Let those who pant for glory's charms Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, Embrace her in the field of arms; Thaws the winter of our soul; While my inglorious, placid soul When to my inmost core he glides, Breathes not a wish beyond the bowl. And bathes it with his ruby tides, Then fill it high, my ruddy slave, A flow of joy, a lively heat, And bathe me in its honied wave! Fires my brain, and wings my feet! For, though my fading years decay, 'T is surely something sweet, I think, And though my bloom has pass'd away, Nay, something heavenly sweet, to drink! Like old Silenus, sire divine, Sing, sing of love, let Music's breath With blushes borrow'd from my wine, Softly beguile our rapturous death, I'll wanton 'mid the dancing train, While, my young Venus, thou and I To the voluptuous cadence die! Again we'll sport, again we 'll dance. ODE L. When I drink, I feel, I feel Richest, happiest, first of men; Visions of poetic zeal! Careless o'er my cup I sing, Warm with the goblet's freshening dews, Fancy makes me more than king; My heart invokes the heavenly Muse. Gives me wealthy Cræsus' store, When I drink, my sorrow 's o'er ; Can I, can I wish for more ? I think of doubts and fears no more ; On my velvet couch reclining, But scatter to the railing wind Ivy leaves my brow entwining, Each gloomy phantom of the mind ! While my soul dilates with glee, When I drink, the jesting boy, What are kings and crowns to me? Bacchus himself, partakes my joy; If before my feet they lay, And, while we dance through breathing bowers, I would spurn Whose every gale is rich with flowers, Who, with the sunshine of the bowl, Thaws the winter of our soul.] Auzios is the title which Spill no other blood than thine. he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a curious circumYonder brimming goblet see, stance, that Plutarch mistook the name of Levi among the That alone shall vanquish me; Jews for Asus (one of the bacchanal cries,) and accordingly supposed they worshipped Bacchus. Oh! I think it sweeter far To fall in banquet than in war! 1 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 ODE XLIX.? is a kind of song of seven quatrain stanzas, each beginning with the line WHEN Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy, Or' sgu W16O TOV OIVON, The rosy harbinger of joy, The first stanza alone is incomplete, consisting but of three lines. “Compare with this poem (says Degen) the verses of proverb is mentioned in some verses quoted by Athenæus, Hagedorn, lib. v. der Wein, where that divine poet has from the Hesione of Alexis. wantoned in the praises of wine." The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask!] Phornutus assigns as a When I drink, I feel, I feel reason for the consecration of the thyrsus to Bacchus, that Visions of poetic zeal !) “Anacreon is not the only one inebriety often renders the support of a stick very necessary. (says Longepierre) whom wine has inspired with poetry. Ivy leaves my brow entwining, etc.) “The ivy was con- There is an epigram in the first book of the Anthologia, secrated to Bacchus (says Montfaucon,) because he formerly which begins thus: lay bid under that tree, or, as others will have it, because its leaves resemble those of the vine. Other reasons for its Οινος τοι χαριεντι μεγας τελει ιππος αοιδω, consecration, and the use of it in garlands at banquets, may Υδωρ δε σινων, καλον ου τεκoις επος." be found in Longepierre, Barnes, etc. etc. If with water you fill up your glasses, Arm you, arm you, men of might, You'll never write any thing wise; For wine is the horse of Parnassus, Hasten to the sanguine fight. I have adopted the inter Which hurries a bard to the skies! pretation of Regnier and others: Altri segua Marte fero; And, while we dance through breathing bowers, etc.] If Che sol Bacco è 'l mio conforto. some of the translators had observed Doctor Trapp's cau1 This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the same tion, with regard to woqveva scot H ev ceupos,“ Cave ne cecharacter, are inerely chansons à boire. Most likely they lum intelligas,” they would not have spoiled the simplicity were the effusions of the moment of conviviality, and were of Anacreon's fancy, by such extravagant conceptions of sung, we imagine, with rapture in Greece; but that interest the passage. Could our poet imagine such bombast as the ing association, by which they always recalled the convivial following: emotions that produced them, can be very little felt by the Quand je bois, mon œil s'imagine most enthusiastic reader; and much less by a phlegmatic Que, dans un tourbillon plein de parfums divers, grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dialects and Bacchus m'emporte dans les airs, particles. Rempli de sa liqueur divine. In bowls he makes my senses swim, When I drink, my heart refines, That none but social spirits know, See, in yonder flowery braid, ODE LII.' AWAY, away, you men of rules, They'd make me learn, they'd make me think, ODE LI.' FLY not thus, my brow of snow, Or this: Indi mi mena Mentre lietro ebro deliro Baccho in giro Per la vaga aura serena. 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 x 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. 1 Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilupus, in the following epigram, has given a version of it: Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores? Oh! why repel my soul's impassion'd vow, See the rich garland, cull'd in vernal weather, ODE LIII. WHEN I behold the festive train Of dancing youth, I'm young again! See in yonder flowery braid, Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid!] "In the same manner that Anacreon pleads for the whiteness of his locks, from the beauty of the colour in garlands, a shepherd, in Theocritus, endeavours to recommend his black hair: Και το τον μελαν εστι, και α γραπτα υακινθος Longepierre, Barnes, etc. 1 This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived, rhetoricians were not known."-Degen. Though the antiquity of this ode is confirmed by the Vatican manuscript, I am very much inclined to agree in this argument against its authenticity; for, though the dawnings of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon. Our poet anticipated the ideas of Epicurus, in his aversion to the labours of learning, as well as his devotion to voluptuousness. Πασαν παιδείαν μακαριοι φευγετε, said the philosopher of the garden in a letter to Pythocles. Teach me this, and let me twine My arms around the nymph divine!] By xpvons AppoSrns here, I understand some beautiful girl; in the same manner that Avalos is often used for wine. "Golden" is frequently an epithet of beauty. Thus in Virgil, "Venus aurea;" ;" and in Propertius, "Cynthia aurea." Tibullus, however, calls an old woman "golden." The translation d'Autori Anonimi, as usual, wantons on this passage of Anacreon: E m' insegni con piu rare Il bel cinto d' onestade. And there's an end-for ah! you know, They drink but little wine below!] Thus the witty Mainard: Memory wakes her tragic trance, And wings me lightly through the dance. And let me, while the wild and young ODE LIV. METHINKS, the pictured bull we see La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois Au sein d'une fosse profonde, 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 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." "It 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 physician. There is a proverb in Eriphus, as quoted by Athenæus, which says, "that wine makes an old man dance, whether he will or not." Λογος εστ' αρχαιος, ου κακως έχων, Οινον λεγουσι τους γεροντας, ω πατερα 1 "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 woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. viii. cap. 23. “ Sidonii numismata cum fœmina auri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, cuderunt in s honorem." In the little treatise upon the goddess of fyria, attributed very fulsely to Lucian, No: he descends from climes above, He looks the God, he breathes of Jove! ODE LV.1 WHILE we invoke the wreathed spring, The rose is warm Dione's bliss, 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: The God forgot himself, his heaven for love, "All an 1 This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. tiquity (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, pode se2 εxxxzs, "You have spoken roses,' a phrase somewhat similar to the "dire des fleurettes" of the French. In the same idea of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word podov, for which the inquisitive reader may consult Gaulminus 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 (Quid trepidas ?) teneo; jam, rosa, te teneo. 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 UV STRIPE DUŽEL μsy; it is corrupt 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 occurs afterwards. φέρε δή φυσιν v. The rose is warm Dione's bliss, etc.] Belleau, in a note upon an old French poet, quoting the original here Talupux, translates it, "comme les délices et mignardises de Vénus." Oft has the poet's magic tongue Ζευς The rose's fair luxuriance sung, etc.] The following is a fragment of the Lesbian poetess. It is cited in the romance of Achilles Tatius, who appears to have resolved the numbers into prose. Ει τοις ανθεσιν ήθελεν ο επιθείναι βασιλέα, το ροδον αν των ανθέων εβασίλευε, γης εστι κόσμος, φυτών αγλαισμα, οφθαλμος ανθεων, λειμώνος sputnμx, xxλños ασтρAπTOV. Έρωτος πνει, Αφροδίτην wρoževel, SVEISEO QUAλ015 20μx, EUNIUNTOIS τρυφα, το πέταλον το Ζεφύρω γελά. πετάλοις And long the Muses, heavenly maids, And fill with balm the fainting gale! If Jove would give the leafy bowers Till, glowing with the wanton's play, When morning paints the orient skies, Her fingers burn with roseat dyes, etc.] In the original here, he enumerates the many epithets of beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by the poets, waрa Twv σoov. We see that poets were dignified in Greece with the title of sages; even the careless Anacreon, who lived but for love and voluptuousness, was called by Plato the wise Anacreon. Fuit hæc sapientia quondam. Preserves the cold inurned clay, etc.] He here alludes to the use of the rose in embalming; and, perhaps (as Barnes thinks,) to the rosy unguent with which Venus anointed the corpse of Hector. Homer's Iliad. . It may likewise regard the ancient practice of putting garlands of roses on the dead, as in Statius, Theb. lib. x. 782. hi sertis, hi veris honore soluto Accumulant artus patriaque in sede reponunt Corpus odoratum. Where "veris honor," though it mean every kind of flowers, may seem more particularly to refer to the rose, which our poet, in another ode, calls Expos MEXиμa. We read, in the Hieroglyphics of Pierius, lib. lv. that some of the ancients used to order in their wills, that roses should be annually scattered on their tombs; and he has adduced some sepulchral inscriptions to this purpose. And mocks the vestige of decay.] When he says that this flower prevails over time itself, he still alludes to its efficacy in embalment (tenera poneret ossa rosa. Propert. lib. i. eleg. 17,) or perhaps to the subsequent idea of its fragrance surviving its beauty; for he can scarcely mean to praise for duration the "nimium breves flores" of the rose. Philostratus compares this flower with love, and says, that they both defy the influence of time; xpovov de OUTS Epws, OUTE poda odev. Unfortunately the similitude lics not in their duration, but their transience. And when, at length, in pale decline, Its florid beauties fade and pine, Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odour e'en in death! Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung? The gods beheld this brilliant birth, ODE LVI.' HE, who instructs the youthful crew To bathe them in the brimmer's dew, Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odour e'en in death.] Thus Caspar Barlæus, in his Ritus Nuptiarum: Ambrosium late rosa tunc quoque spargit odorem, Nor then the rose its odour loses, The sweetly orient buds they dyed, etc.] The author of the "Pervigilium Veneris" (a poem attributed to Catullus, the style of which appears to me to have all the laboured luxuriance of a much later period) ascribes the tincture of the rose to the blood from the wound of Adonis rosa Fuse aprino de cruore according to the emendation of Lipsius. In the following epigram this hue is differently accounted for: Illa quidem studiosa suum defendere Adonim, While the enamour'd queen of joy On whom the jealous war-god rushes; And while the wound with crimson flows, The snowy flowret feels her blood, and blushes! 1 "Compare with this elegant ode the verses of Uz, lib i. die Weinlese."-Degen. This appears to be one of the hymns which were sung at the anniversary festival of the vintage; one of the s vavo, as our poet himself terms them in the fifty-ninth ode. We cannot help feeling a peculiar veneration for these relics of the religion of antiquity. Horace may be supposed to have written the nineteenth ode of his second book, and the twenty-fifth of the third, for some bacchanalian celebration of this kind. And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses, Lie faintly glowing, half-conceal'd, ODE LVII. ODE LVIII. When gold, as fleet as Zephyr's pinion, And, in a frenzied flight of soul, Escapes like any faithless minion, Sublime as Heaven's eternal pole, And flies me (as he Áies me ever,) Do I pursue him ? never, never! sion ought to be; glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients In beauty's naked majesty ? have attained this modesty of description, which is like the Oh! he has given the raptured sight golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, impervious A witching banquet of delight; to every beam but that of fancy. And all those sacred scenes of Love, Her bosom, like the humid rosc, etc.) “Pwdswv (says an Where only hallowed eyes may rove, anonymous annotator) is a whimsical epithet for the bosom." Neither Catullus nor Gray have been of his opinion. The former has the expression, Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth, En hic in roseis latet papillis. Illuminate the sons of earth!] In the original WOTOV And the latter, αστoνoν κομιξων. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet here had the nepenthé of Homer in his mind. Odyssey, Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd hours, etc. lib. iv. This nepenthé was a something of exquisite charm, Crottus, a modern Latinist, might indeed be censured for infused by Helen into the wine of her guests, which had the too vague'an use of the epithet “ rosy,” when he applies it power of dispelling every anxiety. A French writer, with to the eyes: "e roseis oculis." very elegant gallantry, conjectures that this spell, which made the bowl so beguiling, was the charm of Helen's con young Desire, etc.] In the original "Ipspos, versation. See de Meré, quoted by Bayle, art. Helène. who was the same deity with Jocus among the Romans. Aurelius Augurellus has a poem beginning 1 This ode is a very animated description of a picture of Venus on a discus, which presented the goddess in her first Invitat olim Bacchus ad cenam suos emergence from the waves. About two centuries after our Comon, Jocum, Cupidinem. poet wrote, the pencil of the artist Apelles embellished this Which Parnell has closely imitated : subject, in his famous painting of the Venus Anadyomené, the model of which, as Pliny informs us, was the beautiful Gay Bacchus, liking Estcourt's wine, Campaspe, given to him by Alexander; though, according A noble meal bespoke us; to Natalis Comes, lib. vii. cap. 16, it was Phryne who sat to And, for the guests that were to dine, Apelles for the face and breast of this Venus. Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus, etc. There are a few blemishes in the reading of the ode be 1 I have followed Barnes's arrangement of this ode; it defore us, which have influenced Faber, Heyne, Brunck, etc. viates somewhat from the Vatican MS. but it appeared to to denounce the whole poem as spurious. Non ego paucis me the more natural order. offendar maculis. I think it is beautiful enough to be authentic. When gold, as fleet as Zephyr's pinion, Escapes like any faithless, minion, etc.) In the original And whose immortal hand could shed ο δραπετας ο χρυσος. There is a kind of pun in these Upon this disk the ocean's bed?] The abruptness of words, as Madame Dacier has already remarked; for Chryape Tos TopEUCE JOntov, is finely expressive of sudden sos, which signifies gold, was also a frequent name for a admiration, and is one of those beauties which we cannot slave. In one of Lucian's dialogues, there is, I think, a but admire in their source, though, by frequent imitation, similar play upon the word, where the followers of Chrythey are now become languid and unimpressive. sippus are called golden fishes. The puns of the ancients And all those sacred scenes of love, are, in general, even more vapid than our own , some of Where only hallow'd eyes may rove, etc.) The picture the best are those recorded of Diogenes. here has all the delicate character of the semi-reducta Ve- And flies me (as he flies me ever,) etc.) Asi s', est pas nus, and is the sweetest emblem of what the poetry of pas-peugen This grace of iteration has already been taken |