a. [f. proper name Tyrtæus, Gr. Τυρταῖος (see def.) + -AN.] Pertaining to or in the style of Tyrtæus, a Greek poet of the 7th century B.C., who composed martial songs for the Spartans; martial, warlike.
1783. Monthly Rev., XXVIII. Jan., 16. How great is the power of Tyrtæan verse!
1812. William-Thomas Fitz-Gerald, Addr. Anniv. Lit. Fund, 6.
| Such strains, more useful than TYRTÆAN LAYS, | |
| Might well deserve a grateful NATION’s praise. |
1869. Whittier, Among the Hills, etc., 97.
| And, answering, struck from Sappho’s lyre | |
| Of love the Tyrtæan carmen’s fire. |
1879. Swinburne, Stud. Shaks. (1880), 114. There was nothing of the dry Tyrtæan twang, the dull mechanic resonance.
1898. G. W. E. Russell, Collect. & Recoll., xxix. 380. Twenty years ago … the music-halls rang with the ‘Great MacDermott’s Tyrtæan strain:—
| We don’t want to fight; but, by Jingo, if we do, | |
| We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too. |
1904. Zangwill, The War for the World (1916), 255. It would appear that the Lord Chamberlain (or Jo) was not actually first in the field, though his Tyrtæan speeches practically operated as a heavy tax upon the patience of other peoples.
1920. G. E. Woodberry, The Roamer, etc., 226.
| O wake again, Tyrtæan lyre | |
| That flung the world’s first tyrants low! | |
| Heap up thy urn with holy fire | |
| That now doth in all peoples glow! |
1922. C. E. Montague, Disenchantment, iii. 29. Scotsmen and Irishmen screwed themselves up to the sticking-point with their Tyrtæan anti-English ballads.
