No More Learning

He was admitted to the bar when twenty-
one years of age; but cared little for the profession, indicating his
preference the same year by publishing two volumes of poems.
Throughout his career Simms courted the Muse; but his verse never
became an important part of his achievement. In 1828 he became
editor and part owner of the Charleston City Gazette, which took
the Union side during the Nullification excitement. He held the posi-
tion for four years, when the newspaper was discontinued because of
political dissensions, leaving the editor in financial straits. After a
year's residence in Hingham, Massachusetts, where his first novel,
'Martin Faber, the Story of a Criminal,' was written, -he returned to
South Carolina; settling finally on his plantation Woodlands, near Med-
way, in that State, where he lived for many years the life of a genial
W. G. SIMMS


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13446
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
country gentleman, a large slave-owner, his mansion the centre of an
open-handed hospitality. Simms was in these years the representa-
tive Southern author, visited as a matter of course by travelers from
the North. This life was varied also by political office: he was for
many years a member of the South Carolina Legislature, and was
once an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant-governor.
Personally Simms was an impulsive, choleric, generous-hearted
man, full of pluck and energy, widely interested in the affairs of his
land, doing steadily what he conceived to be right. During his
meridian of strength he prospered, though driven to work hard to
keep up his style of living. But when the war came he suffered the
common lot of well-conditioned Southerners, and was almost ruined.
Thereafter, until his death, it was an up-hill struggle. Simms was
frankly, warmly sectional in his feelings, stoutly maintaining the
right of the South to secede. A sympathetic picture of the days of
his activity, in both sunshine and storm, is given in Professor Will-
iam P. Trent's biography of him prepared for the 'American Men of
Letters' series. Simms published more than thirty volumes of novels
and shorter tales: his verse alone counts up to nearly twenty books,
and in addition he wrote histories,-including several books of South
Carolina biographies,-edited various standard authors, and contrib-
uted almost countless articles to periodicals. The voluminous nature
of his writings explains the ephemerality of much of his work, and
suggests his faults,-carelessness of style and looseness of construc-
tion, and an inclination to the sensational. Simms's bloody scenes are
generally in full view of the audience: he did not see the value of
reserve. But his good qualities are positive: he has lively charac-
terization, brisk movement, a sense of the picturesque, and great
fertility of invention.
It is unnecessary, in the case of a writer so fecund, to catalogue
his works: the most powerful and artistic are those dealing with his
native State; and the chapter quoted from The Yemassee,' the most
popular and perhaps the best of all his fiction, a story describing
the uprising of the Indian tribe of that name, and the bravery of the
early Carolinians in repulsing them,- gives an admirable idea of his
gift for the graphic presentation of a dramatic scene. 'Guy Rivers,'
in 1834, was Simms's first decided success in native romance; and
crude as it is, has plenty of bustling action to hold the attention.
The Revolutionary quadrilogy beginning with The Partisan' (1835).
and ending with Katharine Walton' (1851), including also 'Melli-
champe' and 'The Kinsman,'—all tales of Marion and his troopers
and the British campaign in the Carolinas; the group of short stories
known as Wigwam and Cabin' (1845), dealing with frontier and
Indian life; and the much later The Cassique of Kiawah' (1860),


## p. 13447 (#261) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13447
which depicts colonial days in Charleston,- are superior examples of
his scope and style. Both the American and English public of that
day took to his work: ten of his novels received German translation.
Simms was conscientious and indefatigable in getting the material
for his tales: reading the authorities in print and manuscript, travel-
ing in order to study the physical aspects of the country and gather
oral legends and scraps of local history. Thus he came to know
well, and to be able to reproduce with truth and spirit, the Indians
and white men who filled his mind's eye. The reader of to-day
is more likely to underestimate than to overestimate Simms in this
regard. He was a writer with a very conspicuous talent for char-
acter limning and narrative, which was aided by years of ceaseless
pen-work. Under less practical pressure, and with a keener sense
of the obligation of the artist to his art, he might have ranked with
Cooper. As it is, with all allowance for shortcomings, he is an agree-
able figure whether he be considered as author or man.
-
THE DOOM OF OCCONESTOGA
From The Yemassee'
IT
WAS a gloomy amphitheatre in the deep forests to which the
assembled multitude bore the unfortunate Occonestoga. The
whole scene was unique in that solemn grandeur, that sombre
hue, that deep spiritual repose, in which the human imagination
delights to invest the region which has been rendered remarkable
for the deed of punishment or crime. A small swamp or morass
hung upon one side of the wood; from the rank bosom of which,
in numberless millions, the flickering firefly perpetually darted
upwards, giving a brilliance and animation to the spot, which at
that moment no assemblage of light or life could possibly en-
liven. The ancient oak, a bearded Druid, was there to contribute
to the due solemnity of all associations; the green but gloomy
cedar, the ghostly cypress, and here and there the overgrown
pine, all rose up in their primitive strength, and with an under-
growth around them of shrub and flower that scarcely at any
time, in that sheltered and congenial habitation, had found it
necessary to shrink from winter. In the centre of the area thus
invested rose a high and venerable mound, the tumulus of many
preceding ages, from the washed sides of which might now and
then be seen protruding the bleached bones of some ancient war-
rior or sage.
A circle of trees at a little distance hedged it in,


## p. 13448 (#262) ##########################################

13448
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
made secure and sacred by the performance there of many of
their religious rites and offices,-themselves, as they bore the
broad arrow of the Yemassee, being free from all danger of over-
throw or desecration by Indian hands.
Amid the confused cries of the multitude, they bore the capt-
ive to the foot of the tumulus, and bound him backward, half
reclining upon a tree. A hundred warriors stood around, armed
according to the manner of the nation,- each with a tomahawk
and knife and bow. They stood up as for battle, but spectators
simply; and took no part in a proceeding which belonged en-
tirely to the priesthood. In a wider and denser circle gathered
hundreds more: not the warriors, but the people,- the old, the
young, the women and the children, all fiercely excited, and anx-
ious to see a ceremony so awfully exciting to an Indian imagina-
tion; involving as it did not only the perpetual loss of human
caste and national consideration, but the eternal doom, the degra-
dation, the denial of and the exile from their simple forest heaven.
Interspersed with this latter crowd, seemingly at regular intervals,
and with an allotted labor assigned them, came a number of old
women: not unmeet representatives, individually, for either of the
weird sisters of the Scottish thane,
"So withered and so wild in their attire;"
*
and regarding their cries and actions, of whom we may safely
affirm that they looked like anything but inhabitants of earth!
In their hands they bore, each of them, a flaming torch of the
rich and gummy pine; and these they waved over the heads of
the multitude in a thousand various evolutions, accompanying
each movement with a fearful cry, which at regular periods was
chorused by the assembled mass. A bugle-a native instrument
of sound, five feet or more in length; hollowed out from the
commonest timber, the cracks and breaks of which were care-
fully sealed up with the resinous gum oozing from their burning
torches; and which to this day, borrowed from the natives, our
negroes employ on the Southern waters with a peculiar compass
and variety of note- was carried by one of the party; and gave
forth at intervals, timed with much regularity, a long, protracted,
single blast, adding greatly to the wild and picturesque character
of the spectacle. At the articulation of these sounds, the circles
continue to contract, though slowly; until at length but a brief
――――


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WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13449
space lay between the armed warriors, the crowd, and the un-
happy victim.
The night grew dark of a sudden; and the sky was obscured
by one of the brief tempests that usually usher in the summer,
and mark the transition, in the South, of one season to another.
A wild gust rushed along the wood. The leaves were whirled
over the heads of the assemblage, and the trees bent downwards
until they cracked and groaned again beneath the wind. A feel-
ing of natural superstition crossed the minds of the multitude,
as the hurricane, though common enough in that region, passed
hurriedly along; and a spontaneous and universal voice of chanted
prayer rose from the multitude, in their own wild and emphatic
language, to the evil deity whose presence they beheld in its
progress:
―――――――――
"Thy wing, Opitchi-Manneyto,
It o'erthrows the tall trees-
Thy breath, Opitchi-Manneyto,
Makes the waters tremble-
Thou art in the hurricane,
When the wigwam tumbles -
Thou art in the arrow fire,
When the pine is shivered —
But upon the Yemassee
Be thy coming gentle-
Are they not thy well-beloved?
Bring they not a slave to thee?
Look! the slave is bound for thee,
'Tis the Yemassee that brings him.
Pass, Opitchi-Manneyto-
Pass, black spirit, pass from us—
Be thy passage gentle. "
And as the uncouth strain rose at the conclusion into a diapason
of unanimous and contending voices, of old and young, male and
female, the brief summer tempest had gone by. A shout of self-
gratulation, joined with warm acknowledgments, testified the popu-
lar sense and confidence in that especial Providence, which even
the most barbarous nations claim as forever working in their
behalf.
-
-
At this moment, surrounded by the chiefs, and preceded by
the great prophet or high-priest, Enorce-Mattee, came Sanutee,
the well-beloved of the Yemassee, to preside over the destinies of


## p. 13450 (#264) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13450
his son.
There was a due and becoming solemnity, but nothing
of the peculiar feelings of the father, visible in his countenance.
Blocks of wood were placed around as seats for the chiefs; but
Sanutee and the prophet threw themselves, with more of impos-
ing veneration in the proceeding, upon the edge of the tumulus,
just where an overcharged spot, bulging out with the crowding
bones of its inmates, had formed an elevation answering the
purpose of couch or seat. They sat directly looking upon the
prisoner; who reclined, bound securely upon his back to a decapi-
tated tree, at a little distance before them. A signal having been
given, the women ceased their clamors; and approaching him,
they waved their torches so closely above his head as to make all
his features distinctly visible to the now watchful and silent mul-
titude. He bore the examination with stern, unmoved features,
which the sculptor in brass or marble might have been glad to
transfer to his statue in the block. While the torches waved,
one of the women now cried aloud, in a barbarous chant, above
him:
――
"Is not this a Yemassee?
Wherefore is he bound thus-
Wherefore with the broad arrow
On his right arm growing,
Wherefore is he bound thus?
Is not this a Yemassee ? »
A second woman now approached him, waving her torch in like
manner, seeming closely to inspect his features, and actually
passing her fingers over the emblem upon his shoulder, as if to
ascertain more certainly the truth of the image. Having done
this, she turned about to the crowd, and in the same barbarous
sort of strain with the preceding, replied as follows:-
"It is not the Yemassee,
But a dog that runs away.
From his right arm take the arrow,
He is not the Yemassee. "
As these words were uttered, the crowd of women and children
around cried out for the execution of the judgment thus given;
and once again flamed the torches wildly, and the shoutings
were general among the multitude. When they had subsided, a
huge Indian came forward and sternly confronted the prisoner.


## p. 13451 (#265) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13451
This man was Malatchie, the executioner; and he looked the hor-
rid trade which he professed. His garments were stained and
smeared with blood, and covered with scalps, which, connected
together by slight strings, formed a loose robe over his shoulders.
In one hand he carried a torch, in the other a knife. He came
forward, under the instructions of Enoree-Mattee the prophet, to
claim the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto,- that is, in our language,
the slave of hell. This he did in the following strain:-
'Tis Opitchi-Manneyto
In Malatchie's ear that cries:
'This is not the Yemassee,—
And the woman's word is true,-
He's a dog that should be mine:
I have hunted for him long.
From his master he had run,
With the stranger made his home;
Now I have him, he is mine:
Hear Opitchi-Manneyto. >>>
And as the besmeared and malignant executioner howled his
fierce demand in the very ears of his victim, he hurled the knife
which he carried, upwards with such dexterity into the air, that
it rested point downward and sticking fast, on its descent, into
the tree and just above the head of the doomed Occonestoga.
With his hand, the next instant, he laid a resolute gripe upon
the shoulder of the victim, as if to confirm and strengthen his
claim by actual possession; while at the same time, with a sort of
malignant pleasure, he thrust his besmeared and distorted visage
close into the face of his prisoner. Writhing against the liga-
ments which bound him fast, Occonestoga strove to turn his head
aside from the disgusting and obtrusive presence; and the des-
peration of his effort, but that he had been too carefully secured,
might have resulted in the release of some of his limbs; for
the breast heaved and labored, and every muscle of his arms and
legs was wrought, by his severe action, into so many ropes,-
hard, full, and indicative of prodigious strength.
There was one person in that crowd who sympathized with
the victim. This was Hiwassee, the maiden in whose ears he
had uttered a word, which, in her thoughtless scream and subse-
quent declaration of the event, when she had identified him, had


## p. 13452 (#266) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13452
been the occasion of his captivity. Something of self-reproach
for her share in his misfortune, and an old feeling of regard for
Occonestoga, who had once been a favorite with the young of
both sexes among his people,—was at work in her bosom; and
turning to Echotee, her newly accepted lover, as soon as the
demand of Malatchie had been heard, she prayed him to resist
the demand.
In such cases, all that a warrior had to do was simply to join
issue upon the claim, and the popular will then determined the
question. Echotee could not resist an application so put to him,
and by one who had just listened to a prayer of his own so all-
important to his own happiness; and being himself a noble youth,
one who had been a rival of the captive in his better days,—
a feeling of generosity combined with the request of Hiwassee,
and he boldly leaped forward. Seizing the knife of Malatchie,
which stuck in the tree, he drew it forth and threw it upon the
ground; thus removing the sign of property which the execu-
tioner had put up in behalf of the evil deity.
"Occonestoga is the brave of the Yemassee," exclaimed the
young Echotee, while the eyes of the captive looked what his
lips could not have said. "Occonestoga is a brave of Yemassee:
he is no dog of Malatchie. Wherefore is the cord upon the
limbs of a free warrior? Is not Occonestoga a free warrior of
Yemassee? The eyes of Echotee have looked upon a warrior like
Occonestoga when he took many scalps. Did not Occonestoga
lead the Yemassee against the Savannahs? The eyes of Echo-
tee saw him slay the red-eyed Suwannee, the great chief of the
Savannahs. Did not Occonestoga go on the war-path with our
young braves against the Edistoes,-the brown foxes that came
out of the swamp? The eyes of Echotee beheld him. Occone-
stoga is a brave, and a hunter of Yemassee: he is not the dog
of Malatchie. He knows not fear. He hath an arrow with
wings, and the panther he runs down in the chase. His tread
is the tread of a sly serpent, that comes so that he hears him
not upon the track of the red deer, feeding down in the valley.
Echotee knows the warrior; Echotee knows the hunter; he knows
Occonestoga,- but he knows no dog of Opitchi-Manneyto. "
"He hath drunk of the poison drink of the palefaces; his
feet are gone from the good path of the Yemassee; he would
sell his people to the English for a painted bird. He is the
―


## p. 13453 (#267) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13453
Echotee
slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," cried Malatchie in reply.
was not satisfied to yield the point so soon, and he responded.
accordingly.
"It is true; the feet of the young warrior have gone away
from the good paths of the Yemassee: but I see not the weak-
ness of the chief when my eye looks back upon the great deeds
of the warrior. I see nothing but the shrinking body of Suwannee
under the knee- under the knife of the Yemassee. I hear noth-
ing but the war-whoop of the Yemassee, when he broke through
the camp of the brown foxes, and scalped them where they
skulked in the swamp.
I see this Yemassee strike the foe and
take the scalp, and I know Occonestoga,-Occonestoga, the son
of the well-beloved, the great chief of the Yemassee. "
"It is good; Occonestoga has thanks for Echotee; Echotee
is a brave warrior! " murmured the captive to his champion,
in tones of melancholy acknowledgment. The current of public
feeling began to set somewhere in behalf of the victim, and an
occasional whisper to that effect might be heard here and there
among the multitude. Even Malatchie himself looked for a
moment as if he thought it not improbable that he might be
defrauded of his prey; and while a free shout from many attested
the compliment which all were willing to pay to Echotee for his
magnanimous defense of one who had once been a rival-and
not always successful in the general estimation, the executioner
turned to the prophet and to Sanutee, as if doubtful whether or
not to proceed farther in his claim. But all doubt was soon
quieted, as the stern father rose before the assembly. Every
sound was stilled in expectation of his words on this so moment-
ous an occasion to himself. They waited not long. The old
man had tasked all the energies of the patriot, not less than of
the stoic; and having once determined upon the necessity of the
sacrifice, he had no hesitating fears or scruples palsying his deter-
mination. He seemed not to regard the imploring glance of
his son, seen and felt by all besides in the assembly; but with
a voice entirely unaffected by the circumstances of his position,
he spoke forth the doom of the victim in confirmation with that
originally expressed.
"Echotee has spoken like a brave warrior with a tongue of
truth, and a soul that has birth with the sun. But he speaks
out of his own heart, and does not speak to the heart of the


## p. 13454 (#268) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13454
traitor. The Yemassee will all say for Echotee, but who can
say for Occonestoga when Sanutee himself is silent? Does the
Yemassee speak with a double tongue? Did not the Yemassee
promise Occonestoga to Opitchi-Manneyto with the other chiefs?
Where are they? They are gone into the swamp, where the
sun shines not, and the eyes of Opitchi-Manneyto are upon them.
He knows them for his slaves. The arrow is gone from their
shoulders, and the Yemassee knows them no longer. Shall the
dog escape who led the way to the English- who brought the
poison drink to the chiefs, which made them dogs to the English
and slaves to Opitchi-Manneyto? Shall he escape the doom the
Yemassee hath put upon them? Sanutee speaks the voice of the
Manneyto. Occonestoga is a dog, who would sell his father-
who would make our women to carry water for the palefaces.
He is not the son of Sanutee-Sanutee knows him no more.
Look, Yemassees, the Well-beloved has spoken! "
―
-
He paused, and turning away, sank down silently upon the
little bank on which he had before rested; while Malatchie, with-
out further opposition,- for the renunciation of his own son,
by one so highly esteemed as Sanutee, was conclusive against
the youth, advanced to execute the terrible judgment upon his
victim.
"O father, chief, Sanutee the Well-beloved! " was the cry that
now, for the first time, burst convulsively from the lips of the
prisoner: "hear me, father, - Occonestoga will go on the war-
path with thee and with the Yemassee against the Edisto, against
the Spaniard; hear, Sanutee,- he will go with thee against the
English. " But the old man bent not, yielded not, and the crowd
gathered nigher in the intensity of their interest.
"Wilt thou have no ear, Sanutee? It is Occonestoga, it is
the son of Matiwan, that speaks to thee. " Sanutee's head sank
as the reference was made to Matiwan, but he showed no other
sign of emotion. He moved not, he spoke not; and bitterly and
hopelessly the youth exclaimed:-
"Oh! thou art colder than the stone house of the adder, and
deafer than his ears. Father, Sanutee, wherefore wilt thou lose
me, even as the tree its leaf, when the storm smites it in sum-
mer? Save me, my father. "
And his head sank in despair as he beheld the unchanging
look of stern resolve with which the unbending sire regarded


## p. 13455 (#269) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13455
him. For a moment he was unmanned; until a loud shout of
derision from the crowd, as they beheld the show of his weak-
ness, came to the support of his pride. The Indian shrinks from
humiliation, where he would not shrink from death; and as the
shout reached his ears, he shouted back his defiance, raised his
head loftily in air, and with the most perfect composure com-
menced singing his song of death,-the song of many victories.
"Wherefore sings he his death-song? " was the cry from many
voices: "he is not to die! "
"Thou art the slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," cried Malatchie
to the captive; "thou shalt sing no lie of thy victories in the
ear of Yemassee. The slave of Opitchi-Manneyto has no tri-
umph;" and the words of the song were effectually drowned, if
not silenced, in the tremendous clamor which they raised about
him.
It was then that Malatchie claimed his victim. The doom had
been already given, but the ceremony of expatriation and out-
lawry was yet to follow; and under the direction of the prophet,
the various castes and classes of the nation prepared to take a
final leave of one who could no longer be known among them.
First of all came a band of young marriageable women, who,
wheeling in a circle three times about him, sang together a wild
apostrophe containing a bitter farewell, which nothing in our lan-
guage could perfectly embody:
-
"Go: thou hast no wife in Yemassee-thou hast given no
lodge to the daughter of Yemassee - thou hast slain no meat
for thy children. Thou hast no name- the women of Yemassee
know thee no more. They know thee no more. "
And the final sentence was reverberated from the entire
assembly:-
―――――
-:
"They know thee no more they know thee no more. "
Then came a number of the ancient men, the patriarchs of
the nation, who surrounded him in circular mazes three several
times, singing as they did so a hymn of like import:-
―
"Go: thou sittest not in the council of Yemassee - thou shalt
not speak wisdom to the boy that comes. Thou hast no name in
Yemassee the fathers of Yemassee, they know thee no more. >>
And again the whole assembly cried out, as with one voice:-
"They know thee no more—they know thee no more. "
These were followed by the young warriors, his old associates,
who now in a solemn band approached him to go through a like
―――――――――
――


## p. 13456 (#270) ##########################################

13456
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
performance. His eyes were shut as they came, his blood was
chilled in his heart, and the articulated farewell of their wild
chant failed seemingly to reach his ear. Nothing but the last
sentence he heard:
"Thou that wast a brother,
Thou art nothing now
The young warriors of Yemassee,
They know thee no more. "
-―
And the crowd cried with them:
"They know thee no more. "
"Is no hatchet sharp for Occonestoga? » moaned forth the
suffering savage.
But his trials were only then begun. Enoree-Mattee now
approached him with the words with which, as the representa-
tive of the good Manneyto, he renounced him—with which he
denied him access to the Indian heaven, and left him a slave
and an outcast, a miserable wanderer amid the shadows and the
swamps, and liable to all the dooms and terrors which come with
the service of Opitchi-Manneyto.
"Thou wast a child of Manneyto — »
sung the high priest in a solemn chant, and with a deep-toned
voice that thrilled strangely amid the silence of the scene.
"Thou wast a child of Manneyto-
He gave thee arrows and an eye;
Thou wast the strong son of Manneyto-
He gave thee feathers and a wing;
Thou wast a young brave of Manneyto-
He gave thee scalps and a war-song:
But he knows thee no more. he knows thee no more. "
-
And the clustering multitude again gave back the last line in
wild chorus. The prophet continued his chant:-
"That Opitchi-Manneyto!
He commands thee for his slave-
And the Yemassee must hear him,
Hear, and give thee for his slave:
They will take from thee the arrow,
The broad arrow of thy people;
Thou shalt see no blessed valley,


## p. 13457 (#271) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13457
Where the plum-groves always bloom;
Thou shalt hear no song of valor
From the ancient Yemassee;
Father, mother, name, and people,
Thou shalt lose with that broad arrow.
Thou art lost to the Manneyto-
He knows thee no more, he knows thee no more. "
The despair of hell was in the face of the victim, and he
howled forth in a cry of agony - that for a moment silenced
the wild chorus of the crowd around-the terrible consciousness
in his mind of that privation which the doom entailed upon him.
Every feature was convulsed with emotion; and the terrors of
Opitchi-Manneyto's dominion seemed already in strong exercise
upon the muscles of his heart, when Sanutee, the father, silently
approached him, and with a pause of a few moments, stood gaz-
ing upon the son from whom he was to be separated eternally-
whom not even the uniting, the restoring, hand of death could
possibly restore to him. And he, his once noble son,- the pride
of his heart, the gleam of his hope, the triumphant warrior, who
was even to increase his own glory, and transmit the endear-
ing title of Well-beloved, which the Yemassee had given him,
to a succeeding generation-he was to be lost forever! These
promises were all blasted; and the father was now present to
yield him up eternally-to deny him-to forfeit him, in fearful
penalty, to the nation whose genius he had wronged, and whose
rights he had violated. The old man stood for a moment,—
rather, we may suppose, for the recovery of his resolution, than
with any desire for the contemplation of the pitiable form before
him. The pride of the youth came back to him-the pride of
the strong mind in its desolation as his eye caught the inflexi-
ble gaze of his unswerving father; and he exclaimed bitterly and
loud:-
―――――
"Wherefore art thou come? Thou hast been my foe, not
my father! Away-I would not behold thee! " and he closed his
eyes after the speech, as if to relieve himself from a disgusting
presence.
"Thou hast said well, Occonestoga: Sanutee is thy foe; he is
not thy father. To say this in thy ears has he come. Look on
him, Occonestoga-look up and hear thy doom.
the old of the Yemassee, the warrior and the chief
XXIII-842
The young and
-they have
―――


## p. 13458 (#272) ##########################################

13458
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
all denied thee-all given thee up to Opitchi-Manneyto! Occo-
nestoga is no name for the Yemassee. The Yemassee gives it
to his dog.
The prophet of Manneyto has forgotten thee; thou
art unknown to those who were thy people. And I, thy father-
with this speech, I yield thee to Opitchi-Manneyto. Sanutee is
no longer thy father-thy father knows thee no more. "
And once more came to the ears of the victim that melancholy
chorus of the multitude: -"He knows thee no more, he knows
thee no more. "
Sanutee turned quickly away as he had spoken; and as if he
suffered more than he was willing to show, the old man rapidly
hastened to the little mound where he had been previously sit-
ting, his eyes averted from the further spectacle. Occonestoga,
goaded to madness by these several incidents, shrieked forth the
bitterest execrations, until Enoree-Mattee, preceding Malatchie,
again approached. Having given some directions in an under-
tone to the latter, he retired, leaving the executioner alone with
his victim. Malatchie then, while all was silence in the crowd,-
a thick silence, in which even respiration seemed to be suspended,
-proceeded to his duty: and lifting the feet of Occonestoga
carefully from the ground, he placed a log under them; then
addressing him, as he again bared his knife, which he stuck in
the tree above his head, he sung:-
-
"I take from thee the earth of Yemassee
I take from thee the water of Yemassee
I take from thee the arrow of Yemassee -
Thou art no longer a Yemassee -
The Yemassee knows thee no more. "
-
"The Yemassee knows thee no more," cried the multitude;
and their universal shout was deafening upon the ear. Occo-
nestoga said no word now; he could offer no resistance to the
unnerving hands of Malatchie, who now bared the arm more
completely of its covering. But his limbs were convulsed with
the spasms of that dreadful terror of the future which was rack-
ing and raging in every pulse of his heart. He had full faith
in the superstitions of his people. His terrors acknowledged
the full horrors of their doom. A despairing agony, which no
language could describe, had possession of his soul. Meanwhile
the silence of all indicated the general anxiety; and Malatchie
prepared to seize the knife and perform the operation, when a


## p. 13459 (#273) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13459
confused murmur arose from the crowd around: the mass gave
way and parted; and rushing wildly into the area came Matiwan,
his mother-the long black hair streaming-the features, an
astonishing likeness to his own, convulsed like his; and her ac-
tion that of one reckless of all things in the way of the forward
progress she was making to the person of her child. She cried
aloud as she came, with a voice that rang like a sudden death-bell
through the ring:-
―
"Would you keep the mother from her boy, and he to be lost
to her for ever? Shall she have no parting with the young brave
she bore in her bosom? Away, keep me not back- I will look
upon, I will love him. He shall have the blessing of Matiwan,
though the Yemassee and the Manneyto curse. "
The victim heard; and a momentary renovation of mental
life, perhaps a renovation of hope, spoke out in the simple excla-
mation which fell from his lips: -
"O Matiwan-O mother! "
She rushed towards the spot where she heard his appeal; and
thrusting the executioner aside, threw her arms desperately about
his neck.
"Touch him not, Matiwan," was the general cry from the
crowd. "Touch him not, Matiwan: Manneyto knows him no
more. "
"But Matiwan knows him; the mother knows her child,
though the Manneyto denies him. O boy-O boy, boy, boy! "
And she sobbed like an infant on his neck.
"Thou art come, Matiwan, thou art come; but wherefore? To
curse like the father—to curse like the Manneyto? " mournfully
said the captive.
"No, no, no! Not to curse not to curse! When did mother
curse the child she bore? Not to curse but to bless thee.
bless thee and forgive. "
To
"Tear her away," cried the prophet; "let Opitchi-Manneyto
have his slave. "
"Tear her away, Malatchie," cried the crowd, now impatient
for the execution. Malatchie approached.
"Not yet not yet," appealed the woman. "Shall not the
mother say farewell to the child she shall see no more? " and
she waved Malatchie back, and in the next instant drew hastily
from the drapery of her dress a small hatchet, which she had
there carefully concealed.


## p. 13460 (#274) ##########################################

13460
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
"What wouldst thou do, Matiwan? " asked Occonestoga, as his
eye caught the glare of the weapon.
"Save thee, my boy-save thee for thy mother, Occonestoga
-save thee for the happy valley. '
"Wouldst thou slay me, mother? wouldst strike the heart
of thy son? " he asked, with a something of reluctance to receive
death from the hands of a parent.
"I strike thee but to save thee, my son; since they cannot
take the totem from thee after the life is gone. Turn away from
me thy head; let me not look upon thine eyes as I strike, lest
my hands grow weak and tremble.
Turn thine eyes away-
I will not lose thee. "
His eyes closed; and the fatal instrument, lifted above her
head, was now visible in the sight of all. The executioner rushed
forward to interpose, but he came too late. The tomahawk was
driven deep into the skull, and but a single sentence from his
lips preceded the final insensibility of the victim.
"It is good, Matiwan, it is good: thou hast saved me- the
death is in my heart. And back he sank as he spoke; while a
shriek of mingled joy and horror from the lips of the mother
announced the success of her effort to defeat the doom, the most
dreadful in the imagination of the Yemassee.
"He is not lost-he is not lost! They may not take the
child from his mother. They may not keep him from the valley
of Manneyto. He is free-he is free! " And she fell back in
a deep swoon into the arms of Sanutee, who by this time had
approached. She had defrauded Opitchi-Manneyto of his victim,
for they may not remove the badge of the nation from any but
the living victim.
THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT
HE burden of the Desert,
The Desert like the deep,
That from the south in whirlwinds
Comes rushing up the steep; —
THE
I see the spoiler spoiling,
I hear the strife of blows:
Up, watchman, to thy heights, and say
How the dread conflict goes!


## p. 13461 (#275) ##########################################

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS
13461
What hear'st thou from the desert? -
"A sound as if a world
Were from its axle lifted up
And to an ocean hurled;
The roaring as of waters,
The rushing as of hills,
And lo! the tempest-smoke and cloud,
That all the desert fills. "
What seest thou on the desert?
"A chariot comes," he cried,
"With camels and with horsemen,
That travel by its side;
And now a lion darteth
From out the cloud, and he
Looks backward ever as he flies,
As fearing still to see! "
-
What, watchman, of the horsemen ?
"They come, and as they ride,
Their horses crouch and tremble,
Nor toss their manes in pride;
The camels wander scattered,
The horsemen heed them naught,
But speed as if they dreaded still
The foe with whom they fought. "
What foe is this, thou watchman ? —
"Hark! hark! the horsemen come;
Still looking on the backward path,
As if they feared a doom;
Their locks are white with terror,
Their very shouts a groan:
'Babylon,' they cry, 'has fallen,
And all her gods are gone! >»


## p. 13462 (#276) ##########################################

13462
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
(B. C. 556-468)
BY WALTER MILLER
ROM the steps of "Tritonia's airy shrine," adorning with its
glistering columns the summit of "Sunium's marbled steep,"
there opens over mountains and waters a wide prospect,
which for natural beauty and richness of suggestion is scarcely
surpassed in all the Hellenic world. Separated from Sunium only by
a narrow strait of that wine-dark sea, the nearest of the "isles that
crown the Ægean deep" is the first of the Cyclades, the island of
Ceos, - Ionian and yet almost Attic. As it is impossible to think of
Stratford-on-Avon without a suggestion of Shakespeare, so Ceos has
but little meaning for us apart from her great bard, Simonides.
There, in the village of Iulis, he was born (556 B. C. ), the son of
Leoprepes, himself a chorus-leader and a poet's son; and so, by right
of inheritance and education, something of the gift of song was his.
In the national festival celebrated near his home each year in honor
of Carthæan Apollo, the young Simonides found occasion and exercise
for his native gifts. There also the greatest poets of Greece com-
peted for the choral prize; and yet before he was thirty, that prize
was his again and again. His fame soon spread far beyond his
native isle; so that the Muse-loving Hipparchus, when he came to
gather round his court at Athens the first artists and poets of his
time, at once sent for young Simonides to come from Ceos.
Upon the assassination of Hipparchus (514), Simonides was called
to Thessaly to be poet-laureate to the sons of Scopas at Crannon and
Pharsalus, and afterward at the court of Larissa. His sound common-
sense, and the consummate diplomacy with which he treated rulers
and handled difficult problems of statecraft, gave him an influence
with kings and statesmen never enjoyed by any other poet. We find
him in his later years in the same position of honor with Hiero of
Syracuse. His nephew Bacchylides and Pindar were there too, as
were also Eschylus and Epicharmus; but it was Simonides whose in-
fluence told in affairs of State. Hiero had quarreled violently with
his kinsman Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum; war had been declared;
the opposing armies stood face to face ready for battle: the wisdom
and tact of Simonides won a bloodless victory; the warring tyrants
were reconciled, and the armies marched back to their homes in
peace.


## p. 13463 (#277) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13463
But it is at republican Athens that we find him at his best.
Though associated there with Miltiades, Themistocles, Cimon, King
Pausanias of Lacedæmon, Eschylus, Polygnotus, and the other giants
of those days of spiritual uplifting that followed the Persian wars,
his glory pales not in comparison. Those martial heroes beat back
the Mede at Marathon, Salamis, and Platea; he glorified the victo-
ries in his songs. In competition with the great warrior-poet Eschy-
lus himself, he won the State prize with his ode on Marathon.
Simonides died in Sicily in his eighty-ninth year (468), and was
buried before the gates of Syracuse.
As to his personal character: reared in accordance with the strict
moral code for which Ceos was justly famed, he had added to virtue
knowledge, and to knowledge temperance (owopodivn). Indeed, Simon-
ides's "temperance"- mastery of self, Hellenic "sanity» — had in
antiquity become proverbial. Love and wine find no place in his
verse. A striking feature of his writings is his tendency to moral
apothegms and maxims. The wisdom of the Seven Sages and the
piety of an Eschylus were his.
The world of critics, ancient and modern, has often reproached
him with being the first poet (though not the last! ) to sell his verse
for pay. Exalted Pindar did the same. And the calling of the poet
was reduced to a purely business basis. He knew what his work
was worth in gold, and he obtained his price. Witness Anaxilas of
Rhegium, who offered our poet-for a song of victory in honor of
his mules victorious in the race-a recompense too modest by half.
Simonides declined, so the story runs, explaining that he could not
sing the praises of asses' progeny. Anaxilas doubled his offer, and
Simonides in response wrote a famous ode beginning —
"Hail, daughters of the storm-swift steeds! »
But his literary contracts, according to the following anecdote,
were not always financially so successful. His Thessalian patron,
Scopas, once engaged him for a certain specified sum to write an ode
in his honor: when the ode was finished and sung, Scopas would pay
only half the stipulated honorarium, bidding Simonides collect the
other half from the Dioscuri whose praises had filled as large a por-
tion of the ode as his own. The grateful return was paid in full by
the sons of Zeus: Scopas, his sons, and all his court were banquet-
ing; the palace roof fell with a crash upon them, and Simonides
alone was saved. The gods are "better pay" than "tyrants"!
Simonides was the most productive of the Greek lyrists, as his
Muse was the most versatile. In no less than fifty-six public con-
tests, so he tells us, at fifty-six public festivals, his lyrical composi-
tions gained the first prize; and there may have been more after
that was written,- phenomenal success, when we remember that


## p. 13464 (#278) ##########################################

13464
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
Euripides, the favorite of the Hellenic world, received first prize
but five times. His successes moreover were commensurate with
his years. We have another epigram in which he rejoices to have
won at Athens, in his eighty-first year (476), the first prize with a
composition of his own produced by a chorus of fifty voices, with
Aristides the Just as choragos. And his public victories must, in
comparison with his odes written for private individuals and his
spontaneous bursts of song, have been only the smallest part of his
life's work.
His productions cover almost every field of lyrical composition.
No sort of choral song seems to have been wanting from his reper-
toire. We have fragments of Pæans, Hymns, Dithyrambs, Hypor-
chemes, Epinicia, Elegies, Dirges, and more, besides the Epigrams.
It is upon the epigrams that his greatest fame must rest, as they
alone of the extant remains do not consist of mere fragments. The
epigram was originally what the name implies,— the inscription upon
a tomb or upon a votive offering to explain its significance. By a
natural transfer of meaning, an epigram easily came to be a couple
of verses containing in pointed, polished form, a thought which might
very well serve as an inscription to the object that suggested it.
The unexpected-the ingenious turning of the point at the end-
was no essential feature of the classical epigram; but within the
compass of the few verses allotted to it, the story it had to tell must
be complete. And no one possessed in like degree the gift Simoni-
des had, of crowding a bookful of meaning into two faultless lines.
Upon the tomb of the Three Hundred at Thermopyla he wrote:
Go thou, stranger, and bear to Lacedæmon this message: —
Tell them that here we lie, faithful to Sparta's commands.
How long a poem he might with such a theme have made! But in
two lines, without a trace of artificiality or forced rhetoric, he has
sketched the Spartan character, and told the whole story of that
loyal devotion to country that meant so much to every Greek. De-
scription there is none: that would have been superfluous. No word
of praise is there: the deeds were their own encomium.
Diophon, Philo's son, at the Isthmus and Pytho a victor;
Broad jump, foot-race, disk, spear-throw, and wrestle he won.
In one line he gives his hero's name, his lineage, and his victory at
two great festivals; into the five words of the pentameter line with
consummate skill he puts in the exact order of their succession in
the stadium the five events of the Greek pentathlon, in which Philo's
son was victor.


## p. 13465 (#279) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13465
The finest and most famous of all his epigrams are those inspired
by the Persian wars. The glory of those days permeated his verse;
the life of the victorious living and the death of the noble slain are
both glorified. These verses may be wanting in splendor and mag-
nificence: the man who could have furnished those qualities had
"stood on the wrong side in his country's life struggle; and Greece
turned to Simonides, not to Pindar, to make the record of her heroic
dead. " (Murray. ) A few even of these are no more than plain, pro-
saic statements of fact. Compare —
When, as leader of Greece, he routed the Median army,
King Pausanias gave Phoebus this off'ring of thanks,-
with the simple lines on the men of Tegea who fell at Platææ:-
Thanks to the valor of these men! that smoke never blackened the
heavens,
Rising from Median flames blazing in Tegean homes.
Theirs was to leave to their children a city of glory and freedom,
Theirs to lay down their lives, slain in defense of their own,—
and the general epitaph of the heroes of Platææ:-
-
---
Glory immortal they left a bequest to the land of their fathers-
Fame for the land they loved; death's sable shroud for themselves.
Still, though dead, are they not dead; for here their virtue abiding
Brings them from Hades again, gives them a glorious life.
-
A difficulty which taxed the epigrammatist's utmost skill to sur-
mount was the graceful weaving in of unmetrical names, of dates,
and of other naturally prosaic necessities. How well Simonides could
handle even these is illustrated by the two following autobiographical
notices:-
The following is brevity "gone to seed » :-
"Tell me then who thou art.
"Casmyl. Euagoras's son.
CHIEF of the Archons in Athens that year they named Adimantus,
When the fair tripod of bronze fell to Antiochis's tribe.
That year Xenophilus's son, Aristides the Just, was choragos,
Leader of fifty men singing the praise of the god.
Glory was won for their trainer, Simonides,- poet victorious,-
Ceian Leoprepes's son, then in his eightieth year.
-
FIFTY-AND-SIX great bulls, Simonides, fell to thee, prizes,
Tripods fifty-and-six, won ere this tablet was set.
So many times having trained the gladsome chorus of singers,
Victory's splendid car glorious didst thou ascend.
Whose son? Of what country? What victory ? »
From Rhodes. Boxing at Pytho. "


## p. 13466 (#280) ##########################################

13466
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
In the epigrams the dialect is Attic; in the choral odes the con-
ventional Doric has been retained.
The "epinician," the choral song in honor of a victor in the great
national games of Greece, may almost be called Simonides's own cre-
ation. Down to the times of Simonides a few verses had sufficed;
but with him came the full artistic structure of the magnificent
epinician ode as we find it perfected in Pindar. With the glorifica-
tion of the victor, the praises of a god or a mythical hero connected
with the victor-his fortunes, his family, or his country—are appro-
priately interwoven. Passing on by easy transitions from the human
to the divine, and from the divine again to the human, the poet dwells
upon the lessons of truth and wisdom suggested by his hero's life,
and the god whom he has glorified. "To be perfectly good is a hard
matter: only God may be perfect; and man is good only as God
dwells in him. "
In the epinicia, Simonides may fall short of the grandeur of
Pindar, and yield supremacy to him alone. But in the field of Elegy
and of the Dirge, as in the Epigram, he stands without a peer in the
world's literature. Pindar's pathos may be sublime, Eschylus's awful;
but Simonides knows how to touch the heart. Pindar philosophizes
on the glory awaiting the dead whose life has been well spent:
Simonides gives expression to the sorrow of the hearts that mourn,
and awakens our sympathies; he knows the healing power of tears,
and the power that the story of another's sorrow has to make them
flow, when one's own grief seems to have dried their fountain. He
dwells upon the frailty of human fortunes, the inevitability of fate,
and the goodness and justice of God, -the consolation of sympa-
thy, not of hope. What threnos could be more exquisitely delicate
and touching than Danaë's mother-heart yearning over her sleeping
babe,― unconscious of any danger, as together in the chest they
are helplessly tossed by the storm upon the waves; and the tearful
appeal at the end to Zeus, the father of her child! And as she
prays, the storm in her own bosom is stilled.
No less fine, in exquisite pathos and exalted patriotic sentiment,
are the few verses left to us of the elegy on the heroes of Ther-
mopylæ. It is quoted in full below.
Simonides's position among the melic poets may be suggested by
the influence he exercised on the development of lyric poetry, espe-
cially in choral song. (1) The dithyramb he removed from the narrow
sphere of Bacchus-worship and adapted it to the service of any god.
(2) With him the threnos was elevated from a simple monody to a
great choral.
(3) It was Simonides who introduced the myth into the
epinician and gave it the form which Pindar perfected. (4) And the
epigram as a recognized division of poetry is his own creation.


## p. 13467 (#281) ##########################################

SIMONIDES OF CEOS
13467
The best editions of the fragments are - Bergk, 'Poetæ Lyrici
Græci,' 4th ed. , Vol. iii. ; Schneidewin, Simonidis Cei Carminum Reli-
quiæ '; Hartung, 'Poetæ Lyrici Græci,' with a German translation, Vol.
vi. A few translations are given in Appleton, Greek Poetry in Eng-
lish Verse,' and Tomlinson, 'Selections from the Greek Anthology. '
(
Walter Miller
DANAE'S LAMENT
ND while she lay within the carven chest,
AND
Rocked by the soughing winds and troubled waves,
Fear crept into her not untearstained cheeks,
And clasping Perseus closelier round she spake :-
"O child, what woes are mine! Yet thou sleep'st sound.
In infant heedlessness thou slumberest
Within the bronze-nailed chest,
While lampless night and darkness swathe thee round.
Nor though the washing brine bedew thy hair,
Takest thou care,
Nor though the wind lift up its voice aloud,—
Face to my face, wrapped in thy purple shroud.
Not fearful unto thee the name of Fear!
Else wouldst thou to my words lend readier ear.
"Yet sleep, my babe, I bid thee sleep, my child,
And sleep, ye waters wild;
Sleep, mine insatiate woe!
And grant, O father Zeus, some respite come
Out of thy mercy. Nay, too bold I know
This boon I ask, past justice to bestow:
I pray thee, pardon me, my lips are dumb. "
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature' by Alphonse
G. Newcomer


## p. 13468 (#282) ##########################################

13468
SIMONIDES OF CEOS
[The following versions are all taken from a careful study of Simonides by
John Sterling. The essay appeared in the Westminster Review for
1838.