birth-bed still Arcadians keep.
Fair was the promise of thy childhood's prime,
Almighty Jove! and fairly wert thou reared:
Swift was thy march to manhood: ere thy time
Thy chin was covered by the manly beard;
Though young in age, yet wert thou so revered
For deeds of prowess prematurely done,
That of thy peers or elders none appeared
To claim his birthright;—heaven was all thine own,
Nor dared fell Envy point her arrows at thy throne.
Poets of old do sometimes lack of truth;
For Saturn's ancient kingdom, as they tell,
Into three parts was split, as if forsooth
There were a doubtful choice 'twixt Heaven and Hell
To one not fairly mad;—we know right well
That lots are cast for more equality;
But these against proportion so rebel
That naught can equal her discrepancy;
If one must lie at all—a lie like truth for me!
No chance gave thee the sovranty of heaven;
But to the deeds thy good right hand had done,
And thine own strength and courage, was it given;
These placed thee first, still keep thee on thy throne.
Thou took'st the goodly eagle for thine own,
Through whom to men thy wonders are declared;
To me and mine propitious be they shown!
Through thee by youth's best flower is heaven shared—
Seamen and warriors heed'st thou not, nor e'en the bard:
These be the lesser gods' divided care—
But kings, great Jove, are thine especial dow'r;
They rule the land and sea; they guide the war—
What is too mighty for a monarch's pow'r?
By Vulcan's aid the stalwart armorers show'r
Their sturdy blows—warriors to Mars belong—
And gentle Dian ever loves to pour
New blessings on her favored hunter throng—
While Phoebus aye directs the true-born poet's song.
But monarchs spring from Jove—nor is there aught
So near approaching Jove's celestial height,
As deeds by heav'n-elected monarchs wrought.
Therefore, O Father, kings are thine of right,
And thou hast set them on a noble height
Above their subject cities; and thine eye
Is ever on them, whether they delight
To rule their people in iniquity,
Or by sound government to raise their name on high.
Thou hast bestowed on all kings wealth and power,
But not in equal measure—this we know,
From knowledge of our own great Governor,
Who stands supreme of kings on earth below.
His morning thoughts his nights in actions show;
His less achievements when designed are done
While others squander years in counsels slow;
Not rarely when the mighty seeds are sown,
Are all their air-built hopes by thee, great Jove, o'erthrown.
All hail, Almighty Jove! who givest to men
All good, and wardest off each evil thing.
Oh, who can hymn thy praise? he hath not been,
Nor shall he be, that poet who may sing
In fitting strain thy praises—Father, King,
All hail! thrice hail! we pray to thee, dispense
Virtue and wealth to us, wealth varying—
For virtue's naught, mere virtue's no defense;
Then send us virtue hand in hand with competence.
Translation of Fitzjames T. Price.
EPITAPH
His little son of twelve years old Philippus here has laid,
Nicoteles, on whom so much his father's hopes were stayed
EPIGRAM
(Admired and Paraphrased by Horace)
The hunter in the mountains every roe
And every hare pursues through frost and snow,
Tracking their footsteps. But if some one say,
"See, here's a beast struck down," he turns away.
Such is my love: I chase the flying game,
And pass with coldness the self-offering dame.
EPITAPH ON HERACLEITUS
They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears I shed.
I wept, as I remembered how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of gray ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.
Translation of William Johnson.
EPITAPH
Would that swift ships had never been; for so
We ne'er had wept for Sopolis: but he
Dead on the waves now drifts; whilst we must go
Past a void tomb, a mere name's mockery.
Translation of J. A. Symonds.
THE MISANTHROPE
Say, honest Timon, now escaped from light,
Which do you most abhor, or that or night?
"Man, I most hate the gloomy shades below,
And that because in them are more of you."
EPITAPH UPON HIMSELF
Callimachus takes up this part of earth,
A man much famed for poesy and mirth.
Translation of William Dodd.
EPITAPH UPON CLEOMBROTUS
Loud cried Cleombrotus, "Farewell, O Sun!"
Ere, leaping from a wall, he joined the dead.
No act death-meriting had th' Ambraciote done,
But Plato's volume on the soul had read.
