NOTES ON TYRTE US.

ELEGY the FIRST.

LINE I.

I would not value, or tranfmit the fame.

UCH (as we have before had occafion to obferve) was the

SUCH

peculiar office of the Aodor-the rhapfodifts of ancient Greece-who, in the early periods of her civilization, were characters of the first diftinction. They much resembled, in refpect to their profeffion, the Bardi of the Northern nations. The manners and policy of the Celta were formed and supported by the influence of their bards, whofe heroic hymns were alike the incentives to virtue, and the records of her exploits. Βαρδοι μεν ula, fays STRABO, b. iv. DIODORUS SICULUS calls them Пolaev, b. v. Thus alfo AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS: Bardi quidem fortia virorum illuftrium facta heroicis compofita verfibus cum dulcibus lyra modulis cantitarunt. B. xv. c. 9.

And the poet LUCAN fings, in confonance with the historians:
Vos, quoque, qui fortes animos belloque peremptos
Laudibus in longum vates diffunditis ævum,

Plurima fecuri fudiflis carmina BARDI.

Pharfal. b. i.

In the mean time the poems of OSSIAN, and other compofitions of a like nature, abound with tranfactions, examples, and allufions, that evince the dignity of these venerable perfonages.

Such

From the characters of the Bardi we may form a just idea of the Aodor, as they existed in the earlier ages of Greece. were ORPHEUS, TYRTÆUS, and HOMER.

As ORPHEUS was the firft diftinguished rhapfodift of Greece, (whom PINDAR calls warepa adas) he may here deserve our particular attention. The hiftoriographer and the poet have profufely celebrated the name of ORPHEUS; in whom we have been taught to view the several characters united of the rhapsodift, the legislator, and the prieft. Amidst the legends of fuperftition, it is in vain we fearch for well-authenticated truths. But (we are told) it was ORPHEUS who introduced into Greece the firit elements of civilization-who soothed the boisterous paffions by the mufic of his lyre, drew the uninftructed multitude from the wilds of barbarism and rapine into the paths of meliorated fociety, and infufed into their minds the true notions of morality and legislation. He inftructed them in the holy myfteries* -facer interprefque Deorum. He was the inventor+ of the facred hymn-the first teacher of Polytheifm. To the religious ceremonies of OSIRIS and Isis, tranfplanted by him from Ægypt§ into Greece, under the names of BACCHUS and CERES, he is faid to have added myfteries of his own, in which the Initiated were called Oppelsλsal. Of his age we have uncertain accounts; though fome critics have been inclined to fix it to the time of GIDEON, one of the judges of Ifrael. All these are doubtful facts, inveloped in the darkness of conjecture and fabulous tradition.

whe

In refpect to the works of ORPHEUS, the controverfy hath been. carried to fo tedious a length, that to touch on the leading circumftances of it, would be, instead of a note, to write a volume. The principal work attributed to ORPHEUS, is the Argonautica; which, according to RUHNKENIUS, is a very ancient poem, ther written by ORPHEUS, or (as fome will have it) ONOMACRITUS the Athenian. Not a veftige (fays RUHNKENIUS) can be found in this piece of an age later than HOMER's. The Indigitamenta, or Orphic hymns, are doubtless of very high antiquity.||

* ARISTOPHANES BaTgxxo. A& 4, fcene 2. HOR. Epift. ad Pifon. Schol. in HESIOD. JUSTIN MARTYR, Parænes. 1.

See DIODORUS, Bibl. b. i.

|| See GESNER'S Prolegomena to his Edit. of ORPHEUs, for information on this fubject.

They are allowed by moft writers to be older than the invafion of Greece by XERXES. They were, probably, a fet of devotional forms. DEMOSTHENES hath cited a paffage from one of them, in his first oration against ARISTOGEITON, as the faying of ORPHEUS, the founder of their holy myfteries. Yet have the Indigitamenta been ascribed alfo to ONOMACRITUS, by CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS and others; and GROTIUS confiders them as the effufion of the Pythagoreans, who profeffed themselves the disciples of our myftic poet.

*

The poem Пep Awv is referred by TYRWHITT to the age of CONSTANTIUS. But the Orphic fragments preferved by JUSTIN MARTYR, EUSEBIUS, CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, PROCLUS, MACROBIUS, and others, and collected by H. STEPHENS, are the pieces which chiefly interest the tranflator. Whether they were compofed by the real ORPHEUS, or by one of the later fophifts, they are unquestionably the product of an elevated mind. Let us fuppofe them to have been written by the hoary priest of the myfteries of Greece. If the fuppofition be unfounded, the wanderings of the fancy are more pardonable than the deviations of the judgment. The delufions of poetry may amuse; but the errors of criticism perplex, while they mislead. Let us imagine, therefore, our holy rhapfodift attuning these poems to his harp, in the midst of his initiated difciples. Struck by the awful minftrelsy, let us catch the enthusiasm of the religionist-the fervors of infpiration! Here, indeed, we may recognize the features of a mufe that foared above the Aonian mount'

on the facred top

Of OREB or of SINAI did inspire,

-and

That shepherd, who first taught the chofen feed
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rofe out of Chaos.

In these fragments we may perceive a theology, whofe fource is clearly diftinguishable in the writings of Moses. The Unity of the Godhead was the grand fecret of the myfteries, Such a * See his edition of Пeps Aw-Octavo, 1781.

notion (as it might have been drawn from the light of reafon) we by no means deduce from Scripture or tradition. But for the Orphic attributes of the Divine Nature that are set forth with a wonderful fublimity, we must recur to facred writ-to the revelations of the One Incomprehenfible JEHOVAH!

What the German editor ESCHENBACH so sublimely says of the hymns of ORPHEUS, may be more juftly applied to the Fragments. Accidentally meeting with them at Leipfic, he exclaims:

"Thefaurum me reperiffe credidi; et, profecto, thefaurum reperi. Incredibile dictu, quo me facro horrore afflaverint indigitamenta ifta deorum: nam et tempus ad illorum lectionem eligere cogebar, quod vel folum horrorem incutere animo poteft, nocturnum. Cum enim totam diem confumpferim in contemplando urbis Splendore, et in adeundis, quibus fcatet urbs illa, viris doctis; fola nox reftabat, quam ORPHEO confecrare potui. In abyffum quendam myfteriorum venerandæ antiquitatis defcendere videbar, quotiefcunque, filente mundo, folis vigilantibus aftris et lunâ, shavnpalws iftos hymnos ad manus fumpfi.”

Let us now draw afide the veil! Let us approach with reverence-Behold the venerable figure-Liften to the folemn preludes of his harp-And hark-he addreffes MusÆUS, who stands foremost in the groupe of the Initiated:

FRAGMENT THE FIRST.

CLOSE, clofe the doors-away, profaner crew!
My ftrain flows only for the chofen few!
• Yet thou, MusÆUS, lend a listening ear;

• Son of the filver moon, in filence, hear!