And with the maid whose every sigh ODE XLII.' YES, be the glorious revel mine, Where humour sparkles from the wine! And while the red cup circles round, 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. Discordant clamours o'er the bowl, 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 1 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, ός κρητήρι παρα πλέω οινοποτάζων, Αλλ' όςις Μουσεων τε, και αγλαα δωρ' Αφροδίτης When to the lip the brimming cup is press'd, With many a cup and many a smile 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 sbject 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 enbarmonic scale. simplicity was by no means the characteristic of their melody, for this is a nicety of progression of which modern music is not susceptible. The invention of the barbiton is, by Athenæus, attributed to Asacreon. See his fourth book, where it is called to qua too Avanpeoutos. Neanthes of Cyzicus, as quoted by Gyraldus, asserta the same. Vide Chabot, in Horat. on the words Lesboum barbiton, in the first ode. The kiss that she left on my lip Like a dew-drop shall lingering lie; 'T was nectar she gave me to sip, The dew that distill'd in that kiss, To my soul was voluptuous wine; Has Cupid left the starry sphere, To ware his golden tresses here? The introduction of these deities to the festival is merely allegorical. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet describes a masquerade, where these deities were personated by the company in masks. The translation will conform with either | 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 XLV. WITHIN this goblet, rich and deep, And eyes that sparkle, eyes that weep, In search of thorns, from pleasure's way; 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 fiftyfifth 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 3x0uxoros, which he gives to the nymph, is literally full-bosomed: if this was really Anacreon's taste, the heaven of Mahomet would suit him in every particular. See the Koran, cap. 72. ODE XLVI. ' SEE, the young, the rosy Spring, And cultured field, and winding stream, With leafy buds and flowery bells; 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 tog 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 Egean 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 poem more interesting. Monsieur Chevreau says that Gregory Nazianzenus has paraphrased somewhere this description of Spring: I cannot find it. See Che vreau, OEuvres Mélées. Compare with this ode (says Degen) the verses of Hagedorn, book fourth der Frühling, and book fifth der Mai.. While virgin Graces, warm with May, Bрuoust, the roses display their graces. This is not uningeFling roses o'er her dewy way!] De Pauw reads, Xxpitas podz nious; but we lose by it the beauty of the personification, to the boldness of which Regnier has objected very frivolously. As deep as any stripling fair Let those who pant for Glory's charms my follies all again! my wine, ODE XLIX. ' WHEN Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy, rosy harbinger of joy, Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, A flow of joy, a lively heat, But brandishing a rosy flask, etc.] Ax25 was a kind of leathern vessel for wine, very much in use; as should seem by the proverb axos xxl Dudaxos, 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. 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 my 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. ODE L.' WHEN I drink, I feel, I feel Visions of poetic zeal! Warm with the goblet's freshening dews, My heart invokes the heavenly Muse. When I drink, my sorrow 's o'er; I think of doubts and fears no more; But scatter to the railing wind 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.] Auztag is the title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a curious circumstance, that Piutarch mistook the name of Levi among the Jews for Agüt (one of the bacchanal cries), and accordingly supposed that they worshipped Bacchus. 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 be 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 And, while we dance through breathing bowers, Till the gale breathes of nought but him! Flowers, begemm'd with tears of wine; That none but social spirits know, When youthful revellers, round the bowl, When youthful revellers, round the bowl, Dilating, mingle soul with soul!] Subjoined to Gail's edition of Anacreon, there are some curious letters upon the isot of the ancients, which appeared in the French Journals. At the opening of the Odeon, in Paris, the managers of the spectacle requested Professor Gail to give them some uncommon name for the fêtes of this institution. He suggested the word Thiase, which was adopted; but the literati of Paris questioned the propriety of it, and addressed their criticisms to Gail, through the medium of the public prints. Two or three of the letters he has inserted in his edition, and they have elicited from him some learned research on the subject. Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilupus, in the following epigram, has given a version of it: Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores? Ne fugias, sint sparsa licet mea tempora canis, Though the wane of age is mine, ODE LII.' AWAY, away, you men of rules! But would they make me love and drink? My soul upon the goblet's brim; I've time for nought but pleasure now. At yonder fountain's gelid flow; I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink This soul to slumber as I drink! Soon, too soon, my jocund slave, You'll deck your master's grassy grave; And there's an end-for ah! you know, They drink but little wine below! ODE LIII. WHEN I behold the festive train And wings me lightly through the dance. Cull the flower and twine the braid; ODE LIV.. METHINKS, the pictured bull we see Is amorous Jove-it must be he! And there's an end-for ah! you know, They drink but liule wine below!] Thus the witty Mainard: La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois Nous ont enfermés une fois Au sein d'une fosse profonde, Adieu bons vins et bons repas, Ma science ne trouve pas Des cabarets en l'autre monde. From Mainard, Gombauld, and De Cailly, old French poets, some of the best epigrams of the English language are borrowed. Bid the blush of summer's rose It Burn upon my brow of snows, etc.] Licetus, in his Hieroglyphica, quoting two of our poet's odes, where he calls for garlands, remarks, Constat igitur floreas coronas poetis et potantibus in symposio convenire, non autem sapientibus et philosophiam affectantibus. appears that wreaths of flowers were adapted for poets and revellers at banquets, but by no means became those who had pretensions to wisdom and philosophy. On this principle, in his 152d chapter, he discovers a refinement in Virgil, describing the garland of the poet Silenus as fallen off; which distinguishes, he thinks, the divine intoxication of Silenus from that of common drunkards, who always wear their crowns while they drink. This, indeed, is the labor ineptiarum of commentators. He still can kiss the goblet's brim, etc.] Wine is prescribed by Galen as an excellent medicine for old men: « Quod frigidos et humoribus expletos calefaciat, etc.; but Nature was Anacreon's phy sician. There is a proverb in Eriphns, as quoted by Athenæus, which says that wine makes an old man dance, whether he will or not.» Λόγος ες' αρχαίος, ου κακώς έχων, This ode is written upon a picture which represented the rape of Europa. Madame Dacier. It may perhaps be considered as a description of one of those coins which the Sidonians struck off in honour of Europa, representing a How fondly blest he seems to bear ODE LV.' WHILE we invoke the wreathed spring, woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. viii, cap. 23. Sidonii numismata cum fœmina tauri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, caderant in ejus honorem. In the little treatise upon the goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedicated by the Sidonians to Astarte, whom some, it appears, confounded with Europa. Moschus has written a very beautiful idyl on the story of Europa. No: he descends from climes above, He looks the God, he breathes of Jove.] Thus Moschus: Κρυψε θεον και τρεψε δέμας· και γινετο ταύρος. The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love, This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. All antiquity (says Barnes) has produced nothing more beautiful.. From the idea of peculiar excellence which the ancients attached to this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according to Suidas, poetprxas, You have spoken roses, a phrase somewhat similar to the dire des Beurettes of the French. In the same idea of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word poo, for which the inqui sitive reader may consult Gaulminas upon the epithalamium of our poet, where it is introduced in the romance of Theodorus. Muretus, in one of his elegies, calls his mistress his rose. Jam te igitur rursus teneo, formosula, jam te Now I again embrace thee, dearest, Eleg. 8, This, like most of the terms of endearment in the modern Latin poets, is taken from Plautus; they were vulgar and colloquial in his time, and they are among the elegancies of the modern Latinists. Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the beginning of his poem on the Rose: Carmine digna rosa est; vellem caneretur ut illam Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing.] I have passed over the line συν εταιρει αύξει μέλπην; it is corpupt in this original reading, and has been very little improved by the annotators. I should suppose it to be an interpolation, if it were not for a line which oc curs afterwards: φερε δη φυσιν λέγωμεν. The rose is warm Dione's bliss, etc.] Belleau, in a note upon an old French poet, quoting the original here appodtones t'alluppa, translates it, - comme les délices et mignardises de Vénus.. |