Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 1 eBook

The Alexandrian grammarians put Alcman at the head of the lyric canon; perhaps partly because they thought him the most ancient, but he was certainly much esteemed in classic times. Aelian says his songs were sung at the first performance of the gymnopaedia at Sparta in 665 B.C., and often afterward.  Much of his poetry was erotic; but he wrote also hymns to the gods, and ethical and philosophic pieces.  His ‘Parthenia,’ which form a distinct division of his writings, were songs sung at public festivals by, and in honor of, the performing chorus of virgins.  The subjects were either religious or erotic.  His proverbial wisdom, and the forms of verse which he often chose, are reputed to have been like Pindar’s.  He said of himself that he sang like the birds,—­that is, was self-taught.

He wrote in the broad Spartan dialect with a mixture of the Aeolic, and in various metres.  One form of hexameter which he invented was called Alcmanic after him.  His poems were comprehended in six books.  The scanty fragments which have survived are included in Bergk’s ’Poetae Lyrici Graeci’ (1878).  The longest was found in 1855 by M. Mariette, in a tomb near the second pyramid.  It is a papyrus fragment of three pages, containing a part of his hymn to the Dioscuri, much mutilated and difficult to decipher.

His descriptive passages are believed to have been his best.  The best known and most admired of his fragments is his beautiful description of night, which has been often imitated and paraphrased.

NIGHT

Over the drowsy earth still night prevails;
Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales,
The rugged cliffs and hollow glens;
The cattle on the hill.  Deep in the sea,
The countless finny race and monster brood
Tranquil repose.  Even the busy bee
Forgets her daily toil.  The silent wood
No more with noisy hum of insect rings;
And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued,
Roost in the glade, and hang their drooping wings.

Translation by Colonel Mure.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

(1832-1888)

[Illustration:  Louisa M. Alcott]

Louisa May Alcott, daughter of Amos Bronson and Abigail (May) Alcott, and the second of the four sisters whom she was afterward to make famous in ‘Little Women,’ was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 29th, 1832, her father’s thirty-third birthday.  On his side, she was descended from good Connecticut stock; and on her mother’s, from the Mays and Quincys of Massachusetts, and from Judge Samuel Sewall, who has left in his diary as graphic a picture of the New England home-life of two hundred years ago, as his granddaughter of the fifth generation did of that of her own time.