PREFACE 



The present volume forms the third instakaent of 

 those translations from the Greek poets on which, 

 almost by an accident, I have spent no inconsiderable 

 portion of the little leisure of mj- life. If now, con- 

 temiplating that work dispassionately, I am moved 

 Tby some misgi\"ing and am tempted to consider it as 

 being, however useful, 



(nrovSijs ye [xkiroi rijs c/^i'^S ovk a^tov, 



f)erhaps the same sober reflection occurs to most men 

 n looking upon the finished labour of their hands : 

 fecine operae pretium ? Be that as it may, if it should 

 occur to any, otherwise approving, to regret that I 

 have selected for my purpose a series of poets who, 

 lifter all, dwell rather on the lower levels of Parnassus, 

 I am not altogether without hope that I may here- 

 after find time to do similar homage to some choicer 

 spirits, to Aeschylus, for example, and to Pindar : 

 for which last, indeed, what I have hitherto written 

 ^•as in a sense and in the first instance merely pre- 

 paratory. But for the immediate future another 

 sort of work suggests itself which cannot wisely be 

 postponed and which one might, when too late, regret 

 to have left unattempted. f'itae summa hrevis spem 

 OS vetat incohare longam. Even as I •«Tite, while the 

 September sea breaks at my feet on the grey stones 



