O UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



But, of course, this last is quite as truly an epigram as Landor's 

 lament or Person's epitaph, and is happily covered by Klopstock's 

 admirable definition in verse: 



Bald ist das Epigramm ein Pfeil, 



Triflft mit der Spitze; 



Ist bald ein Schwert, 



Trifft mit der Scharfe. 



Ist manchmal auch — die Griechen liebten's so — 



Ein klein Gemald ! ein Strahl gesandt, 



Zum "Brennen nicht, nur zum Erleuchten. 



[By times the epigram is an arrow, wounding with its point; by times 'tis a sword, 

 wounding with its keen edge. Ofttimes, too, — in this guise the Greeks loved it, — 

 'tis a miniature, a beam sent, not to bum, only to lighten and brighten.] 



With the etymology of the word "epigram" before our minds, we 

 need not state formally either the land of its birth or its original applica- 

 tion. When the Greek cut an inscription on a tomb, a tripod, a pillar, 

 or any other enduring object, he termed what he had written simply an 

 epigramma. 



If we recall the priority of verse to prose as the channel of artistic or 

 even formal expression, we shall expect to find such an inscription falling 

 into metrical form, and Herodotus, first and best beloved of all the tribe 

 of reporters, has transcribed from some temple tripods a couple of hexa- 

 metrical inscriptions which were confidingly reported to be as old as the 

 days of Laius, father of Oedipous. 



In the beginning the exigencies of space would compel brevity, often 

 Umiting the inscription to a single line or a couplet, and in Greece even 

 the later epigram is seldom found running beyond a modest length, 

 although at Rome it often loses this primitive merit. Furthermore, the 

 form and style of the epigram are intimately connected with this compul- 

 sory brevity. If the writer has only a line or two in which to express 

 grief for a son's untimely death, to laud a high-souled hero, or to honor a 

 notable deed, he does not trifle away his space, but with all his power 

 strives for conciseness and finish; and these quahties remain character- 

 istic of the epigram long after its original bounds as to subject have been 

 overpassed and forgotten. 



The subject of the earlier epigram is naturally associated closely with 



