a frame like that of the harp, or of the Egyptian cithara which had one of the arms supporting the cross bar or zugon shorter than the other,[1] or else strings stretched over harp-shaped bridges on a sound-board in the case of a psaltery. Juba II., king of Mauretania, who reigned from 30 B.C., said (ap. Athen. l.c.) that Epigonus brought the instrument from Alexandria and played upon it with the fingers of both hands, not only using it as an accompaniment to the voice, but introducing chromatic passages, and a chorus of other stringed instruments, probably citharas, to accompany the voice. Epigonus was also a skilled citharist and played with his bare hands without plectrum.[2] Unfortunately we have no record of when Epigonus lived. Vincenzo Galilei[3] has given us a description of the epigonion accompanied by an illustration, representing his conception of the ancient instrument, an upright psaltery with the outline of the clavicytherium (but no keyboard). (K. S.)
EPIGRAM, properly speaking, anything that is inscribed.
Nothing could be more hopeless, however, than an attempt to
discover or devise a definition wide enough to include the vast
multitude of little poems which at one time or other have been
honoured with the title of epigram, and precise enough to exclude
all others. Without taking account of its evident misapplications,
we find that the name has been given—first, in strict accordance
with its Greek etymology, to any actual inscription on monument,
statue or building; secondly, to verses never intended for such
a purpose, but assuming for artistic reasons the epigraphical
form; thirdly, to verses expressing with something of the terseness
of an inscription a striking or beautiful thought; and
fourthly, by unwarrantable restriction, to a little poem ending
in a “point,” especially of the satirical kind. The last of
these has obtained considerable popularity from the well-known
lines—
| “The qualities rare in a bee that we meet In an epigram never should fail; The body should always be little and sweet, And a sting should be left in its tail”— |
which represent the older Latin of some unknown writer—
|
“Omne epigramma sit instar apis: sit aculeus illi; |
Attempts not a few of a more elaborate kind have been made to state the essential element of the epigram, and to classify existing specimens; but, as every lover of epigrams must feel, most of them have been attended with very partial success. Scaliger, in the third book of his Poetics, gives a fivefold division, which displays a certain ingenuity in the nomenclature but is very superficial: the first class takes its name from mel, or honey, and consists of adulatory specimens; the second from fel, or gall; the third from acetum, or vinegar; and the fourth from sal, or salt; while the fifth is styled the condensed, or multiplex. This classification is adopted by Nicolaus Mercerius in his De conscribendo epigrammate (Paris, 1653); but he supplemented it by another of much more scientific value, based on the figures of the ancient rhetoricians. Lessing, in the preface to his own epigrams, gives an interesting treatment of the theory, his principal doctrine being practically the same as that of several of his less eminent predecessors, that there ought to be two parts more or less clearly distinguished,—the first awakening the reader’s attention in the same way as an actual monument might do, and the other satisfying his curiosity in some unexpected manner. An attempt was made by Herder to increase the comprehensiveness and precision of the theory; but as he himself confesses, his classification is rather vague—the expository, the paradigmatic, the pictorial, the impassioned, the artfully turned, the illusory, and the swift. After all, if the arrangement according to authorship be rejected, the simplest and most satisfactory is according to subjects. The epigram is one of the most catholic of literary forms, and lends itself to the expression of almost any feeling or thought. It may be an elegy, a satire, or a love-poem in miniature, an embodiment of the wisdom of the ages, a bon-mot set off with a couple of rhymes.
| “I cannot tell thee who lies buried here; No man that knew him followed by his bier; The winds and waves conveyed him to this shore, Then ask the winds and waves to tell thee more.” |
| Anonymous. |
| “Wherefore should I vainly try To teach thee what my love will be In after years, when thou and I Have both grown old in company, If words are vain to tell thee how, Mary, I do love thee now?” |
| Anonymous. |
| “O Bruscus, cease our aching ears to vex, With thy loud railing at the softer sex; No accusation worse than this could be, That once a woman did give birth to thee.” |
| Acilius. |
| “Treason doth never prosper. What’s the reason? For if it prospers none dare call it treason.” |
| Harrington. |
| “Ward has no heart they say, but I deny it; He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it.” |
| Rogers. |
From its very brevity there is no small danger of the epigram passing into childish triviality: the paltriest pun, a senseless anagram, is considered stuff enough and to spare. For proof of this there is unfortunately no need to look far; but perhaps the reader could not find a better collection ready to his hand than the second twenty-five of the Epigrammatum centuriae of Samuel Erichius; by the time he reaches No. 11 of the 47th century, he will be quite ready to grant the appropriateness of the identity maintained between the German Seele, or soul, and the German Esel, or ass.
Of the epigram as cultivated by the Greeks an account is given in the article Anthology, discussing those wonderful collections which bid fair to remain the richest of their kind. The delicacy and simplicity of so much of what has been preserved is perhaps their most striking feature; and one cannot but be surprised at the number of poets proved capable of such work. In Latin literature, on the other hand, the epigrammatists whose work has been preserved are comparatively few, and though several of them, as Catullus and Martial, are men of high literary genius, too much of what they have left behind is vitiated by brutality and obscenity. On the subsequent history of the epigram, indeed, Martial has exercised an influence as baneful as it is extensive, and he may fairly be counted the far-off progenitor of a host of scurrilous verses. Nearly all the learned Latinists of the 16th and 17th centuries may claim admittance into the list of epigrammatists,—Bembo and Scaliger, Buchanan and More, Stroza and Sannazaro. Melanchthon, who succeeded in combining so much of Pagan culture with his Reformation Christianity, has left us some graceful specimens, but his editor, Joannes Major Joachimus, has so little idea of what an epigram is, that he includes in his collection some translations from the Psalms. The Latin epigrams of Étienne Pasquier were among the most admirable which the Renaissance produced in France. John Owen, or, as he Latinized his name, Johannes Audoenus, a Cambro-Briton, attained quite an unusual celebrity in this department, and is regularly distinguished as Owen the Epigrammatist. The tradition of the Latin epigram has been kept alive in England by such men as Porson, Vincent Bourne and Walter Savage Landor. Happily there is now little danger of any too personal epigrammatist suffering the fate of Niccolo Franco, who paid the forfeit of his life for having launched his venomous Latin against Pius V., though he may still incur the milder penalty of having his name inserted in the Index Expurgatorius, and find, like John Owen, that he consequently has lost an inheritance.
In English literature proper there is no writer like Martial in Latin or Logau in German, whose fame is entirely due to his epigrams; but several even of those whose names can perish never have not disdained this diminutive form. The designation epigram, however, is used by earlier English writers with excessive laxity, and given or withheld without apparent reason.
