The Value of Byzantine and Modern Greek in Hellenic Studies AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1908 BY SIMOS MENARDOS, D.Ph., LL.D UNIVERSITY LECTURER Price One Shilling net OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1909 The Value of Byzantine and Modern Greek in Hellenic Studies AN INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1908 BY SIMOS MENARDOS, D.Ph., LL.D. UNIVERSITY LECTURER OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1909 HENRY FROWDE, M.A. PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK TORONTO AND MELBOURNE THE VALUE OF BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK IN HELLENIC STUDIES GENTLEMEN, In starting to-day a course of lectures on Byzan- tine and modern Greek language and literature, I feel I must offer an apology both for myself and for my subject. To begin with, I must justify myself for venturing to undertake in this illustrious University the task of teach- ing in a scientific field, cultivated now in all Europe by so many specialists and extending over a period of two thousand years. But the consciousness that by speak- ing on these subjects I shall deal with familiar things, that by occupying myself in these studies I shall be transferred mentally to my fatherland, encourages me to believe that my teaching, whatever else it may lack, is at least based on a cordial interest. I also fear that my subject itself requires a justifica- tion, especially before the classically educated. The very name Byzantine has given rise to many prejudices, and the modern Greek language, owing to the smallness of the kingdom, has not a wide attractiveness. Fortunately, the apology has become much easier in recent years. The mediaeval Greek empire is no more regarded as the degenerated heir of the Roman empire, ; AND MODERN GREEK as Voltaire could think ; on the contrary, Schlumberger inscribes his valuable works ' L'popee Byzantine ', and Prof. Bury's notes to Gibbon's immortal History prove that Gibbon himself would nowadays have to revise many of his opinions. But to-day we shall not deal with political, but with literary history. And the following question arises first of all ; did Hellenism exercise any influence whatever on the intellectual progress of mankind from the fatal day upon which Mummius made Greece a province? I will reply, gentlemen, only with some hints. I shall pass over the well-known story of the submis- sion of Italy to Graecia capta, and shall mention only the part which Greeks played in the spread of Christianity. As a fact, those intellectual struggles which were re- quired to impose the new religion on the political authorities and to overcome the various heresies, were internal between Greeks. Of the 318 bishops of the first Oecumenical Synod ten only came from Latin- speaking places. There is no doubt that there were also others. But no other race had then an equal authority. With Christianity the simple-minded Greeks of Asia Minor overcame the infidel sophists of Greece proper, and that victory was so complete, that the name Hellene itself, which according to Isocrates was equivalent to civilized, was banished. This significant result must have been due to many reasons, some of which were, as we shall see, simply literary. But I fear that much more often the rhetorical phrase is repeated that Plato's style is that of Jupiter, than the fact is comprehended that the holy idiom of Christianity, and perhaps of Jesus Him- self, is nothing else but late Greek. But the religious action of Hellenes though they were no longer called Hellenes is not confined only to the IN HELLENIC STUDIES 5 sphere of doctrine. They established churches of a quite new description, and the temple of Saint Sophia, that is to say the Divine wisdom, is according to an English critic the best Christian Church. They adorned them with incomparable mosaics ; they invented a new style of painting the precursor of Italian art a new music, and above all a new poetry. Romanes, one of our lyric poets, has been called the greatest of all religious poets. Hence the religious influence of the Greeks after the foundation of Constantinople was immense, as it has been said, ' from the mountains of Abyssinia to the mountains of Caucasus/ The dependence of the Latin liturgy on the Greek one is obvious. But Constan- tinople for all the peoples of the East and the West, was, according to Diehl's expression, la reine des elegances. The Armenian nation, already civilized, was taught by the Byzantines the whole liturgy, the historiography and the arts ; their royal palaces at Ani, still existing, were made by Greek masons. Afterwards, the Syrians, especially the clergy, translated and imitated, not only ecclesiastical books, but also the chroniclers and some of the ancient philosophers, botanists, and medical writers. But to the other semi-barbarous peoples, who settled near the Danube and in the western, northern, and eastern coast-lands of the Black Sea, Bulgarians, Ser- vians, Wallachians, Russians, Georgians, the Greeks communicated not only their doctrine and liturgy, but also their music, their architecture, their hagiography, their civilization, and humanism. Greek monks in- vented the Slavic alphabet and translated the Bible. The Christianization of the Slavs, with the single exception of the Poles, by the Byzantines has a universal significance; because they feel themselves separate 6 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK from Europe to this very day, and the famous Easter question is very largely due to that action of Greeks. But what does western Europe owe to the Byzantines ? I shall not mention their long struggles against Persians, Arabs, and Seljuks, which the peoples of the West repaid by their attack on Constantinople. I shall not mention that they forced the Ottomans, as Rambaud insists, at the zenith of their power to encamp for about a century under the fortress of Constantinople before they cap- tured her. But I shall insist on the fact that they have preserved, propagated, and interpreted the ancient literature. This fact is usually under-estimated by the critics, excited by the errata of the manuscripts and the aboKipov style. The witty Cobet used to say, ' Photius is stupid, Hesychius stupider, and Suidas stupidest of all men/ 1 But had not all these stupids preserved the ancient wisdom, what notion should we have of it ? You know, gentlemen, better than I, what the mediaeval sci- ence was, the Greek seeds of which the Arabs, taking them through the Nestorian Syrians, transported to Spain. But Constantinople was always a literary centre, where some of the best epigrams of the Anthology were written ; its majestic palace dating from the times of Constan- tine Porphyrogenitus to those of the last Palaeologi, recalls to mind the court of the Ptolemies. 'The Byzantines, of course, did not produce any work equiva- lent to the ancient masterpieces, but at least they have been the well-equipped guardians of a great literature.' When at last the dot/Atop wap was approaching, and some Greek fugitives transferred their homes to Italy, their superiority became obvious. Manuel Chrysoloras, Theodore Gaza, Janus Lascaris, Demetrius Chalcon- dyles, Marcus Musurus, appearing at Florence, at 1 Mnemosyne, vol. x (1861), p. 68. IN HELLENIC STUDIES 7 Rome, at Venice, as professors, librarians, editors, and translators of Greek authors, performed for a second time, and with more success, the great work which their ancestors sixteen centuries before that had fulfilled in Rome. The result of that renaissance of Greek studies is well known ; it appeared after Italy in French, in English, in German literatures. But they did not teach letters only. They taught perhaps freedom of thinking. George Gemistus, who had been their pre- cursor in Italy, was a great thinker, who left a deep impression. Even his eccentricity in translating his name into Plethon, became a fashion for Erasmus (Gerhard), Melanchthon (Schwarzerd), Capnio (Reuch- lin), Ceratinus (Hoorn), Coracopetraeus (Ravensberg), and the others. Attacking the superstitions of the clergy, he became the forerunner of the German pro- testantism and, initiating Platonism in the Academy of Florence, propagated the Greek adoration of beauty. Giacomo Leopardi, translating one of his orations into Italian, says, ' It is certain that Gemistus was one of the greatest and most versatile geniuses of his time, which was the fifteenth century'; and he adds, 'This nation is really admirable; for twenty-four centuries it has been first and without parallel in civilization and literature ; while conquering, it propagated the one and the other in Asia and Africa ; when conquered, it com- municated them to the other peoples of Europe. ... In the time of the Crusades their towns, splendid with churches, squares, magnificent palaces, excellent works of art, were an unwonted sight a genti rozze . . . quasi salvatiche e inumane.' * Leopardi speaks as a great poet and scholar. My only conclusion is that the Greek race 1 Opere di Giacomo Leopardi. Edizione da Antonio Ranieri, Firenze, 1849. Vol. ii, p. 341. 8 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK formed a great political power till the thirteenth cen- tury and maintained its intellectual hegemony as late as the fifteenth century, when Constantinople fell into the hands of the Turk. But now we may ask : For what reasons have all these facts been so long under-estimated? Why have the Byzantines been considered as declining from century to century in everything, and why has the name of Byzantium become synonymous with decay? It is now recognized that religious and racial rivalries, owing to the schism and to the pertinacity of the Greeks in not recognizing the Western Empire, are the chief causes of that old contempt for everything Byzantine ; and, as a fact, this very name Byzantine, which the Greeks never used for themselves, was one of the epithets of the schismatics. Prof. Krumbacher, the greatest apologist of the Byzantines, quotes in explanation of their under- estimation the words, Weh dtr, dass du ein Enkel bist. But I fear that there are also other causes, for which the Greeks themselves are responsible. The germ, which was sown by Gemistus and his colleagues in Italy, was purely Hellenic. From Platonism arose a latent depreciation of Christianity, and the reverse of that which happened twelve centuries before now took place. At this time the name Hellas, which these refugees pronounced with emotion, came back from banishment, and naturally Christian Greece was despised by the new Julians of the West. With Platonism an old theory revived, that of the nobility of Atticism and the barbarism of later Greek. Charles Ducange, the patriarch of Byzantinists, inscribed in 1688 his great work, Glos- sarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis> and in it he speaks of vocabula barbara ac semibarbara. IN HELLENIC STUDIES 9 This was enough. Henceforth most of the Hellenists turned their faces away from these scriptores, or read them only to prove their barbarism when judged accord- ing to the standard of Attic grammar. This was easy. But the historians still more easily applied the theories of the philologists to the whole period of a thousand years. The more modern, the more barbarous and evil. But now we are obliged to change the method. The new science of language has discarded the theory of barbarism as a mere superstition ; a superstition which can no longer prevent science from entering into Byzan- tine history with justice and sympathy. As the reproach of barbarism is the most serious of all those brought against the Byzantines and ourselves, I beg to deal with it at some greater length. Barbarism is the opposite of Atticism. But what was Atticism ? Thucydides used this word only in its political meaning, viz. siding with Athens. But after the defeat of Athens it meant the unrivalled Athenian civilization. It is needless to praise the Attic literature. Then all people were gifted. l Let the boys of Thebes play the flute,' said Alcibiades ; ov yap to-ao-t 8iaA. is, for instance, the style of Lucian, the aboKipov that of the Gospels. This difference, which till lately was attributed to geographical or racial causes, is proved now, after the discovery of the papyri of Upper Egypt, to be only a difference of style. Now it is clear that the style of Aelian, of Pausanias, or Plutarch himself was more or less artificial. But the style of those wily orators, who surrounded the Roman emperors, and charmed them to such an extent, that these granted them the taxes of whole provinces, was from beginning to end an artificial one. Therefore, if one asked those eloquent rhetori- cians to extemporize, they could not open their mouths ; because they needed many days and nights in order to patch together their phrases from the Attic orators. The poor Christians addressing ignorant people were using current, ordinary Greek. This contrast between their true language and the affected style of the schools is very characteristic. I may mention an anecdote. Saint Spyrido, one of the bishops of the first Oecu- menical Synod, was present at a o-vwfu in Cyprus, in which Triphyllius, bishop of Ledri, and formerly advocate at Beyrouth, preached, of course in a higher style. But when the learned man, in referring to the passage, *Apov arov rbv KpdfifiaTOv KOI Tre/wrarei, used instead of KpdpfiaTos the Attic word O-KL^TTOVS, Spyrido made a disturbance before the people; he left at once his archieratical throne, saying to Triphyllius Ov a/3/3aro9. This fact, recorded by Hermeias Sozomenos and Nicephoros Callistos Xanthopoulos, proves also that, in the opinion of the early Christians, Jesus spoke not Aramaic, but Greek, and not Attic, but the Koivr/. Now whatwas the fundamental contrast between those two styles ? To-day it is positively known that by the second century of our era the equalization of the long and short vowels, and the prevalence of accent over quantity had been accomplished in almost every Greek-speaking country. This is the most serious change in the whole history of Greek. But, of course, this slow change could not be accepted in the schools ; they were for a long time teaching the genuine prosody of the ancients (the educated persons felt it as late as the^sixth century), the melodious versification of the poets, the pompous rhetoric of the orators, especially that of the Asiatic school, which was equally based on the prosody. The Christians, as simple catechists, were content to be aXduv naOrjTai, pupils of the fishermen, and detested Hellenes. But when, like Triphyllius, many other learned men, for instance Gregory, Synesius, Apolli- naris of Laodicea, became bishops, they could not, of course, forget their erudition, and they continued to write verse in classical metres. On the other hand, rhetoric was, like the Miltonian panoply of Christ, necessary to other bishops, for instance, to Basil and Chrysostom, to defeat their adversaries or to impress their fol- lowers. Thus the rhetorical style proved much more abiding than the idols. In the same manner the official historiography being always cultivated by men of high culture remained permanently Attic. From the style of the Byzantine historians we can only form an idea as to IN HELLENIC STUDIES 13 the extent and estimation of the ancient studies. For this reason, any interpretation of them is superfluous to one who knows their models. A new style, a new poetry, a new versification, accord- ing to the modified pronunciation, has been naturally created in the Church, where no ancient literary tradi- tion existed, and singers of little education were to be utilized and illiterate people were to form the audience. Gregory himself, who wrote hexameter verses for his own delectation, when composing an evening song for the Church, used the rhythm, which was based on accent. This kind of song approached the spoken language through its pronunciation and its plainer construction. People having only ecclesiastical culture, especially monks, used it in writing numerous and long hymns and canons, and it is significant that the best of these composers, Romanos, was a simple deacon, whereas the educated theologists, like John Damascenus, could not help using archaic words and sometimes ancient metres. But they did not forget to make a side hit at Athens. In his famous 'AKC^IOTOJ "T/^os to the Holy Virgin, the Patriarch Sergius says : X a ' i P T ^ v ^A.drjvaimv \ ras TT\OKO.S fitooTroxra X Kal rbv hyphwarov CK T&V \eyontvw ax^eX^^^at, as the first synaxarist, Leontios, bishop of Neapolis or Nemesos, says ; he really uses many popular words, but his whole style does not sound more modern than the Gospel. More vernacular were the popular summaries of history, which were written in the monasteries of the East by uneducated i 4 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK people, an example of whom was the Syrian John Malalas, a contemporary of Justinian. But the chroni- clers, also being taught in the schools, knew a good deal of the ancient grammar, though, fortunately for them, they did not proceed very far in the syntax. The obscure period of ikonomachy, which prolonged from 726 to 842, inspired by a reforming spirit and caused by reasons not yet precisely estimated, resulted in the victory of the monastic party, which was the more ignorant of the two. And yet from a family belonging to it a prelate, who concentrated in himself all the ancient education, Photius, appeared. The illustrious Patriarch, besides many other attainments, was master of the art of writing Attic. His marvellous letters, in which his whole life is reflected, reveal in him a sort of Aris- totelian interest in everything. Through his Mvpio- jBifiXos and Ae'ftcoz; a-vva-y^yrj he became a factor in the philological regeneration of Hellenic studies, which, after Photius, were cultivated not only by the laity, but also by bishops. The metropolitans, Eustratius of Ni- caea, Gregory of Corinth, Michael Acominatus of Athens, and especially the famous Eustathius of Salonica, are also priests of the Muses. On the other hand, on ac- count of the conflict with Latins, which has been caused by Photius rebutting the claims of the Pope, the rulers of the Empire come forward as pure Greeks and em- brace with pride the cause of Hellenism. But the linguistic result of all that tendency was again the complete separation of Greek into a written aTTLKCfova-a language and a spoken a-o\oiKo{3dpj3apos one. The historians turned for their models to antiquity, and appeared to address not their contemporaries or genera- tions to come, but, on the contrary, the demus of ancient Athens. Their only art was to find archaic and IN HELLENIC STUDIES 15 uncommon words; they do not allude directly even to Christian matters and they Atticize even the names of places and men. For instance, Cinnamus, writing during the Crusades, calls the Turks Persians. What a strange evolution of Atticism, which resulted in the very opposite of its spirit, in the fossilization of its style ! The worst was that, from that time, the Church also participated in the archaistic fashion, because even the style of the holy books itself had departed from the vernacular. These very (rvva(dpia were, under Constan- tine Porphyrogenitus, translated by Symeon, who is hereby called ^ra^pda-r^, in order to suit the style of the educated classes, and a Patriarch of the twelfth century threw into the fire a crvvagdpw of St. Paraskeue, as unworthy of her life. Eustathius too, when bitterly reproaching the monks with being aypd^aroi and hating the ypawariKot, addresses them in Attic style, full of classical allusions. But it is easily understood that all the efforts of the scholars and the bishops could not prevent the people from making in their natural language verses scoffing at the Emperors, forming their proverbs, and praising their heroes, the oKplrat,, the guardians of the frontiers of the Empire, which then extended to the Euphrates. As the written style became more dry and serious, the vernacular appeared in satirical and light literature. Theodorus Ptochoprodromus, with his supplicatory poems, is the type of this style. Afterwards, when the fatal capture of Constanti- nople by the Crusaders had taken place (1204), and the Empire was broken into many Frankish and some Greek states, Greek education was no longer adequate to the necessities of life ; the Greeks under the Frank- ish rule, having remained illiterate, involuntarily used 16 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK to write as they spoke, without any literary pretensions. Relics of those times are the Greek chronicles of the kingdom of Cyprus under the Lusignans and the ver- sified chronicles of Morea. It is true that the Greek throne was restored at Constantinople for 192 years under the diadem of the Palaeologi, and the court his- torians continued to write in an Attic more strict than that of the times of Comneni, but their influence, like that of the Emperors, was now very slight. Later on, after the Ottoman invasion, during the servitude of the Greek people, a scholarly tradition, of course, could not exist, except in slight degree among the clergy. Therefore, those who wished to express other feelings than prayers, and felt their eyes in tears from the 'memories of the past and their hearts full of hopes for a resurrection of the Empire, the anonymous bards, while eulogizing the unsubjected heroes of the Greek mountains, continued the popular poetry which extolled the d/cpu-ai. This style of writing was first attempted by the poets of Crete, which was then under Venetian rule. But in the meantime the dialects had grown up. And when in the seventeenth century the enslaved Greeks had succeeded in founding schools, the scholarly tradition took a new lease of life. Once more the poor Ulysses opens his arms to embrace the phantom of Atticism. The polymath Eugenius Boulgaris, in the eighteenth century, was writing his numerous and various works in archaistic style, and translated Ver- gilian verse into Homeric. The famous Coray proved his genius in restraining that archaistic tendency within certain bounds. But these appeared insufficient after the war of independence. On the one hand, the victories of Botzaris and Canaris turned men's minds so easily to Marathon, Salamis, and Athens; on the IN HELLENIC STUDIES 17 other, the multiplicity of new political and scientific wants resulted in the revival of many ancient words ; so that a scholarly tradition survives parallel to the spoken language. The former is followed by the Church as is but right by the State, and by science ; the latter by the poets, in accordance with the example of the inspired Solomos, and by certain novelists and writers of plays; thus various kinds of literature are composed in a more natural or archaistic style, accord- ing as the writers wish to be more lively or serious. Hence arises a controversy which is sometimes con- ducted in a way like that of St. Spyrido. Notwith- standing, in speaking, modern Attic society, now in course of formation, selects, very calmly and fairly enough, though somewhat irregularly, from among the different forms, those alive or likely to live. Thus modern Attic, eclectic, as the ancient one, is formed slowly and naturally with the formation of society itself. Modern times are much more democratic than mediaeval. Nevertheless, in our souls survives the same instinct which was living, as we have seen, for twenty centuries, united with the national Hellenic feeling. For this reason, I suppose, we shall con- tinue, voluntarily or involuntarily, to be more or less vassals to Olympian Pericles. I have given the above historical outline of Greek style in the hope of making some facts clear. First, how it came about that new forms or new expressions, growing up naturally in Greek, were not welcomed by the educated classes, and how this contempt for ' bar- barism' having been accepted by the critics, was extended to the whole later literature and the whole history of Greece. There is no doubt that the theory of barbarism was absurd; but it was based on the i8 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK indisputable superiority of the ancient literature, under which that of the Church came to be included. Such a literary burden, I think, was never laid on the shoulders of any other people. But this colossal attraction of the past explains also another feature of later Greek ; namely, why its evolu- tion, in comparison with that of Latin, which was broken asunder into the modern languages, has been so slow. One who compares the Greek style of the ten centuries A. D., not the official, but the monastic, thinks that he is reading St. Paul. This was because education tended to maintain the older language as a spoken lan- guage. Thus the Greek scholars never suspected any irreparable change in their tongue. Having always religiously kept Euclides' spelling, they noticed only the difference of the new forms, which they attributed to ignorance. But they never felt the principal cause of the growing difference, that is to say, the changing of the pronunciation, so natural to every spoken language. It is now obvious how difficult a task it is to fix definite chronological limits in the history of Greek. As we have seen, no old phenomenon passes away in an abrupt manner, no new form prevails at once. A type takes centuries to disappear; and even after its extinction in one place, it survives in another, and when at last it is forgotten in the spoken language, it is artificially preserved in the written, or at any rate in its more literary forms. A splendid example is the infinitive, which was declining from the times of the Septuagint and was barely eliminated by Coray in the last century. And, vice versa, the more we study the history of spoken Greek, the better we observe that a form or a word, which we suppose to be modern, had already presented itself many centuries ago, but it was IN HELLENIC STUDIES 19 kept away from \apr\v /ecu KaXapapiv, paper and inkstand. For instance, this very expression is of the seventh century 1 ; and most of the diminutives, like , that is to say yepiov and 71-08101; instead vy, which even to-day are not used in the books of scholars, are shown by their accent, which follows the rules of Herodian, to have been formed shortly after the time of Alexander and reduced to yipw and Trobiv before Constantine the Great. Now, gentlemen, you can appreciate the importance of living Greek. This stands before us as the last real and trustworthy phase of its history of three thousand years. The abundant linguistic material which is preserved from Corfu to Cyprus and from Thrace to Crete is a test, a commentary, and a supplement to the marbles, papyri, and parchments. This material is, of course, an inheritance of all the preceding generations, but it is the task of science to classify it in chronological order, and to work back to the past. Thus we observe that approximately the same language was spoken back to the times of the Crusades. Thence it shades into its precursor, the mediaeval language, which was avoided as pdpfiapov, the style of the Gospels, which was aSoKipov, the KOIVTJ which was idiomKoV. Nearly all that the ancient grammarians condemned, has been preserved. But the great gain from the study of contemporary Greek is the perception of the whole as a continuous and living language. I mean that after having defined every difference arising in its history, and the time at which it arose, we can conclude that the rest has remained unaltered. I may give some examples from my own studies. For instance, hearing in Cyprus 1 \fovriov Na7roXeo>? /3ios 'Iwaypov rov 'E\ff)p.ovos. Edit. H. Gelzer,. Freiburg, 1893, p. 7, 16. 20 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK the single and double consonants exactly distinguished from each other TOV QiXov, and TO $v\\ovwe may form an idea how the ancients pronounced them. Ob- serving also how the ending r, owing to its feeble pronunciation is assimilated with the consonant of the next word for instance, Q&OW prjXa, eKotya/zep /5o5ta we understand perfectly the spelling of the ancient inscrip- tions. The composition and derivation of new words is also very instructive. Noticing the facility with which a peasant forms a new word, we explain the immense wealth of the Greek dictionary. Koumanoudes has collected the words formed by the scholars of the last century, and found fifty thousand. But the strange thing is that in many cases we cannot distinguish whether a word was coined lately or many centuries ago ; for instance dypio'tfiyzos is used in a popular Cypriot poem (pronounced apKoOvpos) and in an Orphic hymn. Euri- pides says aXouo-ia and the Cypriots not only dXovo-ta, but also aKTvi(TLd. The Cypriots call the condition of a servant bovXoorvvrj and the employment of a maker of sieves navTovvvrj. Both these words occur in Homer, of course with the different meaning of 5o{5Ao? and ndvris. Have they been preserved or coined again ? For all these reasons Prof. Hatzidakis, the best authority on late Greek, proposed the construction of a colossal Lexicon, covering all Greek periods, 'from Agamemnon to George the First/ In this Thesaurus the history of every word would give us a new pleasure. We now say, for instance, aXoyov instead of fonros ; but it was Diodorus who used it first. And if we ask how the appellative of Calchas came to mean at last a sieve- maker, the answer will be that Theocritus calls KOVKWO- HCIVTLS the diviner by a sieve ; thus we understand that every Koa? professed in Cyprus to foretell the future. IN HELLENIC STUDIES 21 Now, as every language, like a river, brings down many superstitions, like the above one, legends, proverbs, topographical data, everybody can guess how many conclusions we can obtain by searching the Greek folk- lore. But do not be afraid, gentlemen ; I shall not enter now into this labyrinth, fearing lest I may not find the way out. Those interested in this subject may turn to the works of Professor Polites. I wish only to anticipate an objection. It may be said : All these questions are certainly interesting, but interesting only to the Greeks of to-day. But I think that it is avaKoXovdov to excavate the earth in the hope to find some more fragments of antiquity, and to leave the existing treasure unexplored. Such a search would give much more often that pleasure of discovery, which is the best reward of a scientist. I shall go further. The investigation of Greek as a whole interests not only the Hellenists, but also every one who philosophizes on the most wonderful creation of human nature, language. For Greek elucidates, like no other tongue, the question, What is the life of a language ? The history of the modern languages of Latin origin presents many gaps. The monuments of the Gothic idioms end in the fourth century, with the translation of the Bible by Ulphilas. But with Greek we can work quite twelve centuries back to the past under full light ; the golden chain has never been broken. Dictionaries, grammars, commentaries, are always abundant, some of them due to scholars of first eminence. Thus we can see, without much guessing, the evolution of the language, that is to say, in what manner the linguistic elements in the course of so many centuries appear and disappear, how words are born, change meaning and die, or die not, and especially how the whole, though transformed, survives. 22 BYZANTINE AND MODERN GREEK The ancient Atticists could not know this evolution, and were stopped by the ov /cetrai. But, we, living after Max Miiller and Whitney must proceed. The philological monuments have not, of course, always the same artistic value. Perhaps by descending to later times and studying familiar letters, private contracts, monastic inscriptions, miracles of saints, we shall lose a little of the romantic admiration of the classic language of the gods. But I hope, gentlemen, that a feeling, more positive, will be born in ourselves. Apart from the colossal literature, apart from its value to the knowledge of every science, I hope that you will admit that this is a unique phenomenon, a language which develops itself for three thousand years, attracts in succession every civilized nation, civilizes many barbarous ones, enriches every written language, and is still living in all the countries where it was born. In fact, passing the Ionian, the Cretan Sea, the Archipelago, the Propontis, the Euxine itself, in every town you visit, you hear Ka\&s Tjptfej, eVe, as in the times of Nausicaa and Iphigenia. Then you would, perhaps, assign to this not unknown language the epithet so many times conventionally applied to it immortal. With all these questions on which I have touched, I do not believe, gentlemen, that I have completed my apology. With some of them I shall deal in my next lectures. But before concluding, I beg to express my best thanks to the University authorities, who kindly invited me here. At this moment a strange thing happens to me. I come from Athens, and yet I think that I am in Athens. While entering these halls, in which Attic is yet echoing somewhat confusedly to my ears I believe that I am passing into the ancient Academy, coming from a distant province. My diffi- IN HELLENIC STUDIES^ ''23 culty is increased by the feeling that I am really barbarous in your universal language. But, after all, I hope that I shall be excused. I come to assure you that TI \a\eovcra Trayd, the speaking spring of Greek, is not yet exhausted, and that that Greece, in which your and our Byron saw ' living Greece no more ', did not die. While studying the continuous history of her noble language, and acquainting yourselves with her living pronunciation, you will come, no doubt, into closer relations with her. I venture to say that you will extend your biblical and classical studies. Uni- versal conquerors of to-day, you keep always, like the Macedonian, the old Iliad ready at hand. Let me invite you, gentlemen, to join a humble son of Greece in studying the long and instructive Odyssey of the Greek nation. Oxford : Printed at the Clarendon Press, by HORACE HART, M.A. BY THE SAME AUTHOR WV o"Tj{Xpivcov KuiTpicov (?A6rjva, Vol. VI (1894) pp. 145-173) 'H ysviKTi Kara Kuirpious ('A07?ra, Vol. VIII (1896), pp. 435- 450) KuirpicoTiKa Tpa/yo'uSia (AeArtov rrjs 'IOTO/HK?}? KCU ' AoyiKT/s *Eratpeias r^s f EAX(i8os, Vol. V (1897), pp. 327- 346) FaXXiKai jjico-aicoviKal \|is V Kxnrpco (Mr\va t Vol. XII (1900), pp. 360-384) (Nea *H/xepa, 8/21 Feb. 1903, No. 1471 (2459)) 'H 'PTyyaiVCl (AeArtoi; Tr/y 'laropiKT/s Kal 'E0vo\oyiKrjs 'Eratpetas TJ?S ^AAaSoy, Vol. VI (1903), pp. 117-148) Ilpi TCOV OVO|JLdTCi)V TWV KviTplCOV ('AOqva, Vol. XVI(l904) j pp. 257-294) TT)S Kvirpou (AeXrtov TTJ? 'lo-ropiKrjs /cat 'E0z;oAo- ytKTs 'Eratpe^a? T^J 'EAAdSoj, Vol. VI (1906), pp. 405- 432) Toira)VV|JLiK6v TTJs KviTpou ('Atfrjm, Vol. XVIII (1907), pp 'PoSicov djji<|)opcov, c-OpcOevrcov kv 15 May, 1907) Where did Aphrodite find the body of Adonis ? (Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXVIII (1908), PP. i33- I 37) 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: Tel. No. 642-3405 Renewals may be made 4 days prior to date due. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. subject to recall 1 efter LD21A-40m-3,'72 (Q1173slO)476-A-32 General Library University of California Berkeley Gaylord Bros. Makers Syracuse, N. Y. PAT, JAN. 21, 1908 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY