Author Description

Excerpt from Little Poems From the Greek The first problem which faces a selector from the Anthology is that of arrangement. Should the epigrams be grouped under authors or subjects? The latter course is chosen by the editors of the original Anthology, and is followed, on lines of his own, by Mackail. It is recommended especially by the presence in the Anthology of a large number of anonymous poems which are wholly undatable, so that a complete arrangement in historical sequence however desirable in itself, is impossible; and the anonymous poems are of such high interest and importance that they claim a prominent place. But a grouping under subjects precludes the widerliterary view, and makes it difficult to grasp the personal value of the work of each poet; after all, the named poets are more numerous and more interesting than the anonymous; and it is desirable, if only as an alternative, that the work should, as far as possible, be presented as a whole. Moreover, any grouping under subjects must be to a large extent arbitrary. The Anthology itself has a most important section, the epideictic poems. How are these to be represented? There is no exact equivalent in English for the adjective; it seems to me that we must, if we wish to translate it, come perilously near to Sundries. Mr Mackail abolishes the section; but he again has to be arbitrary. He gives, for instance, four poems on a stock theme, sailing time in spring, all closely following a rigid scheme, and ending alike with a call to the sailor to pay his vow to Priapus before setting out. Of these two are classed under Religion (m. V. X, two under Nature (vi. 26, In my own case the problem is simplified by the fact that I am publishing only a selection of a selec tion; and there is good occasion, therefore, forgrouping these few poems under the authors' names, and arranging them as far as possible in historical sequence. The reader willbe able to form some idea, at least so far as I may have been successf