TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
There have been many translations, in whole or in part, in verse or in prose, of that wonderful collection of the inscriptions, epigrams, and love-songs of Ancient Greece—a literature in itself known as the Greek Anthology.
In prose, however, there is lost much of the delicate fragrance and charm of these artfully devised, concise, significant poems. In verse, on the other hand, there has been admitted too much poetic license, and the simple phrases of the Greek have been too often elaborated and decorated, when they were not mistranslated or distorted, to fit the exigencies of rhyme and please a different poetic taste. It has also been the custom to select for translation only those epigrams that are most modern in sentiment, only those that would gen-
