This tender and regretful strain is repeated by Mimnermus with a monotonous, almost pathetic persistency, as if the one thought of inevitable age oppressed him like a nightmare day and night. His delight in the goodliness of youth and manhood is so acute, and his enjoyment of existence is so exquisite, that he shrinks with loathing from the doom imposed on all things mortal to decline and wither. "May I complete my life without disease or cares, and may death strike me at my sixtieth year!" Such is the prayer he utters, feeling, probably, that up to sixty the senses may still afford him some enjoyment, and that, after they are blunted, there is nothing left for man worth living for. In all this, Mimnermus was true to one type of the Greek character. I shall have occasion farther on to revert to this subject, and to dwell again upon the fascination which the flower of youth possessed for the Greeks, and the horror with which the ugliness of age inspired them.[53] That some escaped this kind of despair, which to us appears unmanly, may be gathered from the beautiful discourse upon old age with which the _Republic_ of Plato opens. Mimnermus, however, belonged to a class of men different from Cephalus: nowhere in the whole range of literature can be found a more perfect specimen of unmitigated _ennui_.[54] In his verse we trace the prostrate tone of the Oriental, combined with Greek delicacy of intellect and artistic expression. The following passage may be cited as at once illustrative of his peculiar lamentation, and also of his poetical merits: What's life or pleasure wanting Aphrodite? When to the gold-haired goddess cold am I, When love and love's soft gifts no more delight me, Nor stolen dalliance, then I fain would die! Ah! fair and lovely bloom the flowers of youth; On men and maids they beautifully smile: But soon comes doleful eld, who, void of ruth, Indifferently afflicts the fair and vile: Then cares wear out the heart; old eyes forlorn Scarce reck the very sunshine to behold-- Unloved by youths, of every maid the scorn-- So hard a lot God lays upon the old.[55] We are not surprised to hear that the fragments of Mimnermus belonged to a series of elegies addressed to a flute-player called Nanno.[56] They are worthy of such a subject. Nanno, according to one account, did not return the passion of the poet. In Mimnermus, however luxurious he may have been, we yet observe a vein of meditation upon life and destiny which prepares us for the more distinctly gnomic poets. Considered in the light of Greek philosophy, Mimnermus anticipates the ethical teaching of the Hedonists and Epicureans. In other words, he represents a genuine view of life adopted by the Greeks. Horace refers to him as an authority in these well-known lines: Si, Mimnermus uti censet, sine amore jocisque Nil est jucundum, vivas in amore jocisque;[57]