Why to mute fish should thou thyself discover,
And not to me thy no less silent lover?
As some from men their buried gold commit
To ghosts, that have no use of it;
Half their rich treasures so

Maids bury: and, for aught we know,
(Poor ignorants!) they're mermaids all below.
The amorous waves would fain about her stay,
But still new amorous waves drive them away,
And with swift current to those joys they haste,
That do as swiftly waste:

I laugh'd the wanton play to view;
But 'tis, alas! at land so too,

And still old lovers yield the place to new.
Kiss her, and as you part, you amorous waves,
(My happier rivals, and my fellow-slaves)
Point to your flowery banks, and to her shew
The good your bounties do;

Then tell her what your pride doth cost,
And how your use and beauty's lost,
When rigorous Winter binds you up with frost.
Tell her, her beauties and her youth, like thee,
Haste without stop to a devouring sea;
Where they will mix'd and undistinguish'd lie
With all the meanest things that die;
As in the ocean thou

Alas! what comfort is 't that I am grown
Secure of being again o'erthrown?
Since such an enemy needs not fear
Lest any else should quarter there,
Who has not only sack'd, but quite burnt down,
the town.

THE FORCE OF LOVE.

PRESERVED FROM AN OLD MANUSCRIPT.

THROW an apple up an hill,
Down the apple tumbles still;
Roll it down, it never stops
Till within the vale it drops:
So are all things prone to Love,
All below, and all above.

Down the mountain flows the stream,
Up ascends the lambent flame;
Smoke and vapour mount the skies;
All preserve their unities;
Nought below, and nought above,
Seems averse, but prone to Love.
Stop the meteor in its flight,
Or the orient rays of light;
Bid Dan Phoebus not to shine,
Bid the planets not incline;
'Tis as vain, below, above,
To impede the course of Love.
Salamanders live in fire,

Eagles to the skies aspire,
Diamonds in their quarries lie,
Rivers do the sea supply:
Thus appears, below, above,
A propensity to Love.

Metals grow within the mine,
Luscious grapes upon the vine;
Still the needle marks the pole;
Parts are equal to the whole:
'Tis a truth as clear, that Love
Quickens all, below, above.
Man is born to live and die,
Snakes to creep, and birds to fly;
Fishes in the waters swim,
Doves are mild, and lions grim:
Nature thus, below, above,
Pushes all things on to Love.

Does the cedar love the mountain?
Or the thirsty deer the fountain?
Does the shepherd love his crook ?
Or the willow court the brook?
Thus by nature all things move,
Like a running stream, to Love.
Is the valiant hero bold?
Does the miser doat on gold?

If e'er I clear my heart of this desire,

If e'er it home to its breast retire,
It ne'er shall wander more about,
Though thousand beauties call it out:

A lover burnt like me for ever dreads the fire.

The pox, the plague, and every small disease
May come as oft as ill-fate please;
Put Death and Love are never found
To give a second wound :

We're by those serpents bit; but we're devour'd by these.

Breathes the rose-bud scented air
Should you this deny, you'll prove
Nature is averse to Love.

As the wencher loves a lass,
As the toper loves his glass,
As the friar loves his cowl,
Or the miller loves the toll,
So do all, below, above,
Fly precipitate to Love.

When young maidens courtship shun, When the Moon out-shines the Sun,

worthy kind of servitude, is incapable of producing any thing good or noble. 1 have seen originals, both in painting and poesy, much more beautiful than their natural objects; but I never saw a copy better than the original: which indeed cannot be otherwise; for men resolving in no case to shoot beyond the mark, it is a thousand to one if they shoot not short of it. It does not at all trouble me, that the grammariars, perhaps, will not suffer this libertine way of rendering foreign authors to be called translation; for I am not so much enamoured of the name translator, as not to wish rather to be something better, though it want yet a name. I speak not so much all this, in defence of my manner of translating, or imitating, (or what other title they please) the two ensuing Odes of Pindar; for that would not deserve half these words; as by this occasion to rectify the opinion of divers The Psalms of David men upon this matter. (which I believe to have been in their original, to the Hebrews of his time, though not to our Hebrews of Buxtorfius's making, the inost exalted pieces of poesy) are a great example of what I have said; all the translators of which, (even Mr. Sandys himself; for in despite of pular errour, I will be bold not to except him) for this very reason, that they have not sought to supply the lost excellencies of another language with new ones in their own, are so far from doing honour, or at least justice, to that divine poet, that methinks they revile him worse than Shimei. And Buchanan himself (though much the best of them all, and indeed a great person) comes in my opinion no less short of David, than his country does of Judea. Upon this ground I have, in these two Odes of Pindar, taken, left out, and added, what I please; nor make it so much my aim to let the reader know precisely what he spoke, as what was his way and manner of speaking; which has not been yet (that I know of) introduced into English, though it be the noblest and highest kind of writing in verse; and which might, perhaps, be put into the list of Pancirolus, among the lost inventions of antiquity. This essay is but to try how it will look in an English habit: for which experiment 1 have chosen one of his Olympic, and another of his Nemean Odes; which are as followeth.

po

THE SECOND OLYMPIC ODE OF PINDAR.

Written in praise of Theron, prince of Agrigentum, (a famous city in Sicily, built by his ancestors) who, in the seventy-seventh Olympic, won the chariot-prize. He is commended

from the nobility of his race, (whose story is often toucht on) from his great riches, (an ordinary common-place in Pindar) from his hospitality, munificence, and other virtues. The Ode (according to the constant custom of the poet) consists more in digressions, than in the main subject: and the reader must not be choqued to hear him speak so often of his

own Muse; for that is a liberty which this kind of poetry can hardly live without.

QUEEN of all harmonious things,

Dancing words, and speaking strings! What god, what hero, wilt thou sing? What happy man to equal glories bring? Begin, begin thy noble choice,

[voice. And let the hills around reflect the image of thy Pisa does to Jove belong; Jove and Pisa claim thy song.

The fair first-fruits of war, th' Olympic games, Alcides offer'd-up to Jove;

Alcides too thy strings may move: [prove!
But, oh! what man to join with these can worthy
Join Theron boldly to their sacred names;
Theron the next honour claims:
Theron to no man gives place,

Is first in Pisa's and in Virtue's race!
Theron there, and he alone,

Ev'n his own swift forefathers has outgone,
They through rough ways, o'er many stops they
past,

Till on the fatal bank at last
Thev Agrigentum built, the beauteous eye
Of fair-fac'd Sicily;
Which does itself i' th' river by

With pride and joy espy.

Then chearful notes their painted years did sing, And Wealth was one, and Honour th' other, wing;

Their genuine virtues did more sweet and clear, In Fortune's graceful dress, appear.

To which, great son of Rhea! say The firm word, which forbids things to decay! If in Olympus' top, where thou Sitt'st to behold thy sacred show; If in Alpheus' silver flight; If in my verse, thou dost delight, My verse, O Rhea's son! which is Lofty as that, and smooth as this.

For the past sufferings of this noble race (Since things once past, and fled out of thine hand,

Hearken no more to thy command)
Let present joys fill up the r place,
And with Oblivion's silent stroke deface
Of foregone ills the very trace.
In no illustrious line
Do these happy changes shine
More brightly, Theron! than in thine.
So, in the crystal palaces

Of the blue-ey'd Nercides,
Ino her endless youth does please,
And thanks her fall into the seas.
Beauteous Semele does no less
Her cruel midwife, Thunder, bless;
Whilst, sporting with the gods on high,
She enjoys secure their company;
Plays with lightnings as they fly,
Nor trembles at the bright embraces of the Deity

But death did them from future dangers free; What god, alas! will caution be

For living man's security,

Or will ensure our vessel in this faithless sea?

Never did the Sun as yet
So healthful a fair-day beget,
That travelling mortals might rely on it.
But Fortune's favour and her spite

Roll with alternate waves, like day and night:
Vicissitudes which thy great race pursue,
E'er since the fatal son his father slew,

And did old oracles fulfil

Of gods that cannot lic, for they foretell but their own will.

Erynnis saw 't, and made in her own seed
The innocent parricide to bleed;

She slew his wrathful sons with mutual blows:
But better things did then succeed,

And brave Thersander, in amends for what was past, arose.

Brave Thersander was by none,

In war, or warlike sports, out-done.
Thou, Theron, his great virtues dost revive;
He in my verse and thee again does live.

Loud Olympus, happy thee,

Isthmus and Nemæa, does twice happy see;
For the well-natur'd honour there,
Which with thy brother thou didst share,
Was to thee double grown

By not being all thine own;
And those kind pious glories do deface
The old fraternal quarrel of thy race.

Greatness of mind, and fortune too,
Th' Olympic trophies shew:
Both their several parts must do

In the noble chase of fame;

[lame.

This without that is blind, that without this is
Nor is fair Virtue's picture seen aright
But in Fortune's golden light.

Riches alone are of uncertain date,

And on short man long cannot wait;
The virtuous make of them the best,
And put them out to Fame for interest;
With a frail good they wisely buy
The solid purchase of e'ernity:

They, whilst life's air they breathe, consider well, and know

Th'account they must hereafter give below;
Whereas th' unjust and covetous above,
In deep unlovely vaults,
By the just decrees of Jove,
Unrelenting torments prove,

The heavy necessary effects of voluntary faults.
Whilst in the lands of unexhausted light,
O'er which the god-like Sun's unwearied sight
Ne'er winks in clouds, or sleeps in night,
An endless spring of age the good enjoy,
Where neither Want does pinch, nor Plenty
cloy:

There neither earth nor sea they plough,
Nor aught to labour owe

For food, that whilst it nourishes does decay,
And in the lamp of life consumes away.
Thrice had these men through mortal bodies past,
Did thrice the trial undergo,

Till all their little dross was purg'd at last,
The furnace had no more to do.
Then in rich Saturn's peaceful state
Were they for sacred treasures plac'd,

The Muse-discover'd world of Islands Fortunate.

oft-footed winds with tuneful voices there
Dance through the perfum'd air.

And golden trees enrich their side;
Th' illustrious leaves no dropping autumn fear,
And jewels for their fruit they bear,
Which by the blest are gathered

For bracelets to the arin, and garlands to the head.

Here all the heroes, and their poets, live;
Wise Rhadamanthus did the sentence give,
Who for his justice was thought fic
With sovereign Saturn on the bench to sit.
Peleus here, and Cadmus, reign;
Here great Achilles, wrathful now no more,
Since his blest mother (who before
Had try'd it on his body in vain)
Dipt now his soul in Stygian lake,
Which did from thence a divine hardness take,
That does from passion and from vice invulnera-
ble make.

To Theron, Muse! bring back thy wandering song,

Whom those bright troops expect impatiently;

And may they do so long!

How, noble archer! do thy wanton arrows fly
At all the game that does but cross thine eye:
Shoot, and spare not, for I see

Thy sounding quiver can ne'er emptied be:
Let Art use method and good-husbandry,
Art lives on Nature's alins, is weak and poor;
Nature herself has unexhausted store,
Wallows in wealth, and runs a turning maze,
That no vulgar eye can trace.

Art, instead of mounting high,

About her humble food does hovering fly;

Like the ignoble crow, rapiue and noise does

love;

Whilst Nature, like the sacred bird of Jove,

Now bears loud thunder; and anon with silent

joy

The beauteous Phrygian boy

Defeats the strong, o'ertakes the flying prey, And sometimes basks in th' open flames of day i And sometimes too he shrowds

His soaring wings among the clouds. Leave, wanton Muse! thy roving fight; To thy loud string the well-fletcht arrow put; Let Agrigentum be the butt,

And Theron be the white.

And, lest the name of verse should give. Malicious mea pretext to misbelieve,

By the Castalian waters swear, (A sacred oath no poets dare

To take in vain,

No more than gods do that of Styx prophane)
Swear, in no city e'er before,

A better man, or greater-soul'd, was born;
Swear, that Theron sure has sworn

No man near him should be poor!
Swear, that none e'er had such a graceful art
Fortune's free gifts as freely to impart,
With an unenvious hand, and an unbounded
heart.

But in this thankless world the givers
Are envied ev'n by the receivers:
Tis now the cheap and frugal fa-hion,
Rather to hide, than pay, the obligation:
Nay, 'tis much worse than so;
It now an artifice does grow,

Wrongs and outrages to do,

Lest men should think we owe.

Appear'd not half so bright, But cast a weaker light,

But all the malice they profess,

Thy secure honour cannot wound;

For thy vast bounties are so numberless, That them or to conceal, or else to tell, Is equally impossible!

THE FIRST NEMEAN ODE OF PINDAR.

Chromius, the son of Agesidamus, a young gentleman of Sicily, is celebrated for having won the prize of the chariot-race in the Nemæan games, (a solemnity instituted first to celebrate the funeral of Opheltes, as is at large described by Statius; and afterwards continued every third year, with an extraordinary conflux of all Greece, and with incredible honour to the conquerors in all the exercises there practised) upon which occasion the poet begins with the commendation of his country, which I take to have been Ortygia,, (an island belonging to Sicily, and a part of Syracuse, being joined to it by a bridge) though the title of the Ode call him Ætnæan Chromius, perhaps because he was made governor of that town by Hieron. From thence he falls into the praise of Chromius's person, which he draws from his great endowments of mind and body, and most especially from his hospitality, and the worthy use of his riches. He likens his beginning to that of Hercules; and, according to his usual manner of being transported with any good hint that meets him in his way, passing into a digression of Hercules, and his slaying the two serpents in his cradle, concludes the Ode with that history. BEAUTEOUS Ortygia! the first breathing-place Of great Alpheus' close and amorous race! Fair Delos' sister, the childbed

Of bright Latona, where she bred

Th' original new Moon!

heavenly vault.

"To thee, O Proserpine! this isle I give," Said Jove, and, as he said,

Smil'd, and bent his gracious head.

"And thou, O isle!" said he, "for ever thrive, And keep the value of our gift alive!

As Heaven with stars, so let

The country thick with towns be set,
And, numberless as stars,

Let all the towns be then
Replenish'd thick with men,

Wise in peace, and bold in wars!
Of thousand glorious towns the nation,
Of thousand glorious men each town a con-
stellation!

Nor let their warlike laurel scorn With the Olympic olive to be worn, Whose gentler honours do so well the brows of Peace adorn!"

Go

to great Syracuse, my Muse, and wait
At Chromius' hospitable gate;

"Twill open wide to let thee in,

When thy lyre's voice shall but begin;
Joy, plenty, and free welcome, dwells within.
The Tyrian beds thou shalt find ready drest,
The ivory table crowded with a feast:
The table which is free for every guest,

No doubt will thee admit,
And feast more upon thee, than thou on it.
Chromius and thou art met aright,
For, as by Nature thou dost write,
So he by Nature loves, and does by Nature fight.
Nature herself, whilst in the womb he was,
Sow'd

strength and beauty through the forming

mass;

were grown!

Who, like a gentle scion newly started out,
From Syracusa's side dost sprout!
Thee first my song does greet,
With numbers smooth and fleet
As thine own horses' airy feet,

When they young Chromius' chariot drew,
And o'er the Nemaan race triumphant flew,
Jove will approve my song and me;
Jove is concern'd in Nemea, and in thee.
With Jove my song; this happy man,

Young Chromius, too, with Jove began; From hence came his success, Nor ought he therefore like it less, Since the best fame is that of happiness; For whom should we esteem above The men whom gods do love?

'Tis them alone the Muse too does approve,
Lo! how it makes this victory shine
O'er all the fruitful isle of Proserpine!

The torches which the mother brought
When the ravish'd maid she sought,