To man she gave the flame refined, gave thee beauty-blush of fire, That bids the flames of war retire! Woman! be fair, we must adore thee; Smile, and a world is weak before thee! ODE XXV.. ONCE in each revolving year, To man she gave the flame refined, The spark of Heaven—a thinking mind!] In my first attempt to translate this ode, I had interpreted opovnux, with Baxter and Barnes, as implying courage and military virtue; but I do not think that the gallantry of the idea suffers by the import which I have now given to it. For, why need we consider this possession of wisdom as exclusive? and in truth, as the design of Anacreon is to estimate the treasure of beauty, above all the rest which Nature has distributed, it is perhaps even refining upon the delicacy of the compliment, to prefer the radiance of female charms to the cold illumination of wisdom and prudence; and to think that women's eyes are -the books, the academies, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. She gave thee beauty-shaft of eyes, That every shaft of war outflies!] Thus Achilles Tatius: xxλλos οξύτερον τιτρώσκει βέλους, και δια των οφθαλμών εις την ψυχήν καταβρεί. Οφθαλμός γαρ όδος ερωτική τραύματι. Beauty wounds more swiftly than the arrow, and passes through the eye to the very soul; for the eye is the inlet to the wounds of love.. Woman! be fair, we must adore thee; Smile, and a world is weak before thee! Longepierre's remark here is very ingenious: The Romans, says he, were so convinced of the power of beauty, that they used a word implying strength in the place of the epithet beautiful. Thus Plautus, act 2, scene 2. Bacchid. Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa. Fortis, id est formosa,' say Servius and Nonius.» This is another ode addressed to the swallow. Alberti has imitated both in one poem, beginning Perch' io pianga al tuo canto Rondinella importuua, etc. Alas! unlike the plumed loves, That linger in this hapless breast, And never, never change their nest!] Thus Love is represented as a bird, in an epigram cited by Longepierre from the Anthologia: Διει μοι δύνει μεν εν ουασιν ηχος έρωτος, Όμμα δε σιγα ποθοις το γλυκυ δακρυ φέρει. Ουδ' ή νυξ, ου φεγγος ενοίμισεν, αλλ' ύπο φίλτρων Ω πτανοι, μη και ποτ' ερίπτασθαι μεν ερωτες Still every year, and all the year, ODE XXVI.' THY harp may sing of Troy's alarms, A host of quiver'd Cupids flew; ODE XXVII.' WE read the flying courser's name T is Love that murmurs in my breast, A wound within my heart I find, And oh! 't is plain where Love has been ; Ob bird of Love! with song so drear, In pity waft thee hence again! Τοξοτα, Ζηνοφίλας ομμασι κρυπτόμενος. Well I know where thou dost lie; I saw thee through the curtain peeping, The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes, but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress un petit camp d'amours. This ode forms a part of the preceding in the Vatican MS., but I have conformed to the editions in translating them separately. Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of Ramler Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv, p. 313. And, by their turban'd brows alone, Through them we see the small faint mark, Where Love has dropp'd his burning spark! ODE XXVIII.' As in the Lemnian caves of fire, 'T was from the ranks of war he rush'd, « And dost thou smile?» said little Love, Take this dart, and thou mayst prove, But in the lover's glowing cycs The inlet to his bosom ¡ies.] . We cannot see into the heart,» says Madame Dacier. But the lover answers Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte bo scritto. Monsieur La Fosse has given the following lines, as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon: Lorsque je vois un amant, Il cache en vain son tourment, A le trahir tout conspire; Sa langueur, son embarras, Tout ce qu'il peut faire ou dire, In vain the lover tries to veil The flame which in his bosom lies; We read it in his languid eyes: And though his words the heart betray, His silence speaks e'en more than they. This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, who, I believe, was the author of that curious little work called «Hexameron Rustique." He makes use of this, as well as the thirty-fifth, in his ingenious but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the Nymphs. Journée Quatrième. And Love (alas! the victim-heart) Tinges with gall the burning dart.] Thus Claudian Labuntur gemini fontes, hic dulcis, amarus In Cyprus' isle two rippling fountains fall, And one with honey flows, and one with gall; See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the close connexion which subsists between sweets and bitterness. Apes ideo pungunt (says Petronius) quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum invenies. The allegorical description of Cupid s employment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in fancy, though not in delicacy: --feras et Cupido Semper ardentes acuens sagittas Cote cruenta. And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts Upon a whetstone stain'd with blood of hearts. Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat softened the image by the omission of the epithet cruenta.» Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas. -Eleg. 1. That though they pass the breeze's flight, <«<< It is not light-I die with pain! No,» said the child, «it must not be, That little dart was made for thee!» ODE XXIX. YES-loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still; Yes--loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still, etc.] Monsieur Menage, in the following Anacreontic, enforces the necessity of loving: Περι του δειν φιλησαι. Προς Πέτρου Δανιηλα Υεττον. Μεγα θαύμα των αοιδών Άγιους έρωτας ήμων μη TO PETER DANIEL HUETT. Thou of tuneful bards the first, Thou by all the Graces nursed; Friend each other friend above, Come with me, and learn to love. Loving is a simple lore, Graver men have learn'd before; Nay, the boast of former ages, Wisest of the wisest sages, Sophroniscus prudent son, Was by Love's illusion won. Oh how heavy life would move, If we knew not how to love! Love's a whetstone to the mind; Thus 't is pointed, thus refined. When the soul dejected lies, Love can waft it to the skies; When in languor sleeps the heart, Love can wake it with his dart; (a) This line is borrowed from an epigram by Alpheus of Mitylene. -ψυχης εςιν Έρως σκόνη. Menage, I think, says somewhere, that he was the first who produced this epigram to the world. But surely 't is the worst of pain, From beauty's cheek one favouring smile. ODE XXX. 'T WAS in an airy dream of night, While little Love, whose feet were twined 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, (Could I, could I wish them worse?) 1 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 her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. 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: Cupid bade me wing my pace, My brow was chill with drops of dew. ODE XXXII.' STREW me a breathing bed of leaves Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas, Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta, Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum, And forced me many a weary way to tread. Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, My brow was chill with drops of dew.) I have followed those who rend 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 sip. And drink thy breath, in melting twine, My soul then flutters to my lip. Ready to fly and mix with thine. Aulus 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, signities that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion.-LA FOSSE. 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, With cinctures, round his snowy breast, Himself shall hover by my side, And minister the racy tide! Swift as the wheels that kindling roll, Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath, Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire, With wine, and love, and blisses dear, ODE XXXIII.' "T was noon of night, when round the pole ruined the picture by making Epos the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho has assigned this office to Venus, in a fragment. Ελθε, Κυπρι, χρυσειαισιν εν κυλικεσσιν άθροις συμμεμιγμένον θαλιαίσι νεκταρ οτο νοχοουσα τούτοισι τοις έταιροις εμοις γε και σοις. Which may be thus paraphrased: Hither, Venus! queen of kisses, 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.. 1 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. iii, Amor und sein Bruder, and a poem of Kleist die Heilung. La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode. And who art thou, I waking cry, That bid'st my blissful visions fly? O gentle sire! the infant said, I hear the bitter night-winds blow; I trimm'd my lamp, and oped the gate. I take him in, and fondly raise The crystals of the freezing air, I For through the rain I've wander'd so, The fatal bow the urchin drew; Fare thee well, I heard him say, Upon the wild wood's leafy tops, To drink the dew that morning drops, 'T was he who gave that voice to thee, 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, ELT' εἰσιν οἱ τεττιγες ουκ ευδαίμονες, ὧν ταῖς γυναιξιν ουδ' ότι ουν φωνής ενι; '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 ptkos, the darling of the Muses; and Mousav opet, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius: αγορητής Των παντων δ' ἡγει το πλατυςατος, αλλ This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, λ. where there occurs the very same simile. Melodious insect! child of earth!] Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipster, from the first book of the Anthologia, where be prefers the grasshopper to the swan: Αρκει τέττιγας μεθυσαι δρόσος, αλλά πίοντες Λείδειν κύκνων εισι γεγωνότεροι. In dew, that drops from morning's wings, And, drunk with dew, his matin sings 1 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 To Venus quick he runs, he flies! I die with pain-in sooth I do! 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 hee, 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 reflections 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 bave preserved: Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!» Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated this ode of Ana creon. |