Let them effuse the azure ray
With which Minerva's glances play,
And give them all that liquid fire
That Venus' languid eyes respire.
O'er her nose and cheek be shed
Flushing white and mellow red;
Gradual tints, as when there glows
In snowy milk the bashful rose.
Then her lip, so rich in blisses!
Sweet petitioner for kisses!
Pouting nest of bland persuasion,
Ripely suing Love's invasion.
Then beneath the velvet chin,
Whose dimple shades a Love within,
Mould her neck with grace descending,
In a heaven of beauty ending;
While airy charms, above, below,
Sport and flutter on its snow.

And give them all that liquid fire

That Venus' languid eyes resvire.] Marchetti explains thus the ύγρον of the original:

Dipingili umidetti

Tremuli e lascivetti,

Quai gli ha Ciprigna l'alma Dea d' Amore.

Tasso has painted in the same manner the eyes of Armida, as La Fosse remarks:

Qual raggio in onda le scintilla un riso
Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo.

Within her humid, melting eyes,

A brilliant ray of laughter lies,

Soft as the broken solar beam

That trembles in the azure stream.

The mingled expression of dignity and tenderness which Anacreon requires the painter to infuse into the eyes of his mistress, is more amply described in the subsequent ode. Both descriptions are so exquisitely touched, that the artist must have been great indeed, if he did not yield in painting to the poet:

Then her lip, so rich in blisses! Sweet petitioner for kisses!] The lip, provoking kisses, in the original, is a strong and beautiful expression. Achilles Tatius speaks οἱ χείλη μαλθακα προς τα φιλήματα, • Lips soft and del

cate for kissing. A grave old commentator, Dionysius Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us, with all the authority of experience, that girls who bave large lips kiss infinitely sweeter than others! - Suavius viros osculantur puellæ labiosæ, quam quæ sunt brevibus labris. And Æneas Sylvius, in his tedious uninteresting story of the adulterous loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he particularizes the beauties of the heroine (in a very false and laboured style of latinity), describes her lips as exquisitely adapted for biting: Os parvum decensque, labia corallini coloris ad morsum aptissima. Epist. 114, lib. i.

Then beneath the velvet chin,

Whose dimple shades a Love within, etc.] Madame Dacier has quoted here two pretty lines of Varro:

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem.

In her chin is a delicate dimple,

By the finger of Cupid imprest;

There Softness, bewitchingly simple,

Has chosen her innocent nest.

Now let a floating, lucid veil
Shadow her limbs, but not conceal;
A charm may peep, a hue may beam,
And leave the rest to Fancy's dream.
Enough 't is she! 't is all I seek;
It glows, it lives, it soon will speak!

ODE XVII.

AND now, with all thy pencil's truth,
Pourtray Bathyllus, lovely youth!
Let his hair, in lapses bright,
Fall like streaming rays of light;
And there the raven's dye confuse
With the yellow sunbeam's hues.
Let not the braid, with artful twine,
The flowing of his locks confine;
But loosen every golden ring,
To float upon the breezes' wing.
Beneath the front of polish'd glow,
Front as fair as mountain snow,
And guileless as the dews of dawn,
Let the majestic brows be drawn,
Of ebon dyes, enrich'd by gold,
Such as the scaly snakes unfold.

Mingle in his jetty glances

Power that awes, and love that trances;

Now let a floating, lucid veil

Shadow her limbs, but not conceal, etc.] This delicate art of description, which leaves imagination to complete the picture, has been seldom adopted in the imitations of this beautiful poem. Ronsard is exceptionably minute; and Politianus, in his charming portrait of a girl, full of rich and exquisite diction, has lifted the veil rather too much. The questo che tu m'intendi » should always be left to fancy.

'The reader who wishes to acquire an accurate idea of the judgment of the ancients in beauty, will be indulged by consulting Junius de Pictura Veterum, ninth chapter, third book, where he will find a very curious selection of descriptions and epithets of personal perfections; he compares this ode with a description of Theodoric, king of the Goths, in the second epistle, first book of Sidonius Apollinaris.

Let his hair, in lapses bright,

Fall like streaming rays of light, etc.] He here describes the sunny bair, the flava coma, which the ancients so much admired. The Romans gave this colour artificially to their hair. See Stanisl. Kobiensyck de Luxu Romanorum.

Let not the braid, with artful twine, etc.] If the original here, which is particularly beautiful, can admit of any additional value, that value is conferred by Gray's admiration of it. See his Letters to West.

Some annotators have quoted on this passage the description of Photis's hair in Apuleius; but nothing can be more distant from the

simplicity of our poet's manner than that afectation of richness which distinguishes the style of Apuleius.

Steal from Venus bland desire,
Steal from Mars the look of fire,
Blend them in such expression here,
That we, by turns, may hope and fear!
Now from the sunny apple seek

The velvet down that spreads his cheek!
And there let Beauty's rosy ray
In flying blushes richly play ;-
Blushes of that celestial flame

Which lights the cheek of virgin shame.
Then for his lips, that ripely gem-
But let thy mind imagine them!
Paint, where the ruby cell uncloses,
Persuasion sleeping upon roses;
And give his lip that speaking air,
As if a word was hovering there!
His neck of ivory splendour trace,
Moulded with soft but manly grace;
Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy,
Where Paphia's arms have hung in joy.
Give him the winged Hermes' hand,
With which he waves his snaky wand;
Let Bacchus then the breast supply,
And Leda's son the sinewy thigh.
But oh suffuse his limbs of fire
With all that glow of young desire

Lieti, mesti, superbi, humil' altieri

Vi mostrate in un punto, onde di speme,
Et di timor ne empiete, etc. etc.
Oh! tell me, brightly-beaming eye,
Whence in your little orbit lie
So many different traits of fire,
Expressing each a new desire!
Now with angry scorn you darkle,
Now with tender anguish sparkle;
And we, who view the various mirror,
Feel at once both hope and terror.

Monsieur Chevreau, citing the lines of our poet, in his critique on the poems of Malherbe, produces a Latin version of them from a manuscript which he had seen, entitled Joan Falconis Anacreontici Lusus."

Persuasion sleeping upon roses.] It was worthy of the delicate imagination of the Greeks to deify Persuasion, and give her the lips for her throne. We are here reminded of a very interesting fragment of Anacreon, preserved by the scholiast upon Pindar, and supposed to belong to a poem reflecting with some severity on Simonides, who was the first, we are told, that ever made a hireling of his muse.

Ουδ' αργυρέη κατ' έλαμψε Πειθώ.

Nor yet had fair Persuasion shone

In silver splendours, not her own.

And give his lip that speaking air,

As if a word was hovering there! In the original Axλwy otwπn. The mistress of Petrarch « parla con silentio, which is perhaps the best method of female eloquence.

Which kindles when the wishful sigh
Steals from the heart, unconscious why.
Thy pencil, though divinely bright,
Is envious of the eye's delight,
Or its enamour'd touch would show
His shoulder, fair as sunless snow,
Which now in veiling shadow lies,
Removed from all but Fancy's eyes.
Now, for his feet-but, hold-forbear-
I see a godlike portrait there;
So like Bathyllus!-sure there's none
So like Bathyllus but the Sun!
Oh, let this pictured god be mine,
And keep the boy from Samos' shrine;
Phoebus shall then Bathyllus be,
Bathyllus then the deity!

I see a godlike portrait there.] This is very spirited, but it requires explanation. While the artist is pursuing the portrait of Bathyllus, Anacreon, we must suppose, turns round and sees a picture of Apollo, which was intended for an altar at Samos; he instantly tells the painter to cease his work; that this picture will serve for Bathyllus, and that, when he goes to Samos, he may make an Apollo of the portrait of the boy which he had begun.

Bathyllus (says Madame Dacier) could not be more elegantly praised, and this one passage does him more honour than the statue, however beautiful it might be, which Polycrates raised to him.

An elegant translation of this ode may be found in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenslese, lib. v, p. 403,» Degen.

Bring me wine in brimming wrns, etc.] Orig. πtely aμvgi. The amystis was a method of drinking used among the Thracians. Thus Horace,« Threicia vincat amystide.» Mad. Dacier, Longepierre,

etc. etc.

Parrhasius, in his twenty-sixth epistle (Thesaur. Critic. vol. i), explains the amystis as a draught to be exhausted without drawing breath, uno haustu. A note in the margin of this epistle of Parrhasius says, Politianus vestem esse putabat, but I cannot find where.

- this is his hand,

His foot Mercurial, his martial thigh The brawns of Hercules.

los Lyæi, as it is in the version of Elias Andreas; and

Deh porgetemi del fiore

Di quel almo e buon liquore,

Εσβεσθής, γεραις Σοφοκλέες, ανθος αοιδων.

And flos, in the Latin, is frequently applied in this manner-thus Cethegus is called by Ennius, Flos illibatus populi, sudæque medalla, The immaculate flower of the people, and the very marrow of persuasion, in those verses cited by Aulas Gellius, lib. xii, which Cicero praised, and Seneca thought ridiculous.

But in the passage before us, if we admit Exatywy, according to Faber's conjecture, the sense is sufficiently clear, and we need not have recourse to refinements.

Every dewy rose I wear

Sheds its tears, and withers there.
But for you, my burning mind!

Oh! what shelter shall I find?
Can the bowl, or flow'ret's dew,
Cool the flame that scorches you?

ODE XIX.

HERE recline you, gentle maid, Sweet is this imbowering shade; Sweet the young, the modest trees, Ruffled by the kissing breeze;]

Every dewy rose I wear

Sheds its tears, and withers there.] There are some beautiful lines, by Angerianus, upon a garland, which I cannot resist quoting here:

Ante fores madida sic sic pendete corollæ,
Mane orto imponet Celia vos capiti;

At cum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor,
Dicite, non roris sed pluvia hæc lacrima.

By Celia's arbour all the night

Hang, humid wreath, the lover's vow;

And haply, at the morning light,

My love shall twine thee round her brow.

Then, if upon her bosom bright

Some drops of dew shall fall from thee,
Tell her, they are not drops of night,

But tears of sorrow shed by me!

In the poem of Mr Sheridan, Uncouth is this moss-cover'd grotto of stone, there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of Angerianus, in the stanza which begins,

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch mayst preserve.

But for you, my burning mind! etc.] The transition here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned; but the commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a variety of readings and conjectures.

1 The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we cannot help feeling a degree of coolness and freshness while we read it. Longepierre has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia, the following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode: Ερχες, και κατ' εμαν ίζευ πιτυν, ά το μελιχρον Προς μαλακούς ήχει κεκλιμένα ζέφυρους. Ηνιδε και κρουνισμα μελιςαγές, ενθα μελισσών 'Ηουν ερημαίαις ύπνον άγω καλαμοις.

Come, sit by the shadowy pine
That covers my sylvan retreat,
And see how the branches incline

The breathing of Zephyr to meet.
See the fountain, that, flowing, diffuses
Around me a glittering spray;
By its brink, as the traveller muses,

I soothe him to sleep with my lay!

Here recline you, gentle maid, etc.] The Vatican MS. reads ßxvλLou, which renders the whole poem metaphorical. Some commentator suggests the reading of xullo, which makes a pun upon the name; a grace that Plato himself has condescended to in writing of his boy Asp. See the epigram of this philosopher, which I quote on the twenty-second ode.

There is another epigram by this philosopher, preserved in Laertius, which turns upon the same word:

Αςηρ πριν μεν ελαμπες ενι ζωοισιν έωος

Νυν δε θανών, λαμπεις έσπερος εν φθιμένοις.

In life thou wert my morning-star,

But now that death has stolen thy light,

Alas! thou shinest dim and far,

Like the pale beam that weeps at night.

In the Veneres Blyenburgicze, under the head of allusiones, we find a number of such frigid conceits upon names, selected from the poets of the middle ages.

Sweet the little founts that weep,
Lulling bland the mind to sleep;
Hark! they whisper, as they roll,
Calm persuasion to the soul;
Tell me, tell me, is not this

All a silly scene of bliss?
Who, my girl, would pass it by?
Surely neither you nor I!

ODE XX.

ONE day the Muses twined the hands Of baby Love, with flowery bands; And to celestial Beauty gave

The captive infant as her slave.

Who, my girl, would pass it by?

Surely neither you nor I!] What a finish he gives to the picture by the simple exclamation of the original! In these delicate turns he is inimitable; and yet, hear what a French translator says on the passage: This conclusion appeared to me too trifling after such a description, and I thought proper to add somewhat to the strength of the original.»

By this allegory of the Muses making Cupid the prisoner of Beauty, Anacreon seems to insinuate the softening influence which a cultivation of poetry bas over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty.

Though in the following epigram, by the philosopher Plato, which is found in the third book of Diogenes Laertius, the Muses are made to disavow all the influence of Love:

'Α Κυπρις Μουσαισι, κορασία των Αφροδίταν
Τιματ' η τον Ερωτα ύμμιν εφοπλίσομαι.
Αἱ Μοισαι ποτε Κυπριν. Αρει τα σωμυλα ταύτα
Ημιν ου πέταται τούτο το παιδάριον.

Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids:
Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms-
Or Love shall flutter in your classic shades,
And make your grove the camp of Paphían arms!.
No, said the virgins of the tuneful bower,

We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art;
Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power,
His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart!

There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought of which was suggested by this ode.

Scherzava dentro all' auree chiome Amore
Dell' alma donna della vita mia:

E tanto era il piacer ch' ei ne sentia.
Che non sapea, nè volea uscirne fore.
Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core,
Si, che per forza ancor convien che stia:
Tai lacci alta beltate orditi avia

Del crespo crin; per farsi eterno onore.
Onde offre infin dal ciel degna mercede,
A chi scioglie il figliuol la bella dea
Da tanti nodi, in ch' ella stretto il vede.
Ma ei vinto a due occhi l'arme cede:
Et t'affatichi indarno, Citerea;
Che s' altri 'l scioglie, egli a legar si riede.

Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's bair,

Traced every lock with fond delays,

And, doting, linger'd there.
And soon he found 't were vain to fly,
His heart was close confined;

And every curlet was a tie,

A chain by Beauty twined.

Now Venus seeks her boy's release,
With ransom from above:
But, Venus! let thy efforts cease,
For Love's the slave of love.

And, should we loose his golden chain,
The prisoner would return again!

Και Παρίη 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.

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 μλxtn, because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and accordingly be 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 flumina 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 CAPILUPUS.

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 earth'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.

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 γυμνώσαις, και με πνέοντα λάβοις. Ειθε ῥόδον γενομην ὑποπορφυρον, όφρα με χερσιν Αραμένη, κομισαις ςέθεσι χιονέοις.

Ειθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχροον, οφρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, μάλλον της χροτίης 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:

Αφερας εισαθρείς, 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!

Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs!] This Talven was a riband or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophium, 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 μɛv λɛɛyiç ta Onêns, might, with as much propriety, be the harbinger of his songs.

Bion has 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.