One of the earlier Greek poets was Theognis (B.C. 550) whose Gnomæ or Maxims were a series of verses mostly addressed to his young friend Kurnus, whom by this means he sought to guide and instruct out of the stores of his own riper experience. The verses are reserved and didactic for the most part, but now and then, as in the following passage, show deep underlying feeling:— “Lo, I have given thee wings wherewith to fly Over the boundless ocean and the earth; Yea, on the lips of many shalt thou lie The comrade of their banquet and their mirth. Youths in their loveliness shall make thee sound Upon the silver flute’s melodious breath; And when thou goest darkling underground Down to the lamentable house of death, Oh yet not then from honour shalt thou cease, But wander, an imperishable name, Kurnus, about the seas and shores of Greece, Crossing from isle to isle the barren main. Horses thou shalt not need, but lightly ride Sped by the Muses of the violet crown, And men to come, while earth and sun abide, Who cherish song shall cherish thy renown. Yea, I have given thee wings! and in return Thou givest me the scorn with which I burn.” _Theognis Gnomai_, lines 237-254, _trans. by G. Lowes Dickinson_. [Sidenote: _Sappho_] As Theognis had his well-loved disciples, so had the poetess Sappho (600 B.C.) Her devotion to her girl-friends and companions is indeed proverbial. “What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phædrus were to Socrates, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to the Lesbian.” _Max Tyrius_, _quoted in H. T. Wharton’s Sappho_, p. 23. [Sidenote: _To Lesbia_] Perhaps the few lines of Sappho, translated or paraphrased by Catullus under the title _To Lesbia_, form the most celebrated fragment of her extant work. They may be roughly rendered thus:— “Peer of all the gods unto me appeareth He of men who sitting beside thee heareth Close at hand thy syllabled words sweet spoken, Or loving laughter— That sweet laugh which flutters my heart and bosom. For, at sight of thee, in an instant fail me Voice and speech, and under my skin there courses Swiftly a thin flame; Darkness is on my eyes, in my ears a drumming, Drenched in sweat my frame, my body trembling; Paler ev’n than grass—’tis, I doubt, but little From death divides me.” [Sidenote: _Anacreon to Bathyllus_] Several of the odes of Anacreon (B.C. 520) are addressed to his young friend Bathyllus. The following short one has been preserved to us by Athenæus (bk. xiii. § 17):— “O boy, with virgin-glancing eye, I call thee, but thou dost not hear; Thou know’st not how my soul doth cry For thee, its charioteer.” [Sidenote: _Epigram on Lovers_] Anacreon had not the passion and depth of Sappho, but there is a mark of genuine feeling in some of his poems, as in this simple little epigram:—