That laws should never bind desire, Such is the madness wine imparts, Whene'er it steals on youthful hearts. ODE LX. ' AWAKE to life, my dulcet shell, To him who gathers wisdom's flower! The god pursued, with wing'd desire; And when the youth, whose burning soul Τον Ανακρέοντα μιμού, Imitate Anacreon. Such is the lesson given us by the lyrist; and if, in poetry, a simple elegance of sentiment, enriched by the most playful felicities of fancy, be a charm which invites or deserves imitation, where shall we find such a guide as Anacreon? In morality, too, with some little reserve, I think we might not blush to follow in his footsteps. For if his song be the language of his heart, though luxurious and relaxed, he was artless and benevolent; and who would not forgive a few irregularities, when atoned for by virtues so rare and so endearing? When we think of the sentiment in those lines: Away! I hate the slanderous dart Which steals to wound the unwary heart, how many are there in the world to whom we would wish to say, Τον Ανακρέοντα μιμου ! Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS., whose authority confirms the genuine antiquity of them all, though a few have stolen among the number which we may besitate in attributing to Anacreon. In the little essay prefixed to this translation, I observed that Barnes had quoted this manuscript incorrectly, relying upon an imperfect copy of it which Isaac Vossius had taken; I shall just mention two or three instances of this inaccuracy, the first which occur to me. In the ode of the Dove, on the words Пtepott This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been written by Anacreon, and it certainly is rather a sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But we ought not to judge from this diversity of style, in a poet of whom time has preserved such partial relics. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. We can per-yaxλup, he says, Vatican MS. vaxtav, etiam Prisceive in what an altered and imperfect state his works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace citing an ode from the third book of Anacreon. And how the tender timid maid Flew panting to the kindly shade, etc.] Original: Το μεν εκπεφευγε κεντρον, ciano invito, - though the Manuscript reads covxzhufw, with Guoxiaow interlined. Degen, too, on the same line, is somewhat in error. In the twenty-second ode of this series, line thirteenth, the MS. bas Tet with t interlined, and Barnes imputes to it the reading of Tevd. In the fifty-seventh, line twelfth, he professes to have preserved the reading of the MS. Αλαλημένη σ επ' αυτή, while the latter has αλαλημένος δ' επ' αυτά. Almost all the other commentators have transplanted these errors from Barnes. 'The intrusion of this melancholy ode among the careless levities of our poet, has always reminded me of the skeletons which the Egyptians used to hang up in their banquet-rooms, to inculcate a I find the word xɛvoy here has a double force, as it also signifies that omnium parentem, quam sanctus Numa, etc. etc. (See Martial.)-In order to confirm this import of the word here, those who are curious in new readings may place the stop after us, thought of mortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it thus: Το μεν εκπέφευγε κεντρον Φύσεως, δ' αμειψε μορφήν. were not for the beauty of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown this ode. Quid habet illius, illius quæ spirabat amores? To Stobaeus we are indebted for it. Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, Sad the journey, sad the road: ODE LXII.' FILL me, boy, as deep a draught As e'er was fill'd, as e'er was quaff'd; To cool the grape's intemperate glow; But with the nymphs in union mingle; For, though the bowl's the grave of sadness, Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, All the flowers of life decay.] Horace often, with feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human enjoyments. See book ii, ode 11; and thus in the second epistle, book ii, Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes, The wing of every passing day And wafts from our enamour'd arms Dreary is the thought of dying, etc.] Regnier, a libertine French poet, has written some sonnets on the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling repentance. Chaulieu, however, supports more consistently the spirit of the Epicurean philosopher. See his poem, addressed to the Marquis La Farre: Plus j'approche du terme et moins je le redoute, etc. I shall leave it to the moralist to make his reflections here: it is impossible to be very anacreontic on such a subject. And, the gloomy travel o'er, No, banish from our board to night With harmony of soul and song! ODE LXIII.' To Love, the soft and blooming child, I touch the harp in descant wild; To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers, ODE LXIV. 2 HASTE thee, nymph, whose winged spear Listen to a people's prayer. Turn, to Lethe's river turn, There thy vanquish'd people mourn! Thine their hearts, their altars thine! ODE LXV.3 LIKE some wanton filly sporting, Thou tripp'st away with scornful eye, This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. vi, and in Arsenius, Collect. Græc.» BARNES. It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in praise of Love. Ah! we can return no more! Scaliger, upon Catullus's well-lib. known lines, Qui nunc it per iter, etc. remarks, that Acheron, with the same idea, is called avetodos, by Theocritus, and δυσεκδρομος, by Nicander. This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephæstion. There is an anecdote of our poet, which has led to some doubt whether he ever wrote any odes of this kind. It is related by the Scholiast upon Pindar This ode consists of two fragments, which are to be found in Athe- (Isthmionic. od. ii, v. 1, as cited by Barnes). Anacreon being asked, næus, book x, and which Barnes, from the similarity of their tendency, has combined into one. I think this a very justifiable li- why he addressed all his hymns to women, and none to the deities? berty, and have adopted it in some other fragments of our poet. Degen refers us here to verses of Uz, lib. iv, der Trinker. But let the water amply flow, To cool the grape's intemperate glow, etc.] It was Amphictyon who first taught the Greeks to mix water with their wine; in commemoration of which circumstance they erected altars to Bacchus and the nymphs. On this mythological allegory the following epigram is founded: Ardentem ex utero Semeles lavere Lyæum Which is, non verbum verbo, While heavenly fire consumed his Theban dame, He bathes him in the fountain of the nymph. answered, Because women are my deities. I have assumed the same liberty in reporting this anecdote which I have done in translating some of the odes; and it were to be wished that these little infidelities were always considered pardonable in the interpretation of the ancients; thus, when nature is forgotten in the original, in the translation, tamen usque recurret.» Turn, to Lethe's river turn, There thy vanquish'd people mourn!] Lethe, a river of Ionia, according to Strabo, falling into the Meander; near to it was situated the town Magnesia, in favour of whose inhabitants our poet is supposed to have addressed this supplication to Diana. It was written (as Madame Dacier conjectures) on the occasion of some battle, in which the Magnesians had been defeated. This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian girl, exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, which runs so obviously throughout it, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging to Polycrates: there is more modesty than ingenuity in the lady's conjecture. Pierius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, cites this ode, and informs us, that the horse was the hieroglyphical emblem of pride. To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine, Fairest of all that fairest shine: To thee, thou blushing young Desire, Who rulest the world with darts of fire! And oh! thou nuptial Power, to thee Who bear'st of life the guardian key: Breathing my soul in fragrant praise, And weaving wild my votive lays, For thee, O Queen! I wake the lyre, For thee, thou blushing young Desire! And oh! for thee, thou nuptial Power, Come, and illume this genial hour. Look on thy bride, luxuriant boy! And while thy lambent glance of joy Plays over all her blushing charms, Delay not, snatch her to thine arms, Before the lovely trembling prey, Like a young birdling, wing away! Oh! Stratocles, impassion'd youth! Dear to the Queen of amorous truth, And dear to her, whose yielding zone Will soon resign her all thine own; Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye, Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh! To those bewitching beauties turn; For thee they mantle, flush, and burn! Not more the rose, the Queen of flowers, Outblushes all the glow of bowers, Than she unrivall'd bloom discloses, The sweetest rose, where all are roses! Oh! may the sun benignant shed His blandest influence o'er thy bed; To blush like her, and bloom like thee! This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scholium at the nuptial banquet. Among the many works of the impassioned Sappho, of which time and ignorant superstition have deprived us, the loss of her epithalamiums is not one of the least that we deplore. A subject so interesting to an amorous fancy was warmly felt, and must have been warmly described, by such a soul and such an imagination. The following lines are cited as a relic of one of her epithalamiums : Ολβιε γαμβρε. σοι μεν δη γαμος ὡς αρχο, See Scaliger, in his Poetics, on the Epithalamium. And foster there an infant tree, To blush like her, and bloom like thee!] Original, KUπxpITTOS δε πεφυκοι σεν ένι κηπῳ. Passeratius, upon the words • cur castum amisit florem, in the nuptial song of Catullus, after explain ODE LXVII.' GENTLE youth! whose looks assume The friendship which my heart pursues! ODE LXVIII.* RICH in bliss, I proudly scorn One little hour of joy to me ing flos, in somewhat a similar sense to that which Gaulminusattributes to porov, says, Hortum quoque vocant in quo flos ille carpitur, et Gracis κήπον εςι το εφηβαιον γυναικών.», May I remark, that the author of the Greek version of this charming ode of Catullus bas neglected a most striking and Anacreontic beauty in those verses, « Ut flos in septis, etc. which is the repetition of the line Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ, with the slight alteration of nulli and nulle. Catullus himself, however, has been equally injudicious in his version of the famous ode of Sappho; he has translated γελώσας ιμερόεν, but takes no notice of αδυ pwvousxs. Horace has caught the spirit of it more faithfully: Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem. I have formed this poem of three or four different fragments, which is a liberty that perhaps may be justified by the example of Barnes, who has thus compiled the fifty-seventh of his edition, and the little ode beginning φερ' ύδωρ, φερ' οινον, ω παι, which he has subjoined to the epigrams. The fragments combined in this ode, are the sixty-seventh, ninetysixth, ninety-seventh, and hundredth of Barnes's edition, to which I refer the reader for the names of the authors by whom they are preserved. And every guest, to shade his head, Three little breathing chaplets spread.] Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a courtezan, who, in order to gratify three lovers, without leaving cause for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was satisfied with his favour, and flattered himself with the preference. This circumstance is extremely like the subject of one of the tensons of Savari de Mauléon, a troubadour. See L'Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours. The recital is a curious picture of the puerile gallantries of chivalry. This poem is compiled by Barnes, from Athenæus, Hephæstion, and Arsenius. See Barnes, 8oth. 4 This I have formed from the eighty-fourth and eighty-fifth of Barnes's edition. The two fragments are found in Athenæus. ODE LXXIV. ' I BLOOM'D, awhile, a happy flower, ODE LXXV. 3 MONARCH LOVE! resistless boy, Ah! if my heart no flattery tell, Thou 'It own I've learn'd that lesson well! ODE LXXVI. 4 SPIRIT of Love! whose tresses shine Along the breeze, in golden twine, The nursling fawn, that in some shade Its antler'd mother leaves behind, etc.] In the original: Ος εν ύλη κερόεσσης Απολειφθεις ύπο μητρός. Dacier, however, observes, that Sophocles, Callimachus, etc. have all Horned here, undoubtedly, seems a strange epithet; Madame applied it in the very same manner; and she seems to agree in the conjecture of the scholiast upon Pindar, that perhaps horns are not always peculiar to the males. I think we may with more ease conclude it to be a license of the poet, jussit habere puellam cornua, This fragment is preserved by the scholiast upon Aristophanes, and is the eighty-seventh in Barnes. This is to be found in Hephæstion, and is the eighty-ninth of Barnes's edition. I must here apologize for omitting a very considerable fragment imputed to our poet, Eavon EupuπUẦN μɛɛt, etc. which is preserved in the twelfth book of Athenæus, and is the ninety-first in Barnes. If it was really Anacreon who wrote it, nil fuit unquam sic impar sibi. It is in a style of gross satire, and is full of expressions which never could be gracefully translated. This fragment is preserved by Dion. Chrysostom, Orat. ii, de Regno. See Barnes, 93. This fragment, which is extant in Athenæus (Barnes, 101), is supposed, on the authority of Chamæleon, to have been addressed to Come within a fragrant cloud, But she, the nymph for whom I glow, ODE LXXVII. ' HITHER, gentle muse of mine, For the nymph with vest of gold. Pretty nymph, of tender age, Fair thy silky locks unfold; Listen to a hoary sage, Sweetest maid with vest of gold! ODE LXXVIII. ' WOULD that I were a tuneful lyre, Would that I were a golden vase, And then some nymph should hold My spotless frame with blushing grace, Herself as pure as gold! Sappho. We have also a stanza attributed to her, which some ro- Κείνον, ω χρυσοθρόνε Μουσ', ενισπες Πρεσβυς αγαυος. Oh Muse! who sitt'st on golden throne, The Teian sage is taught by thee; He lately learn'd and sang for me. This is formed of the 124th and 119th fragments in Barnes, both of which are to be found in Scaliger's Poetics. De Pauw thinks that those detached lines and couplets, which Scaliger has adduced as examples in his Poetics, are by no means authentic, but of his own fabrication. This is generally inserted among the remains of Alcæus. Some, however, have attributed it to Anacreon. See our poet's twenty-second ode, and the notes. ODE LXXIX. ' WHEN Cupid sees my beard of snow, He passes with an eaglet's flight, 2 CUPID, whose lamp has lent the ray Which lightens our meandering wayCupid, within my bosom stealing, Excites a strange and mingled feeling, Which pleases, though severely teasing, And teases, though divinely pleasing. 3 LET me resign a wretched breath, Since now remains to me No other balm than kindly death, To soothe my misery! 4I KNOW thou lovest a brimming measure, "I FEAR that love disturbs my rest, 6 FROM dread Leucadia's frowning steep I'll plunge into the whitening deep, And there I'll float, to waves resign'd, For love intoxicates my mind! 7 MIx me, child, a cup divine, Crystal water, ruby wine: 1 See Barnes, 173d. This fragment, to which I have taken the liberty of adding a turn not to be found in the original, is cited by Lucian in his little essay on the Gallic Hercules. 2 Barnes, 125th. This, ifI remember right, is in Scaliger's Poetics. Gail has omitted it in his collection of fragments. 3 This fragment is extant in Arsenius and Hephæstion. See Barnes (69th), who has arranged the metre of it very elegantly. Barnes, 72d. This fragment, which is quoted by Athenæus, is an excellent lesson for the votaries of Jupiter Hospitalis. 5 This fragment is in Hephaestion. See Barnes, 95th. Odi et amo; quare id faciam fortasse requiris; I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell The cause of my love and my hate, may I die! I can feel it, alas! I can feel it too well, That I love thee and hate thee, but cannot tell why. This also is in Hephaestion, and perhaps is a fragment of some poem, in which Anacreon had commemorated the fate of Sappho. It is the 123d of Barnes. 'This fragment is collected by Barnes from Demetrius Phalareus, and Eustathius, and is subjoined in his edition to the epigrams attributed to our poet. And here is the last of those little scattered flowers which I thought I might venture with any grace to transplant. I wish it could be said of the garland which they form, Το δ' ως Ανακρέοντος. |