Here we must stop short in the front of Pindar--the Hamlet among these lesser actors, the Shakespeare among a crowd of inferior poets. To treat of Greek lyrical poetry and to omit Pindar is a paradox in action. Yet Pindar is so colossal, so much apart, that he deserves a separate study, and cannot be dragged in at the end of a bird's-eye view of a period of literature. At the time of Pindar, poetry was sinking into mannerism. He by the force of his native originality gave it a wholly fresh direction, and created a style as novel as it was inimitable. Like some high mountain-peak, upon the border-land of plain and lesser hills, he stands alone, sky-piercing and tremendous in his solitary strength. Before, however, entering upon the criticism of Pindar's poetry, it will be of service to complete this review of the Greek lyric by some specimens of those later artificial literary odes, a few of which have been preserved for us by the anthologists and grammarians. The following Hymn to Virtue has a special interest, since it is ascribed to Aristotle, the philosopher, and makes allusion to his friend, the tyrant of Atarneus. The comparative dryness of the style is no less characteristic of the age in which the poem is supposed to have been written, than its animating motive, the beauty of Virtue, is true to the Greek conception of morality and heroism. Virtue, to men thou bringest care and toil; Yet art thou life's best, fairest spoil! O virgin goddess, for thy beauty's sake To die is delicate in this our Greece, Or to endure of pain the stern strong ache. Such fruit for our soul's ease Of joys undying, dearer far than gold Or home or soft-eyed sleep, dost thou unfold! It was for thee the seed of Zeus, Stout Herakles, and Leda's twins, did choose Strength-draining deeds, to spread abroad thy name: Smit with the love of thee, Aias and Achileus went smilingly Down to Death's portal, crowned with deathless fame. Now, since thou art so fair, Leaving the lightsome air, Atarneus' hero hath died gloriously. Wherefore immortal praise shall be his guerdon: His goodness and his deeds are made the burden Of songs divine Sung by Memory's daughters nine, Hymning of hospitable Zeus the might And friendship firm as fate in fate's despite. The next is a Hymn to Health, hardly less true to Greek feeling than the Hymn to Virtue. Simonides, it will be remembered, had said that the first and best possession to be desired by man is health. The ode is but a rhetorical expansion of this sentence, showing that none of the good things of human life can be enjoyed without physical well-being.