MIMNERMUS, an ancient poet and musician, flourished about the beginning of the 6th century B. C. He was of Smyrna, and contemporary with Solon. Athenæus gives him the invention of pentameter verse. His elegies, of which only a few fragments are preserved, were so much admired in antiquity, that Horace preferred them to those of Callimachus. He composed a poem of this kind, as we learn from Pausanias, upon the battle fought between the people of Smyrna, and the Lydians, under Gyges. He likewise was author of a poem in elegiac verse, quoted by Strabo, which he entitled Nanno, and in which we may suppose he chiefly celebrated a young and beautiful girl of that name, who, according to Athenæus, was a player on the flute, with whom he was enamoured in his old age. With respect to love matters, according to Propertius, his verses were more valuable than all the writings of Homer.
Plus in amore valet Mimneroi versus Homero.
Lib. i. Eleg. 9. v. 11.
And Horace bears testimony to his abilities, in describing that seducing passion:
Si Mimnermus uis cenſet, ſine amore joſque
Nil eſt jucundum, vivas in amore joſque.
Epist. VI. Lib. i. v. 65.
If, as wife Mimmernus said,
Life unblest with love and joy
Ranks us with the senseless dead,
Let these gifts each hour employ.
Alluding to some much admired lines of this Greek poet, which have been preserved by Stobæus.
Τὸ δὲ βίον, τὸ δὲ ζῆν ἡμῖν ἔστιν ἄποδον, &c.
What is life and all its pride,
If love and pleasure be denied?
Snatch, snatch me hence, ye fates, whene'er
The am'rous bliss I cease to share.
Oh let us crop each fragrant flow'r
While youth and vigour give us pow'r;
For frozen age will soon destroy
The force to give or take a joy;
And then, a prey to pain and care,
Detested by the young and fair,
The sun's blest beams will hateful grow,
And only shine on scenes of woe.