ment, and that same marvellous language as more or less according to circumstances: spoken by Alcibiades in his conversations the talk of the uneducated and half educated with Socrates, and Alexander the Macedoni- in all countries is for the most part nothing an with his literary captains:-so true are else than a degraded form of the written the observations of our learned Philhellenic language, arising out of a careless habit of countryman George Finlay on this subject, dealing with the formative element of the which, for the sake of clinching the point language and its settled analogies, where the with the highest authority, we shall here controlling power of educated intellect is regive. "The modern language with its in- moved. The process of change, moreover, flections correctly written might easily be mis- which goes on silently in all languages is vitaken for a colloquial dialect of some ancient olently and prematurely hastened in ages of Greek colony, were it possible for a scholar barbaric corruption and national decay; and unacquainted with the existence of the nation in this way it could not but be that the in modern times to meet with a Romaic highly organized language of ancient Greece translation of Thucydides. There is as should have been shaken somewhat out of much difference between the language of its cohesion, and lost no small part of its fine Homer and the New Testament, as be- consistency, so soon as a tyrannic barbarism tween that of the New Testament and a left the uneducated masses without the regmodern Greek Review. Greek and Arabic ulating power of a grammatical tradition, seem to be the two spoken languages that and the check of an acknowledged literary have suffered the smallest change in the standard. And not only so: but all sorts lapse of ages. The inference is plain, that of foreign and ill-assimilated words, even in these are the nations which have admitted spite of a high linguistic genius in the peothe smallest infusion of extraneous social ple, would intrude themselves into the pure elements, and been the least under foreign stratum of the national speech, and decided compulsion in modifying their habits and approaches would be made towards the creideas; or else, that the ties of blood and ation of a new conglomerate. That this race are weaker than those of civilisation took place with the language of the Greeks and religion, and literature and religion have during the middle ages, to a considerable created Arabs and Greeks out of Syrians or extent, is an indubitable fact-such a fact, Ethiopians and Sclavonians or Albanians." indeed, as only a miracle could have preIt will be observed that Mr. Finlay, in vented; but it took place to a less extent passage, talks of the Neo-Hellenic lan- than with the language of their Roman masguage as it appears when "its inflections are ters; and th result is, that the popular lancorrectly written," implying, of course, that guage of the lowest and most uneducated it is not always so written or at least Greeks, during any period that can be named spoken; and this is a distinction to which we of mediæval or modern declension, possesses now wish particularly to direct the attention more of an essentially Greek character than of our readers;-because from not observ- the most classical Italian exhibits of Latin. ing it has arisen that confusion of ideas on The following short popular song on the this subject, which it is the main object of taking of Constantinople by the Turks in the present paper to remove. To the acci- 1453, written in all possibility not long dent of having their inflections sometimes after that event, will set this in a clear incorrectly written all languages are exposed light. this Πῆραν τὴν πόλιν πῆραν την, πῆραν τὴν Σαλονίκην! Αφῆτ' αυτὴν τὴν ψαλμωδιὰν νὰ χαμηλώσουν τ' ἅγια, Καὶ στείλτε λόγον εἰς τὴν φραγκιαν, νὰ ἔρθουν να τα πιάσουν, Νὰ πάρουν τὸν χρυσὸν σταυρὸν, καὶ τ' ἅγιον εὐαγγέλιον, Καὶ τὴν ἅγιαν τράπεζαν νὰ μὴ τὴν ἀμολύνουν. Σὰν τ ̓ ἄκουσει ἡ Δέσποινα, δακρύζουν ἡ εἰκόνες· Σώπα, κυρία, δέσποινα ! μὴ κλαίης, μη' δακρύζης Πάλε μὲ χρόνους, μὲ καιροὺς, πάλε δικὰ σου εἶναι. *Mediaval Greece and Trebizond. By George Finlay. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1851. A most valuable contribution to the hoy of a period comparatively little known and little cared for. LITERAL TRANSLATION. They have taken the city-they have taken it-they have taken Thessalonica! Which had three hundred altar-bells, and sixty-two bells in the steeple, And to every bell a priest and to every priest a deacon. And when the Most Holy went out, and the Lord of the World, A voice was wafted from heaven, from the mouth of angels, "Leave off your singing of psalms, set down the Most Holy, And send word to the land of the Franks, that they may come and take it; And the holy table, that (the infidels) may not pollute it." When our Lady heard this her images wept; "Be appeased, Sovran Lady, and do not weep, For again, with the years and the seasons, again the minster will be yours." We have here, manifestly, a very diffe- that was in the Greek language, when it first rent sort of Greek from that used by our came in contact with those corrupting influliving Corfiote orator. With a pencil hastily ences that, to all human appearance, seemed we have noted-with which details, however, destined to overwhelm it, but against which, we need not trouble the reader-in these as we have seen, it has triumphantly mainthirteen lines at least FIVE-AND-TWENTY gross tained its position now for nearly 2000 years. deviations from the grammatical propriety In the next place, we must take along with or the etymological purity of ancient Greek us the prominent fact that Greece, when speech; whereas, in the oration we found these evil influences began to act on its that the number of similar deviations only language, was already the acknowledged amounted to FIVE. In the song we find mistress of the intellectual world, and seated words carelessly curtailed in every way, the on a throne from which she could not be augment omitted before the past tense of the dislodged. Rude Mummius, therefore, verb, and the last syllable which contains when he took Corinth, and made lime of its the flectional characteristic of the nouns; we statues, and fuel of its. pictures, had no find the grossest confusion of declensions, as power to touch a syllable of its language; βαριλεᾶς for βαριλεύς ; we find prepositions the captive tongue rather rose and disarmed used with a wrong case, to express what a the conqueror, as bearded Mars has oft-times right case would have sufficiently expressed been tamed by a single look of the beautiful without a preposition; we find foreign words Aphrodite. Instead, therefore, of the lanwhich are not required, and native words so guage of Strabo or Galen shewing any signs defaced as to be with great difficulty recog- of corruption, from its subjugation to those nised. And yet with all this, no philologist fierce conquerors who gave the West of Euwill say that this specimen of vulgar modern rope not only a policy but a tongue, we find, Greek is not Greek, or, in any scientific on the contrary, that the style of the first sense, a new language. Romaic or Roman- lyric poet, Horace, and the first historian of izing it certainly is not, however much that imperial Rome, Tacitus, is singularly marked name from purely political influences may with Hellenisms; and in the next generation have gained currency for a season. There we find a philosophic Roman Emperor using is only one Latin word-and that low for the daily jottings of his pious diary, the Latin-in the whole poem, (каμπávα-a language of a Grecian Zeno. Even St. bell;) and this, in fact, is the only non-Hel- Paul, though, from his high ground, he lenic word which it contains. It appears, could afford to speak lightly of that wisdom therefore, that, even in its lowest and most of words of which the Greeks boasted, could degraded form, the language of Homer as- find the diction of no other language more serted its powerful instinct of rejecting what appropriate for pouring out the fiery vois foreign, and enriching itself from its own lumes of his own Hebrew inspiration; and resourses, a philological fact connected so it remained through the whole middle with the Greek Language that distinguishes ages. During that dark period, the Greeks, it characteristically at the present moment after centuries of Roman degradation and from every cultivated tongue now used in debasement, were alternately crushed beEurope. neath the iron weight of Byzantine fiscal Such are the philological facts. A glance oppression, or scourged by the furious and at the history of the remarkable people, reiterated lash of barbaric invasion; but the who inherit this language, will shew how the Goths and the Huns beat against the doors facts are so. In the first place, we must of Athena's inner Parthenon in vain, and start with the intense feeling of nationality, the swarthy Slavonian hordes, though they and the strength of native organic impulse cut up the grass of Elis, and baptized the whole of the Morea with savage-sounding | long as a continual series of national histonames, could not prevail so far, as to exter- rians and theologians existed in the capital minate the Greek tongue from the land of an acknowledged Greek empire, writing where Plato mused and Paul preached. after the models of ancient learned tradition, These Slavonians, by whom the whole Mo- no corrupt or conglomerate language (such rea was "barbarized," as one of the learned as the Romans and the Lombards generated Byzantine emperors narrates,* were in a in Italy) could possibly arise. As the fall few ages forced to follow the example of of the Western Empire was a necessary their more cultivated predecessors, the Rom- preliminary to the creation of that new monans. They received the Christian religion, grel dialect on which Dante impressed the and whatever literary culture Byzantium stamp of classicality, so before the advent of could boast, from the Greek language. the Murads and the Mahmouds, and the They acknowledged also the superior admi- heroic death of Constantine Paleologus, nistrative power-the relic of old Roman Greek could not become a dead language. strength that lay in the strong iconoclastic What has taken place since? Had the Turks emperors, and bowed beneath the military been a race of superior intellectual culture severity of the Basilian family. Though to the Greeks, and had the religious opinions superior in numbers at first, they were by, of the conquerors been of a character with degrees swallowed up by the greater mental and moral strength of the Greeks. The brute force of blind matter yielded, as it always does, in a protracted contest, before the marshalled battalions of mind. The Slavonian element was altogether absorded by the Greek; and they are heard of no more in the world, save, perhaps, in the pages of learned German professors, whose business it is to allow nothing to die. which the conquered could have sympa thized, then it was possible, that out of the popular corrupted Greek of the middle ages, united with the new elements of corruption introduced by the Turks, a new language might have been created, precisely, as out of the Roman and Frankish element in Gaul arose first the language of the Troubadours, and then that of modern France. But the nature of the elements brought together by The existence of the Eastern empire at the taking of Byzantium, necessitated a deConstantinople for the long period, during velopement precisely the reverse of all this. which new kingdoms were forming, and new The Greek Church had always been, no less languages being created in the West, is a than the Byzantine Empire, a strong root remarkable fact politically, and well worthy of the Greek language in its days of greatof curious study; philologically also it is of est danger; much more would it be so now, no less importance, as through means of it when the central cohesive power of the lanmainly, the Greek language was preserved guage was assisted by repulsive power of up to the year 1453 in a perfectly uncor- the strongest kind acting on its circumferrupted state. It is well known that the ence. When the Greek temple should educated classes in Byzantium never ac- serve as a Turkish mosque, and the worship knowledged as a legitimate type of literary of Christ and Mahomet be interchanged composition that vulgar dialect of which a without any feeling of impropriety on specimen has been just given. They looked the part of the worshippers-then, and upon such ballads precisely as Mr. D'Israeli, not till then, was it possible that the or Mr. Bulwer do, on the songs of a York- Greek language should experience corshire ploughman or a London thief; as a ruption from the influence of Turkish masgeneral literary medium such a corrupt lingo ters. Far more likely was it that Christian did not exist and could not be recognised. Accordingly we find one of the latest of the Byzantine historians-Chalcondyles, the historian of the Turks-using a language that in comparison with that of the New Testament for instance-is entitled to be considered classical. The optative mood, which, as we observed, is never found in the narrative style of modern Greek, appears very rarely in the New Testament; in Chalcondyles it is as frequent as in Xenophon or Herodotus. It is plain, therefore, that so Venice with her European civilisation and her commercial magnificence should have achieved a victory not only over the body but over the mind of that part of Greece which for so many ages she possessed; and the great currency of Italian in Corfu and Zante even at the present hour, may be a guarantee of what four centuries more of Italian ascendency might have done towards the extirpation of the language of Homer from the country of Ulysses. But against the Venetian ascendency also, it must be borne in mind, strong elements of hostility were at work. The Greeks hate the Pope as heartily as they hate the devil; and the character of the Venetian Government in the seven islands was not of a nature so travel in Greece, and speak Greek with the much to have corrupted Greekby assimila- Greeks, he will not be long in learning what tion as to have exterminated it by oppression. we mean. The Greeks, whatever their But whatever might have been the fate of faults be, are not a people to possess such a this divine language under the supposable fine intellectual instrument as the language influence of a long-continued Christian des- of Plato, and not know how to use it. potism-for a conquered country must al- A word now on the literature of the moways be governed to a certain extent despo- dern Greeks. Here no person who has been tically-the great revolution of 1821 has accustomed to consider the most obvious given the linguistic genius of the Greek facts of literary history, will expect that we people so strong an impulse in the opposite are going to blow the mist away from some direction, that centuries of new oppression golden palace that had been hitherto invisiand tyranny will be required to rob the ble to the general eye. No person expects now-restored language of the purity which the flower and the fruit of a plant till the it has gained by the work of a single gene-root be fairly fixed in the grouud. The ration. As when a strong man labouring material through the whole order of things under some moody monomania, which dulls of which we are a part, is the indispensable his eye, and palsies his arm, is suddenly basis of the intellectual; and a country awakened to a consciousness of his old self, gasping painfully after the first elements of and by a single burst of nervous energy, material prosperity, can never produce a the bonds of despair that bound him are rich and vigorous national literature. As snapt for ever; so the successful political easily could Dante have appeared in the movement which shook off the Turkish yoke, days when Lombards, Romans, Gauls, Norawoke in the Greek mind all those dormant mans, and Saracens were fighting about the claims to intellectual distinction which the possession of a few duchies in Apulia; as existence of their language proved them to readily could the tragic grace of Racine, possess; and next to the idea of freedom, and the charming mysticism of Madame the idea of education became dominant in Guyon have been contemporary with King the revived nation. But education in a na- Clovis and his rude Franks, as that a great tion of Greeks, was merely another name poet should appear amid the physical desofor a purified Greek language; in proportion lation and prostration under which Greece as a Greek's intellectual attainment rose, his has suffered for so many centuries. desire to possess for himself and for his na- that a reasonable man can expect from the tion the free use of the language of Plato modern Greek mind is, that it should shew and Chrysostom, became more intense; his itself by indubitable symptoms to be alive; language in fact was to the Greek the that there should be a healthy national feelstrongest fact in his nationality; and to this ing in the masses; and that it should be in language he has accordingly devoted himself general no less true of the modern than of with a zeal and a devotion which alone is the ancient Greeks,-that they "seek after sufficient to prove him worthy of the indepen- wisdom." We should hope to see among dence which he enjoys. A very limited and this people, if they are truly the sons of superficial acquaintance with the products of their fathers, in the first place a large spirit the Greek press during the last twenty of appropriation; for only by adopting and years, will convince any man who chooses assimilating the intellectual productions of to inquire of the truth of what we here the leading nations of Europe, can the moassert. The mere existence of the Univer- dern Greeks hope to assert their place sity of Athens, with its large equipment of among the cultivated nations of the West. accomplished professors, is a fact that in This is the law of nature. Nations, like this view speaks volumes. It were a great individuals, must learn from their superiors mistake, however, to look upon the present before they can aspire to teach. The prespotless purity of Hellenic speech as it ap- mature originality of ignorance, or of the pears in the works which issue from the solitary self-taught student, is a frothy soapAthenian press, as the mere artificial crea- bubble, easily created and easily destroyed. tion of a few academic men. The Greek Of this great truth the Greeks have shewn language has, and always has had a tendency by their conduct, from the days of Adamanto purify itself, independent of the exertions tine Corias downwards, that they are proof learned academicians and scientific corpo-foundly aware. That great scholar and true rations. The purification of the language is a patriot, felt deeply two great truths on national instinct, a popular idea; otherwise which the progress of the Greek people it never could have succeeded to such a won- during the last fifty years has mainly dederful extent as we see. We have no space pended-first, that intellectual culture was to prove this in detail: but if any man will with the Greeks in competition with the All 1 Turks, the surest lever of national indepen- [artificially circumscribed domain called dence; and again, that the intellectual cul-" classical;" partly from the fact that these ture of a people with such a rich inheritance highly-gifted and well-instructed persons, as from the past, must be based on a thorough Mr. Brandis suggests, have, with a patriotic knowledge of their own classical literature. self-denial been less anxious about their EuNor were these the thoughts of Corias only; ropean reputation as authors, than about they were the thoughts of the people of their Greek usefulness as teachers. At the whom he was the most accomplished spokes- present moment, indeed, Greece requires man. Hence his influence; hence their that all the energies of her best men shall whole career from the establishment of the be devoted to the great work of public infamous schools at Kydonia, Scios, and Yan- struction; and no man that knows the nina, to the erection of such noble educa- elements of which the present academic tional buildings as the 'Apoakεlov, or staff in Athens is composed, will doubt that Young Ladies' Academy, and the Othonian she has in this respect been most faithful to University of Athens. The flourishing herself. All these scientific and literary condition of this latter establishment alonet works, moreover, whether original or trans-an establishment in its place far more lated, are written in a style of Hellenic efficient in every sense than Oxford and elegance and purity, which even the Greeks Cambridge are in theirs ;-this fresh-sprung themselves twenty years ago would have University with its well-marshalled lines of deemed impossible. So swift is progress in accomplished professors, and troops of eager- the rhetorical department when the nimble eyed students, would be a sufficient proof Greek wit sets itself seriously to use the of the wonderful intellectual activity of the materials offered by the rich and flexible people, even were there not a single printed Greek tongue. book in the language. But there is no lack Of works bearing the type of a fresh naof books. The press of Athens within the tionality, without which the best foreign last fifty years has been uncommonly active. appropriation could produce only a meagre A city whose population does not exceed result-the modern Greeks present us in that of Perth, supplies intellectual nourish- the first place with the military memoirs of ment to its inhabitants in the shape of at Perrhoebus, highly esteem. d by Niebuhr, least half a dozen literary and political pa- and other historical and biographical works. pers, some of which contain essays on the True it is, that the modern Hellenes are not great questions of the day, written with a likely to produce an account of their own talent and a command of language of which great exploits in the late war, which shall the first newspaper in England would have surpass that of our own countryinan GORno cause to be ashamed. As for more DON, in accuracy and impartiality; but a bulky performances the Greeks have now liberal dash of patriotic colouring will be excellent systematic treatises on most readily forgiven as much to a modern Greek branches of science, composed by men who, Tricoupi,* as to an ancient Roman Livy; to the native shrewdness of their race, add and in this department we advise our Helthe most various acquirements from the lenistic readers to keep their eyes open, as great laboratories of French acuteness and new books are now issuing from the press, German erudition. A list of some of these and others are justly expected, that will will be found in Professor Brandis' very give to the recent national history that proable work, vol. iii. p. 200; but their num-minence in the new national literature to ber is increasing daily, and from the fine intellectual temper of the people, must increase. If the works of such men as Professors Rangabe, Asopius, and Paparogopoulous, are not better known in this country, it arises partly from the extremely conceited superciliousness with which scholars in this country are accustomed to look on every product of Greek literature not within a certain * The Αρσακεῖον is a splendid new building, erected by the munificence of a private individual, on the same elevated ground on which the king's palace and the University stand, a little more to the north, and on the opposite side of the street. No man who sees this building can despair of Greece. † According to a statistical statement in the A0nva of 7th July, the Othonian University has 39 professors, and 590 students in the current year. which it is so justly entitled. In the meantime, those students of Greek literature who consider a modern Hydriote Miaulis as interesting a human character as an ancient Phormio, will find the true spirit of the Greek revolt, perhaps, most effectively reflected in the popular ballads, whose author ship is unknown, and in some of the politi cal and patriotic poetry of Alexandros Soutzos. The popular ballads of the modern Greeks, the τραγουδια Ρωμάικα, are *This passage was written in the expectation of the speedy appearance of the History of the Greek Revolution, by Tricoupi, of which the first volume now lies on our table. It promises well; and, as far as we have read, does not seem chargeable with any undue partiality to the author's countrymen. |