



Produced by Andrea Ball & Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org (From images generously made
available by the Internet Archive.)





LOVE, WORSHIP AND DEATH

Some renderings from the Greek Anthology

BY

SIR RENNELL RODD


AUTHOR OF

'BALLADS OF THE FLEET'

'THE VIOLET CROWN,' ETC.



LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

1916




INTRODUCTION


Among the many diverse forms of expression in which the Greek genius has
been revealed to us, that which is preserved in the lyrics of the
anthology most typically reflects the familiar life of men, the thought
and feeling of every day in the lost ancient world. These little flowers
of song reveal, as does no other phase of that great literature, a
personal outlook on life, kindly, direct and simple, the tenderness
which characterised family relations, the reciprocal affection of master
and slave, sympathy with the domestic animals, a generous sense of the
obligations of friendship, a gentle piety and a close intimacy with the
nature gods, of whose presence, malignant or benign, the Greek was ever
sensitively conscious. For these reasons they still make so vivid an
appeal to us after a long silence of many centuries. To myself who have
lived for some years in that enchanted world of Greece, and have sailed
from island to island of its haunted seas, the shores have seemed still
quick with the voices of those gracious presences who gave exquisite
form to their thoughts on life and death, their sense of awe and beauty
and love. There indeed poetry seems the appropriate expression of the
environment, and there even still to-day, more than anywhere else in the
world, the correlation of our life with nature may be felt
instinctively