Morris tribune., 1885-10-28
ANCIENT AND MODERN
GREEK.

What is true of all else which the
Athenians shaped their architecture,
their sculpture, their tragedy-is pecu-
liarly true of their language. 1t is the
most delicate, harmonious, artistic
form of expression that ever lived on
the lips of men. When we talk of the
study of Greek, we mean, first and
chiefly, the dialect and literature of
Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries
B. G.
AS long as men escape from the tur-
MOL of the workaday world, and strive
to live the intellectual and contemplate
i've life at all, there will always be some
who will reverence what is noble and
beautiful in the far-away past. AS
Socrates says, 1.-The treasures of the
old, which they have left recorded in
their scrolls, my friends and l unroll
nd con together, culling whatever
good we find, and counting it a great
gain, if thereby we grow dear to one
another" Perhaps it will not matter
so much, after all, if the throng of
callow striplings sent up every year to
the university shall no longer have
made Xenophon's romance of the
March to the Sea a co'pus Vile for pain
full grammatical dissection. 1t will be
just as true as before that an earnest
student of language, or of literature,
must always find in Attic Greek the
very crown and glory, the very heart
and soul, of his desire. The true low
ers of Greek will hardly be fewer or
less earnest. To take a fair parallel
case, there are some to whom the great
Tuscans are the closest of friends. And
how many of those who say to Dante,
'.Tu sci 10 milo maestro il milo autore!'
would wish to hear the Italian tongue
Cor even the Commedia itselfD taught
in every girls boarding-school, after
the same fashion as French is now
treated there? Perhaps those who can
love the grim Tuscan will be sure to
find their way to him; neither he nor
Aischylos is within the reach of school
children.
In the endless array of later writers,
from Aristotle on, there is no longer
anything peculiarly beautiful or noble
in the mere form of expression. The
llfc and color have suddenly faded out
of words. The syntax is growing stiff
and artificial And the reason is not
far to seek. Attic was so strong be-
cause it was alive. Its literary forms
had their roots deep and firm in the
spoken language of the day. We hear
at least the echo of that living dialect
of the Athenian streets in the lighter
Platonic dialogues, in Aristophanes'
iambics, in Xenophon's recollections of
his masters conversations, in pleas like
the first Grafton of Lysias, which is put
into the mouth of simple peasant 1t
could not be an ignoble nor a stagnant
dialect, any more than Elizabethan
English could be; for in it the thoughts
and aspirations of free, enlightened,
ambitious people were hourly striking
out for themselves fresh and fit forms
of expression. 1t was in this same liv-
ing dialect, refined and ennobled but
living still, that even Oidipous and
Antigone appealed straightto the hearts
of all Athens.
But the very greatness of Attic helped
to check all vigorous growth thereafter.
AS the life of Hellas became more and
more ignoble, its dialects inevitably
shared in the general decline. They
were by no means incapable of cultiVa-
ton. as the example of Theokritos suffi-
GENTLY proves. But the writer's chose
instead to ape the Attic masters. In
thus becoming the universal literary
model, Attic became conventional and
artificial; that is, dead! ANY one who
has occasion to read much Greek of,
say, the second century A. d. must
feel that most of it is as artificial, and
not half so clever, as the Attic OF Pro-
lessor Jebb. Even at its best, in Lu-
clan, we have simply laborious, schol-
arly patchwork, made up by studying
ancient authors. Of course Pausanias
the traveller, for example, could read a
whole library of classics now lost; and
besides his avowed quotations, he over
flows with precious material drawn
from them. But his own Greek, as
Greek, is poor, clumsy stuff. He can
not handle it easily enough to make
himself intelligible; not because he is
dull or ignorant, but because he is try
ing to compose in dead language.
There is no need TO continue further
on line of argument which no Phil
helene enjoys following. Even in By
zantine Greek there is a CHASTITY like
ness to Greek. A mummy is horribly
human still. A race that, sinking
lower and lower with the centuries, be-
came the slaves of the Roman, the
Venetian, and at last of the Ottoman,
could not but drag its language down
with it into that utter degradation.
William Cranston LaVtoaa IN September
atlantic.
Ghaen.W sIainrr in GuaSeY