Thus he spoke, and she the while ODE XXXVI.' IF hoarded gold possess'd a power That when the Fates would send their minion, To waft me off on shadowy pinion, I might some hours of life obtain, And why should I then pant for treasures? ODE XXXVII.' "T was night, and many a circling bowl Had deeply warm'd my swimming soul; Monsieur Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet. The German imitators of it are, Lessing, in his poem Gestern Brüder, etc. Gleim, in the ode An den Tod,' and Schmidt, in der Poet. Blumenl. Gotting. 1783, p. 7.-Degen. That when the Fates would send their minion, To waft me off on shadowy pinion, etc.] The commentators, who are so fond of disputing de lana caprina, have been very busy on the authority of the phrase ν' ανθάνειν επελθῇ. The reading of ἐν' αν Θάνατος επέλθη, which De Medenbach proposes in his Amonitates Litterariæ, was already hinted by Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice. The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose flowing souls the goblet blends!] This communion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life are enumerated with proverbial simplicity. Tylaiver peev ape5ον ανδρι θνητῳ. Δεύτερον δε, καλον φυήν γενεσθαι. Το τρίτον δε, πλουτειν αδόλως. Kaι TO TETAPTO, συνήβαν μετα των φίλων. As lull'd in slumber I was laid, All were gone! - Alas!» I said, Sleep! again my joys restore, Oh! let me dream them o'er and o'er!» ODE XXXVIII. · LET us drain the nectar'd bowl, the cause of the severe reprehension which I believe he suffered for his Anacreon. Fuit olim fateor (says he, in a note upon Longinus), cum Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima fœmina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone (Anacreontem dico, si nescis Lector), noli sperare, etc. etc. He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of: Ουδέες φιλοπότης εςιν άνθρωπος κακός. No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man. » when all my dream of joys, Dimpled girls and reddy boys, All were gone! Nonnus says of Bac bas, almost in the same words that Anacreon uses, Εγρόμενος σε Παρθένον ουκ εκίχησε, και ηθελεν αυθις εαυειν. Waking, he lost the phantom's charms, He found no beauty in his arms, Again to slumber he essayed, Again to clasp the shadowy maid! Sleep! again my joys restore, LONGEPIERRE, Oh! let me dream them o'er and o'er!] Dr Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, animadverting upon the commentators of that poet, imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the following words to the line of Anacreon before us: I have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, I tried to sleep again,' the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like any other man, the same wish on the same occasion." who pretended, in every little coincidence of thought to detect an 1. Compare with this beautiful ode the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v, das Gesellschaftliche; and of Bürger, p. 51, etc. etc. Degen. Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms Has fondled in her twining arms.] Robertellus, upon the epithalaminm of Catullus, mentions an ingenious derivation of Cytherea, the name of Venus, Ropa тo XEVŘELY Tous sportas, which seems to hint that Love's fairy favours are lost, when not concealed,» From him that dream of transport flows, 'Tis wine alone can strike a spark!] The brevity of life allows arguments for the voluptuary as well as the moralist. Among many parallel passages which Longepierre has adduced, I shall content myself with this epigram from the Anthologia: Λουσάμενοι, Προδίκη, πυκασώμεθα, και τον ακρατου Of which the following is a loose paraphrase: Fly, my beloved, to yonder stream, Age is on his temples hung, But his heart-his heart is young Saiut Pavin makes the same distinction in a sonnet to a young girl. Je sais bien que les destinées Ont mal compassé nos années; ODE XL. I KNOW that Heaven ordains me here I neither know nor ask to know. ODE XLI. WHEN Spring begems the dewy scene, How sweet to walk the velvet green, And hear the Zephyr's languid sighs, As o'er the scented mead he flies! How sweet to mark the pouting vine, Ready to fall in tears of wine; Ne regardez que mon amour. Fair and young, thou bloomest now, And I full many a year have told; But read the heart and not the brow, Thou shalt not find my love is old. My love's a child; and thou canst say How much his little age may be, For be was born the very day That first I set my eyes on thee! No, no, the heart that feels with me, Can never be a slave to thee!] Longepierre quotes an epigram here from the Anthologia, on account of the similarity of a particular phrase; it is by no means Anacreontic, but has an interesting simplicity which induced me to paraphrase it, and may atone for its intrusion. Ελπις, και συ, τυχη, μεγα χαιρετεί τον λιμεν' εὗρον. At length to Fortune, and to you, Away, away, your flattering arts And they shall weep at your deceiving! Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom, And Venus dance me to the tomb!] The same commentator has quoted an epitaph, written upon our poet by Julian, where he makes him give the precepts of good-fellowship even from the tomb. Πολλάκι μεν του αείσα, και εκ τυμβου δε βοήσω Πίνετε, πριν ταυτην αμφιβάλησθε κόνιν. This lesson oft in life I sung, And from my grave I still shall cry, - Drink, mortal! drink, while time is young, Ere death has made thee cold as I.. YES, be the glorious revel mine, Where humour sparkles from the wine! Let the bright nymph, with trembling eye, And, while she weaves a frontlet fair And little has it learn'd to dread The gall that Envy's tongue can shed. ODE XLIII. WHILE our rosy fillets shed Blushes o'er each fervid head, And with the maid, whose every sigh Is love and bliss, etc.] Thus Horace: Quid habes illius, illius Quæ spirabat amores, Quæ me surpuerat mihi. And does there then remain but this, And hast thou lost each rosy ray The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly depicted. His love of social, harmonized pleasures is expressed with a warmth, amiable and endearing. Among the epigrams imputed to Anacreon is the following; it is the only one worth translation, and it breathes the same sentiments with this ode: Ου φίλος, ὃς κρητήρι παρα πλέω οινοποτάζων, Αλλ' όςις Μουσεων τε, και αγλαα δωρ' Αφροδίτης and With many a cup many a smile The festal moments we beguile. And while the harp, impassion'd, flings Tuneful rapture from the strings, Some airy nymph, with fluent limbs, Through the dance luxuriant swims, Waving, in her snowy hand, The leafy Bacchanalian wand, Which, as the tripping wanton flies, Shakes its tresses to her sighs! A youth, the while, with loosen'd hair Sings, to the wild harp's tender tone, And while the harp, impassion'd, flings Tuneful rapture from the strings, etc.] On the barbiton a host of authorities may be collected, which, after all, leave us ignorant of the nature of the instrument. There is scarcely any point upon which we are so totally uninformed as the music of the ancients. The authors (a) extant upon the subject are, I imagine, little understood; but certainly if one of their moods was a progression by quartertones, which we are told was the nature of the enharmonic scale, simplicity was by no means the characteristic of their melody, for this is a nicety of progression of which modern music is not suscep ODE XLIV. ' BUDS of roses, virgin flowers, Till with crimson drops they weep! Drink and smile, and learn to think Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild! When, with the blushing naked Graces, ODE XLVI. ' SEE, the young, the rosy Spring, ODE XLVII. "T is true, my fading years decline, Yet I can quaff the brimming wine The fastidious affectation of some commentators has denounced this ode as spurious. Degen pronounces the four last lines to be the patch-work of some miserable versificator, and Brunck condemns the whole ode. It appears to me to be elegantly graphical; full of delicate expressions and luxuriant imagery. The abruptness of Ιδε πως εαρος φανέντος is striking and spirited, and bas been imitated rather languidly by Horace: Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte The imperative toe is infinitely more impressive, as in Shakspeare, But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, There is a simple and poetical description of Spring, in Catullus's beautiful farewell to Bithynia. Carm. 44. Barnes conjectures, in his life of our poet, that this ode was written after he had returned from Athens, to settle in his paternal seat at Teos; there, in a little villa at some distance from the city, which commanded a view of the Ægean Sea and the islands, he contemplated the beauties of nature, and enjoyed the felicities of retirement. Vide Barnes, in Anac. vita, sect. xxxv. This supposition, however unauthenticated, forms a pleasant association, which makes the This spirited poem is a eulogy on the rose; and again, in the fifty-fifth ode, we shall find our author rich in the praises of that flower. In a fragment of Sappho, in the romance of Achilles Tatius, to which Barnes refers us, the rose is very elegantly styled the eye of flowers; and the same poetess, in another fragment, calls the favours of the Muse the roses of Pieria. See the notes on the fifty-poem more interesting. fifth ode. Compare with this forty-fourth ode (says the German annotator) the beautiful ode of Uz die Rose.. When with the blushing, naked Graces, The wanton winding dance he traces.] This sweet idea of Love dancing with the Graces, is almost peculiar to Anacreon."-DEGEN. With some celestial glowing maid, etc.] The epithet Buxoros, which he gives to the nymph, is literally fall-bosomed: if this was really Anacreon's taste, the heaven of Mahomet would suit him in every particular. See the Koran, cap. 72. Then let us never vainly stray, In search of thorns, from Pleasure's way, etc.] I have thus endea Monsieur Chevreau says that Gregory Nazianzenus has paraphrased somewhere this description of Spring: I cannot find it. See Che vreau, OEuvres Mêlées. The murmering billows of the deep Have langui: h'd into silent sleep, etc.] It has been justly remarked that the liquid flow of the line απαλυνεται γαληνη is perfectly voured to convey the meaning of τι δε τον βιον πλανωμαι; expressive of the tranquillity which it describes. according to Regnier's paraphrase of the line: E che val, fuor della strada And cultured field, and winding stream, etc.] By ẞpotwv ɛpya, the works of men, (says Baxter,) be means cities, temples, and towns, which are then illuminated by the beams of the sun. As deep as any stripling fair Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear; And if, amidst the wanton crew, Let those who pant for Glory's charms With blushes borrow'd from my wine, ODE XLIX. ' WHEN Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy, The rosy harbinger of joy, feet! Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, ODE XLVIII. WHEN my thirsty soul I steep, But brandishing a rosy flask, etc.] Atx25 was a kind of leathern vessel for wine, very much in use; as should seem by the proverb ασκος και θυλακος, which was applied to those who were intemperate in eating and drinking. This proverb is mentioned in some verses quoted by Athenæus, from the Hesione of Alexis. my The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask! Phornutus assigns as a reason for the consecration of the thyrsus to Bacchus, that inebriety often renders the support of a stick very necessary. Ivy leaves brow entwining, etc.] The ivy was consecrated to Bacchus (says Montfaucon), because he formerly lay hid under that tree, or, as others will have it, because its leaves resemble those of the vine. Other reasons for its consecration, and the use of it in garlands at banquets, may be found in Longepierre, Barnes, etc. etc. Arm you, arm you, men of might, Hasien to the sanguine fight.] I have adopted the interpretation of Regnier and others: Altri segua Marte fero; Che sol Bacco è 'l mio conforto. ODE L.' WHEN I drink, I feel, I feel Visions of poetic zeal! Warm with the goblet's freshening dews, I think of doubts and fears no more; This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the same character, are merely chansons à boire. Most likely they were the effusions of the moment of conviviality, and were sung, we imagine, with rapture in Greece; but that interesting association by which they always recalled the convivial emotions that produced them, can be very little felt by the most enthusiastic reader; and much less by a phlegmatic grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dialects and particles. Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, Thaws the winter of our soul.] Avatos is the title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a curious circumstance, that Plutarch mistook the name of Levi among the Jews for Agut (one of the bacchanal cries), and accordingly supposed that they worshipped Bacchus. 2 Faber thinks this spurious; but, I believe, he is singular in his opinion. It has all the spirit of our author. Like the wreath which he presented in the dream, it smells of Anacreon.» The form of this ode, in the original, is remarkable. It is a kind of song of seven quatrain stanzas, each beginning with the line Οτ' εγω πιω τον οίνον. The first stanza alone is incomplete, consisting but of three lines. Compare with this poem (says Degen) the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v der Wein, where that divine poet has wantoned in the praises of wine." When I drink, I feel, I feel Visions of poetic zeal!] « Anacreon is not the only one (says Longepierre) whom wine bas inspired with poetry. There is an epigram in the first book of the Anthologia, which begins thus: Οίνος του χαριεντι μέγας πελει ίππος αοιδῳ, If with water you fill up your glasses, |