Part 19 (2/2)

Virgil speaks of Rome as ”the mistress of the world” (maxima rerum Roma). Claudian deified Rome, ”O numen amic.u.m et legum genetrix,” and Rutilius wrote:

Exaudi, regina tui pulcherrima mundi, Inter sidereos Roma recepta polos, Exaudi, genetrix hominum, genetrixque deorum, Non procul a caelo per tua templa sumus.

Modern Italians have made ample amends for any lack of purely popular poetry which may have prevailed in the days of their ancestors. It would, indeed, have been strange if the enthusiasm for liberty which arose in the ranks of a highly gifted and emotional nation such as the Italians had not found expression in song. When the proper time came, Giusti, Carducci, Mameli, Gordigiani, and scores of others voiced the patriotic sentiments of their countrymen. They all dwelt on the theme embodied in the stirring Garibaldian hymn:

Va fuori d'Italia!

Va fuori, o stranier!

It will suffice to quote, as an example of the rest, one stanza from an ”Inno di Guerra” chosen at random from a collection of popular poetry published at Turin in 1863:

Coraggio ... All' armi, all' armi, O fanti e cavalieri, Snudiamo ardenti e fieri, Snudiam l'invitto acciar!

Dall' Umbria mesto e oppresso Ci chiama il pio fratello, Rispondasi all' appello, Corriamo a guerreggiar!

The cramping isolation of the city-states of ancient Greece arrested the growth of h.e.l.lenic nationalism, and therefore precluded the birth of any genuinely nationalist poetry. But it only required the occasion to arise in order to give birth to patriotic song. Such an occasion was furnished when, under the pressing danger of Asiatic invasion, some degree of h.e.l.lenic unity and cohesion was temporarily achieved. Then the tuneful Simonides recorded the raising of an altar to ”Zeus, the free man's G.o.d, a fair token of freedom for h.e.l.las.”

In more modern times the long struggle for Greek independence produced a crop of poets who, if they could not emulate the dignity and linguistic elegance of their predecessors, were none the less able to express their national aspirations in rugged but withal very tuneful verse which went straight to the hearts of their countrymen. The Klephtic ballads played a very important part in rousing the Greek spirit during the Graeco-Turkish war at the beginning of the last century. The fine ode of the Zantiote Solomos has been adopted as the national anthem, whilst the poetry of another Ionian, Aristotle Valaorites, and of numerous others glows with genuine and perfervid patriotism. But perhaps the greatest nationalist poet that modern Greece has produced was Rhigas Pheraios, who, as proto-martyr in the Greek cause, was executed by the Turks in 1798, with the prophecy on his dying lips that he had ”sown a rich seed, and that the hour was coming when his country would reap its glorious fruits.” His Greek Ma.r.s.eillaise (?e?te pa?de? t?? ???????) is known to Englishmen through Byron's translation, ”Sons of the Greeks, arise, etc.” But the glorious lilt and swing of his _Polemisterion_, though probably familiar to every child in Greece, is less known in this country. The lines,

?a???te?a ??? ??a? ??e????? ???, pa?? sa???ta ?????? s??a?? ?a? f??a??,

recall to the mind Tennyson's

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

[Footnote 109:

Let us unfurl the standards!

Let us cross the Balkans!

Shouting ”Allah! Allah!”

Let us drink the blood of the foe!

Long live our Padishah!

Long live Ghazi Osman!

XXIX

SONGS, NAVAL AND MILITARY

_”The Spectator,” September 20, 1913_

A British Aeschylus, were such a person conceivable, might very fitly tell his countrymen, in the words addressed to Prometheus some twenty-three centuries ago, that they would find no friend more staunch than Ocea.n.u.s:

?? ??? p?t' ??e?? ?? ??ea???

f???? ?st? ea??te??? s??.

In truth, the whole national life of England is summed up in the fine lines of Swinburne:

All our past comes wailing in the wind, And all our future thunders in the sea.

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