THE Worp ASTER IN GREEK 59 
“Ts there a Greek living to-day,” says Rodd, ‘‘ who does not 
know t0 zp@to dazpo, by [the modern poet] Joannes Polemos ?”’ 
remembering how he used to hear this song of star-praise in 
Athens—“ sung by students to the soft throbbing of a guitar,’— 
‘« The first of all the stars of night 
In heaven is softly gleaming.’’ 
Modern Greek also makes much use of the star by transfer and 
composition ; it calls a thunderbolt dazpozeiéx, “ the starry axe.” 
The transfer from the direct use of the word Aster to the meta- 
phorical was easy, and we find it applied early to a person ; as in 
Euripides’ “‘ Thou Star of the Muses,” det70 Movewy, and perhaps 
earlier in Sappho’s song, 
‘¢ Thou art, I think, an evening star, of all the stars the fairest.’’ 
Aotéowy mdvtwy 0 xdheortoc. 
i 
Comparison to a star, rather than metaphor, was perhaps more 
common to the Greeks; like Wordsworth’s famed comparison of 
Milton, 
‘«¢ Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart.”’ 
In the poet: Plato (slightly antedating the philosopher, and 
writing 428-389 B.C.), the metaphor becomes for perhaps the 
first time distinct and fully evident; as in his lines, 
"Aare pas staal posts aerhe duoc: sO yevorpyy 
Ovpavoc, og mokhotg Oppaaw sto ae Bhéxo, 
Stars do you gaze on, star-of mine ? would that I might become 
Heaven, and so with many eyes look down on you in turn 
Another of Plato’s star-metaphors is again a fragment of two 
lines only, but of a beauty such as to make Tennyson speak of 
Jewels five words lon 
That on the stretched hndeuks of all time 
Sparkle forever— 
It reads : 
"Aarne mpiv wey Zhapmes eve Cworow "Ewor, 
vov 08 Davey ddprees ° Loxepos év gbemsvors. 
Shelley rendered it : 
Thou wert the Morning Star among the living, 
Ere thy fair light had fled,— 
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
New splendor to the dead,— 
