Και Παρτη παραχροος

Και αυτος Έρως και επιειν.

These lines, which appear to me to have as little sense as metre, are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber.

1 The commentators who have endeavoured to throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this beautiful trifle, require too much from Anacreontic philosophy. Monsieur Gail very wisely thinks, that the poet uses the epithet uzdatvn, because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any others and accordingly he indulges

us with an experimental disquisition on the subject. See Gail's notes. One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode, in an epitaph on a drunkard.

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus,
Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit.
Sic bibit assidue fontes et Bumina Pontus,
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne te igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse;
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manus.
HIPPOLYTUS CAPILEPES.

While life was mine, the little hour
In drinking still unvaried flew ;

I drank as earth imbibes the shower,
Or as the rainbow drinks the dew.

As ocean quaffs the rivers up,

Or flushing sun inhales the sea;
Silenus trembled at my cup,

And Bacchus was outdone by me!

I cannot omit citing those remarkable lines of Shakspeare, where the thoughts of the ode before us are preserved with such striking similitude:

TIMON, ACT IV.

I'll example you with thievery.

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea. The moon 's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The mounds into salt tears. The carth's a thief,
That feeds, and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrements.

And then the dewy cordial gives
To every thirsty plant that lives.
The vapours, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy snn appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.
The moon, too, quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre from the solar beam.

Then, hence with all your sober thinking!

Since Nature's holy law is drinking;
I'll make the laws of Nature mine,

And pledge the universe in wine!

ODE XXII.'

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,
Was once a weeping matron's form;
And Progne, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.

1 Ogilvie, in his Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients, in remarking upon the Odes of Anacreon, says, In some of his pieces there is exuberance and even wildness of imagination; in that particularly which is addressed to a young girl, where he wishes alternately to be transformed to a mirror, a coat, a stream, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes, for the different purposes which he recites; this is mere sport and wantonness. »

It is the wantonness, however, of a very graceful muse; ludit amabiliter. The compliment of this ode is exquisitely delicate, and so singular for the period in which Anacreon lived, when the scale of love had not yet been graduated into all its little progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument in the features of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any of those fastidious conjectures upon which some commentators have presumed so far. Degen thinks it spurious, and De Pauw pronounces it to be miserable. Longepierre and Barnes refer us to several imitations of this ode, from which I shall only select an epigram of Dionysius: Είθ' ανεμος γενόμην, συ δε γε ςείχουσα παρ' αυγας, Στεθεά γυμνωσαις, και με πνεοντα λάβοις. Elle podov yevopný úпoпopрuрo», oppa μe xepoly Αραμένη, κομισαις ςέθεσι χιονεοις.

Ειθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχροον, όφρα με χερσιν
Δραμένη, μαλλον της χροτιης κορέσης.

I wish I could like zephyr steal

To wanton o'er thy mazy vest;
And thou wouldst ope thy bosom veil,

And take me panting to thy breast!

I wish I might a rose-bud grow,

And thou wouldst cull me from the bower,

And place me on that breast of snow,
Where I should bloom, a wintry flower!

I wish I were the lily's leaf,

To fade upon that bosom warm;

There I should wither, pale and brief,

The trophy of thy fairer form!

Allow me to add, that Plato has expressed as fanciful a wish in a distich preserved by Laertius:

Αςερας εισαθρεις, αςηρ εμος· είθε γενοίμην
Ουρανος· ὡς πολλοις όμμασιν εις σε βλεπω.

TO STELLA.

Why dost thou gaze upon the sky?

Oh that I were that spangled sphere, And every star should be an eye

To wonder on thy beauties here!

Apuleius quotes this epigram of the divine philosopher, to justify himself for his verses on Critias and Charinus. See his Apology, where he also adduces the example of Anacreon: Fecere tamen et alii talia, et si vos ignoratis, apud Græcos Teius quidam,» etc. etc.

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine, To sparkle with that smile divine; And, like my heart, I then should be Reflecting thee, and only thee!

Or were I, love, the robe which flows
O'er every charm that secret glows,
In many a lucid fold to swim,
And cling and grow to every limb!
Oh! could I, as the streamlet's wave,
Thy warmly-mellowing beauties lave,
Or float as perfume on thine hair,
And breathe my soul in fragrance there!
I wish I were the zone that lies
Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs?
Or like those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow;
Yes, I would be a happy gem,
Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Oh! any thing that touches thee.
Nay, sandals for those airy feet-
Thus to be press'd by thee were sweet!

ODE XXIII. '

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,

This warbler of my soul's desire,

I wish I were the zone that lies

Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs!] This Talven was a riband or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophiam, which the women wore for the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial:

Fascia crescentes domina compesce papillas.

The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fashion of compressing the waist into a very narrow compass, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom. See Dioscorides, lib. v.

Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame, in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,
Along the chords my numbers die,
And whisper, with dissolving tone,

« Our sighs are given to love alone!»>
Indignant at the feeble lay,

I tore the panting chords away,
Attuned them to a nobler swell,
And struck again the breathing shell;
In all the glow of epic fire,

To Hercules I wake the lyre!
But still its fainting sighs repeat,
«The tale of Love alone is sweet!»
Then fare thee well, seductive dream,
That mad'st me follow Glory's theme;
For thou, my lyre, and thou, my heart,
Shall never more in spirit part;
And thou the flame shalt feel as well
As thou the flame shalt sweetly tell!

that of the thirteenth line:

He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood,

O Jove! quoth she, why was not I a flood ?»

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whimsical farrago of all such reading as was never read, there is a very old translation of this ode, before 1632. Englished by Mr B. Holiday, in his Technog. act i, scene 7..

This ode is first in the series of all the editions, and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an introduction to the rest; it however characterizes the genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it.

➖➖cum multo Venerem confundere mero Precepit Lyrici Teia Musa senis.

OVID.

The twenty-sixth Ode, ou μsy dɛɛyis ta Onens, might, with as much propriety, be the harbinger of his songs.

Bion bas expressed the sentiments of the ode before us with much simplicity in his fourth idyl. I have given it rather paraphrastically; it has been so frequently translated, that I could not otherwise avoid triteness and repetition.

'Henry Stephens has imitated the idea of this ode in the following lines of one of his poems:

Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma,
Et sua fœmineum possidet arma genus,
Ungulaque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum,
Armata est forma formina pulchra sua.

And the same thought occurs in those lines, spoken by Corisca in Pastor Fido:

Cosi noi la bellezza

Che è virtù nostra cosi propria, come

La forza del leone

El'ingegno de l'huomo.

The lion boasts his savage powers,

And lordly man his strength of mind ;
But beauty's charm is solely ours,
Peculiar boon, by Heaven assign'd!

- An elegant explication of the beauties of this ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm en deu Anmerrkk. Veber einige Oden des

Anakr..

But surely 't is the worst of pain,
To love and not be loved again!
Affection now has fled from earth,
Nor fire of genius, light of birth,
Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile

From beauty's cheek one favouring smile.
Gold is the woman's only theme,
Gold is the woman's only dream.
Oh! never be that wretch forgiven-
Forgive him not, indignant Heaven!--
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore,
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore.
Since that devoted thirst began,
Man has forgot to feel for man;
The pulse of social life is dead,
And all its fonder feelings fled!
War too has sullied Nature's charms,
For gold provokes the world to arms!
And oh! the worst of all its art,
I feel it breaks the lover's heart!

ODE XXX.

'T WAS in an airy dream of night,
I fancied, that I wing'd my flight
On pinions fleeter than the wind,

While little Love, whose feet were twined
(I know not why) with chains of lead,
Pursued me as I trembling fled;
Pursued-and could I e'er have thought?-
Swift as the moment I was caught!
What does the wanton Fancy mean
By such a strange, illusive scene?
I fear she whispers to my breast,

That you, my girl, have stolen my rest;
That though my fancy, for a while,
Has hung on many a woman's smile,
I soon dissolved the passing vow,

And ne'er was caught by Love till now!

ODE XXXI. *

ARM'D with hyacinthine rod (Arms enough for such a god),

When the mind is dull and dark.
Love can light it with his spark!
Come, oh! come then, let us haste
All the bliss of love to taste;
Let us love both night and day,
Let us love our lives away!
And when hearts, from loving free
(If indeed such hearts there be),
Frown upon our gentle flame,
And the sweet delusion blame;
This shall be my only curse,
(Could J, could I wish them worse?)
May they ne'er the rapture prove
Of the smile from lips we love!

Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. I do not perceive any thing in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in ber life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. 2 The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram (I do not know where he found it), which has some similitude to this ode:

STREW me a breathing bed of leaves
Where lotus with the myrtle weaves;

Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis
Carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam;
Cum me sævus Amor preusum, sursumque capillis
Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet.

Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas,
Solus lo, solus, dure jacere potes?

Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta,
Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire
Pænitet; et pudor est stare via media.

Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum,
Et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum.
Solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque,
Et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, tuum.
Upon my couch I lay, at night profound,
My languid eyes in magic slumber bound,
When Cupid came and snatch'd me from my bed,

And forced me many a weary way to tread.
What! (said the god) shall you, whose vows are known,
Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?
Irise and follow; all the night I stray,
Unshelter'd, trembling, doubtful of my way,
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interr'd,
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard;
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

My brow was chill with drops of dew.) I have followed those who read τειρεν ίδρως for πειρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads πειρεν ίδρως.

And now my soul, exhausted, dying,

To my lip was faintly flying, etc.] In the original, he says his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich, quoted by Aulus Gellius:

Την ψυχήν, Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χείλεσιν έσχον, Ηλθε γαρ ή τλημων ὡς διαβησομενη

Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sìp.

And drink thy breath, in melting twine,

My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

Aulas Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find many of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language.

And, fanning light his breezy plume,

Recall'd me from my languid gloom.]

The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion.-LA FOSSE.

1 We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup-bearer. Some interpreters have

And, while in luxury's dream I sink,
Let me the balm of Bacchus drink!
In this delicious hour of joy
Young Love shall be my goblet-boy;
Folding his little golden vest,

With cinctures, round his snowy breast,
Himself shall hover by my side,
And minister the racy tide!

Swift as the wheels that kindling roll,
Our life is hurrying to the goal:
A scanty dust to feed the wind,
Is all the trace 't will leave behind.
Why do we shed the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb?

Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
Affect the slumbering chill of death?
No, no;
I ask no balm to steep
With fragrant tears my bed of sleep:
But now, while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing;
Now let the rose with blush of fire,
Upon my brow in scent expire;
And bring the nymph with floating eye,
Oh! she will teach me how to die!
Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire,
To join the blest Elysian choir,

With wine, and love, and blisses dear,
I'll make my own Elysium here!

ODE XXXIII.

T WAS noon of night, when round the pole
The sullen Bear is seen to roll;
And mortals, wearied with the day,
Are slumbering all their cares away:
An infant, at that dreary hour,
Came weeping to my silent bower,
And waked me with a piteous prayer,
To save him from the midnight air!

ruined the picture by making Epong the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho has assigned this office to Venus, in a fragment. EX6s, kumpi, ypusetataty 8 κυλίκεσσιν άθροις συμμεμιγμένον θαλια σε νεκταρ οι νοχοουσα τουτοισι τοις έταιροις εμοις γε και σοις. Which may be thus paraphrased:

Hither, Venus! queen of kisses,
This shall be the night of blisses!
This the night, to friendship dear,
Thou shalt be our Hebe bere.
Fill the golden brimmer high,
Let it sparkle like thine eye!
Bid the rosy current gash,
Let it mantle like thy blush!
Venus hast thou e'er above
Seen a feast so rich in love?
Not a soul that is not mine!

Not a soul that is not thine!

■Compare with this ode (says the German commentator) the beautiful poem in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv, p. 296. Amor als Diener..

↑ Monsieur Bernard, the author of l'Art d'Aimer, has written a ballet called Les Surprises de l'Amour, in which the subject of the third entrée is Anacreon, and the story of this ode suggests one of the scenes. OEuvres de Bernard, Anac. scene 4th.

The German annotator refers us here to an imitation by Uz, lib. lii, Amor und sein Bruder, and a poem of Kleist die Heilung. La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode,

That bid'st my blissful visions fly!
. O gentle sire! the infant said,
. In pity take me to thy shed;
Nor fear deceit: a lonely child
I wander o'er the gloomy wild.
Chill drops the rain, and not a ray
Illumes the drear and misty way!»
I hear the baby's tale of woe;

I hear the bitter night-winds blow;
And, sighing for his piteous fate,
I trimm'd my lamp, and oped the gate.
'T was Love! the little wandering sprite,
His pinion sparkled through the night!
I knew him by his bow and dart;

I knew him by my fluttering heart!

I take him in, and fondly raise
The dying embers' cheering blaze;
Press from his dank and clinging hair

The crystals of the freezing air,
And in my hand and bosom hold
His little fingers thrilling cold.
And now the embers' genial ray
Had warm'd his anxious fears away;
I pray thee,» said the wanton child
(My bosom trembled as he smiled),

. I pray thee let me try my bow,
For through the rain I've wander'd so,
That much I fear the ceaseless shower
Has injured its elastic power..
The fatal bow the urchin drew;
Swift from the string the arrow flew;
Oh! swift it flew as glancing flame,
And to my very soul it came!

Fare thee well, I heard him say,
As laughing wild he wing'd away;
Fare thee well, for now I know
The rain has not relax'd my bow;
It still can send a maddening dart,
As thou shalt own with all thy heart!

ODE XXXIV..

On thou, of all creation blest, Sweet insect! that delight'st to rest

• And who art thou,» I waking cry,

That bidst my blissful visions fly?] Anacreon appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which he expresses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the odes x and xxxvit.

'T was Love! the little wandering sprite, etc.] See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl.

Father Rapin, in a Latin ode addressed to the grasshopper, has preserved some of the thoughts of our author:

O quæ virenti graminis in toro,
Cicada, blande sidis, et herbidos
Saltus oberras, otiosos
Ingeniosa ciere cantus,

Seu forte adultis floribus incubas,
Cali cadacis ebria fletibus, etc.

Oh thee, that on the grassy bed
Which Nature's vernal hand has spread,
Reclinest soft, and tunest thy song,
The dewy herbs and leaves among!
Whether thou liest on springing flowers,
Drunk with the balmy morning-showers,
Or, etc.

See what Lietus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93 and 185

Upon the wild wood's leafy tops,
To drink the dew that morning drops,
And chirp thy song with such a glee,
That happiest kings may envy thee!
Whatever decks the velvet field,
Whate'er the circling seasons yield,
Whatever buds, whatever blows,
For thee it buds, for thee it grows.
Nor yet art thou the peasant's fear,
To him thy friendly notes are dear;
For thou art mild as matin dew,
And still, when summer's flowery hue
Begins to paint the bloomy plain,
We hear thy sweet prophetic strain;
Thy sweet prophetic strain we hear,
And bless the notes and thee revere!
The Muses love thy shrilly tone;
Apollo calls thee all his own;

"T was he who gave that voice to thee,
'T is he who tunes thy minstrelsy,
Unworn by age's dim decline,
The fadeless blooms of youth are thine.
Melodious insect! child of earth!
In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth;
Exempt from every weak decay,
That withers vulgar frames away;
With not a drop of blood to stain
The current of thy purer vein;
So blest an age is pass'd by thee,
Thou seem'st a little deity!

ODE XXXV.'

CUPID once upon a bed

Of roses laid his weary head;

And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc.] Some authors have affirmed (says Madame Dacier), that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, who says, εἰτ ̓ εἰσιν οἱ τεττιγες ουκ ευδαίμονες, ών ταις γυναιξιν ουδ' ότι ουν φωνης ενί; ' are not the grasshoppers happy in having dumb wives?' This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I chose rather to make Madame Dacier my authority for it.

The Muses love thy shrilly tone, etc.] Phile. de Animal. Proprietat., calls this insect Mousats ptos, the darling of the Muses; and Mousa opyty, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following puaning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius:

Των πάντων δ' ἡγει το πλατυςατος, αλλ' αγορητής Ηδυεπης τεττιξιν ισογράφος, οἱ θ' εκαδήμου Δενδρεα εφεζομενοι οπα λειριοεσσαν ιείσι.

This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, A. where there occurs the very same simile.

Melodious insect! child of earth!] Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the Anthologia, where be prefers the grasshopper to the swan :

Αρκει τεττιγας μεθυσαι δρόσος, αλλά πιοντες

Αείδειν κύκνων εισι γεγωνότεροι.

In dew, that drops from morning's wings,

The gay Cicada sipping floats;

And, drunk with dew, his matin sings

Sweeter than any cygnet's notes.

Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyl, but is very inferior, I think, to his original, in delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser, in one of his smaller compositions,

Luckless urchin not to see
Within the leaves a slumbering bee!
The bee awaked-with anger wild
The bee awaked and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies!
«Oh mother!-I am wounded through-

I die with pain—in sooth I do!
Stung by some little angry thing,
Some serpent on a tiny wing-
A bee it was-for once, I know,
I heard a rustic call it so.>>

has sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which I allude begins thus:

Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering

All in his mother's lap;

A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring, About him flew by hap, etc.

In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose.

The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflec tions which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I hope I shall be pardoned for introducing another Greek Anacreontic of Monsieur Menage, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of this natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved:

Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις
Των παρθένων αυτον
Την μοι φίλην Κορίνναν
Ὡς είδεν, ὡς προς αυτήν
Προσέδραμε τραχηλῳ
Διδυμας τε χειρας άπτων
Φίλει με, μητερ, είπε.
Καλούμενη Κορίννα
Μητηρ, ερυθριάζει,
Ὡς παρθενος μεν ουσα.
Κ' αυτος δε δυσχεραίνων,
Ως ομμασι πλανηθείς,
Έρως ερυθριάζει.
Εγω δὲ οἱ παραςας,
Μη δυσχέραινε, φημι.
Κύπριν τε και Κορίνναν
Διαγνώσαι ουκ έχουσι
Και οἱ βλέποντες οξύ.

As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain,
The flow'ret of the virgin train,
My soul's Corinna, lightly play'd,
Young Cupid saw the graceful maid;
He saw, and in a moment flew,
And round her neck his arms he threw;
And said, with smiles of infant joy,

Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!
Unconscious of a mother's name,
The modest virgin blush'd with shame!
And angry Cupid, scarce believing
That vision could be so deceiving.
Thus to mistake his Cyprian dame,
The little infant blush'd with shame,
Be not ashamed, my boy, I cried,
For I was lingering by his side;

Corinna and thy lovely mother, Believe me, are so like each other, That clearest eyes are oft betrayed, And take thy Venus for the maid,»

Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated this ode of Ana

creon.