Note 114a — VIII—THE BORROWED CONCEITS OF THE SONNETS

In Greek poetry the topic is treated in Pindar’s Olympic Odes, xi., and in a fragment by Sappho, No. 16 in Bergk’s Poetæ Lyrici Græci. In Latin poetry the topic is treated in Ennius as quoted in Cicero, De Senectute, c. 207; in Horace’s Odes, iii. 30; in Virgil’s Georgics, iii. 9; in Propertius, iii. 1; in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, xv. 871 seq.; and in Martial, x. 27 seq. Among French sonnetteers Ronsard attacked the theme most boldly. His odes and sonnets promise immortality to the persons to whom they are addressed with an extravagant and a monotonous liberality. The following lines from Ronsard’s Ode (livre i. No. vii.) ‘Au Seigneur Carnavalet,’ illustrate his habitual treatment of the theme:—