Hail, modest ignorance! thou goal and prize, Sits by the nightly fire, whose beacon glows lib. ii. cap. 7, 8, where he will find the precise sort of fire ascertained These are the mild, the blest associates given in which wicked spirits are to be burned hereafter. 1 . Chere Sceptique, douce pature de mon ame, et l'unique port de . To him who doubts, and trusts in nought but Heaven! LA MOTHE LE VATER. Odes of Anacreon. DEDICATION. TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. SIR,-In allowing me to dedicate this work to your regret that the pages which you have thus distinguished With every sentiment of respect, Your Royal Highness's Very grateful and devoted Servant, THOMAS MOORE. ADVERTISEMENT. It may be necessary to mention that, in arranging ODE. INDEX. 1 ΑΝΑΚΡΕΩΝ ιδων με 20 21 Η γε μελαίνα πίνει . 26. Συ μεν λέγεις τα Θήβης . 29 Χαλεπον το μη φίλησαι 48 Όταν ο Βακχος εισέλθη 18 49 Του Διος ὁ παις Βακχος . BARNES. 32 9 28 21 22 30 19 20 2 33 16 3- 39 ODE 58. ̔Ο διατετας μ' ὁ χρυσος . 59. Τον μελανόχρωτα βιτρων 6ο Ανα βαρβιτον δυνήσω. . 61 Πολιοι μεν ήμιν ήδε 62 Αγε δή, φερ ημιν, ω παι . 63 Τον Ερωτα γαρ τον άμερον 64 Γουνούμαι σ', ελαφηβολο. 65. Πάλε Θρηκίη, τι δη με 66 Θεμων ανασσα, Κυπρι 6. Ω παι παρθένιον βλέπων. 68 Εγω δ' ουτ' αν Αμαλθείας For the order of the rest, see the Notes. AN ODE BY THE TRANSLATOR. ΕΠΙ ροδίνοις ταπησι, Τηνος ποτ' ὁ μελισης Ίλαρος γελων έκειτο, Μετα των καλών γυναικών BARNES 65 52 64 56 67 REMARKS ON ANACREON. 57 THERE is very little known with certainty of the life of 58 Anacreon. Chameleon Heracleotes, who wrote upou 6o the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of an61cient literature. The editors of the poet have collected 6, the few triting anecdotes which are scattered through the extant authors of antiquity, and, supplying the deficiency of materials by fictions of their own imagination, they have arranged, what they call, a life of Anacreon. These specious fabrications are intended to indulge that interest which we naturally feel in the biography of illustrious men; but it is rather a dangerous kind of illusion, as it confounds the limits of history and romance, and is too often supported by unfaithful citation.3 68 Our poet was born in the city of Téos, in the delicious region of Ionia, where every thing respired voluptuousness. The time of his birth appears to have been in the sixth century before Christ, and he flourished at that remarkable period when, under the polished tyrants Hipparchus and Polycrates, Athens and Samos were the rival asylums of genius. The name of his father is doubtful, and therefore cannot be very interesting. His family was perhaps illustrious, but those who discover in Plato that he was a descendant of the monarch Codrus exhibit, as usual, more zeal than accuracy,6 The disposition and talents of Anacreon recommended him to the monarch of Samos, and he was formed to be the friend of such a prince as Polycrates. Susceptible only to the pleasures, he felt not the corruptions of the court; and while Pythagoras fled from the tyrant, Anacreon was celebrating his praises on the lyre. We are told too by Maximus Tyrius, that by the intluence of his amatory songs he softened the mind of Polycrates into a spirit of benevolence towards his subjects.7 * He is quoted by Athenaus ἐν τῷ περί του Ανακρέοντος. 3 The History of Anacreon, by Monsieur Gaccn (le porte sans fard) is professedly a romance; nor does Mademoiselle Scuderi, from whom he borrowed the idea, pretend to historical veracity in her account of Anacreon and Sappho. These, then, are allowable. But how can Barnes be forgiven, who, with all the confidence of a biographer, traces every wandering of the poet, and settles him in his old age at a country villa near Teos? The learned Monsieur Bayle has detected some infidelities of quotation in Le Fevre. See Dictionnaire Historique, etc. Majame Dacier is not more accurate than her father: they have almost made Anacreon prime minister to the monarch of Samos. 4 The Asiatics were as remarkable for genius as for luxury. Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fecere port, Anacreon, inde Mimnermus et Antimachus, etc.-Solinus. I have not attempted to deune the particular Olympiad, but have adopted the idea of Bayle, who says, Je n'ai point marqué d'Olympiade; car, pour un homme qui a vécu 85 ans, il me semble que l'on ne doit point s'enfermer dans des bornes si étroites.. 6 This mistake is founded on a false interpretation of a very obvious passage in Plato's Dialogue on Temperance; it originated with Madame Dacier, and has been received implicitly by many. Gail, a late editor of Anacreon, seems to claim to himself the merit of detecting this error, but Bayle Lad observed it before him. 7 Ανακρέων Σαμίοις Πολυκράτην ημέρασε. - Maxim. Tyr. 8 21. Maximus Tyrius mentions this among other instances of the influence of poetry. If Gail had read Maximus Tyrius, how could he ridicule this idea in Moutonnet, as unauthenticated? There can scarcely be imagined a more delightful theme for the warmest speculations of fancy to wanton upon, than the idea of an intercourse between Anacreon and Sappho. I could wish to believe that they were contemporary: any thought of an interchange between hearts so congenial in warmth of passion and delicacy of genius gives such play to the imagination, that the mind loves to indulge in it; but the vision dissolves bes fore historical truth; and Chamæleon and Hermesianax, The amours of the poet and the rivalship of the tyrant I shall pass over in silence; and there are few, I presume, who will regret the omission of most of those anecdotes, which the industry of some editors has not only promulged but discussed. Whatever is repugnant to modesty and virtue is considered in ethical science, by a supposition very favourable to humanity, as impossible; and this amiable persuasion should be much more strongly entertained where the transgression wars with nature as well as virtue. But why are we not al-who are the source of the supposition, are considered lowed to indulge in the presumption? Why are we officiously reminded that there have been such instances of depravity? Hipparchus, who now maintained at Athens the power which his father Pisistratus had usurped, was one of those elegant princes who have polished the fetters of their subjects. He was the first, according to Plato, who edited the poems of Homer, and commanded them to be sung by the rhapsodists at the celebration of the Panathena. As his court was the galaxy of genius, Anacreon should not be absent. Hipparchus sent a barge for him; the poet embraced the invitation, and the muses and the loves were wafted with him to Athens, The manner of Anacreon's death was singular. We are told that in the eighty-fifth year of his age he was choked by a grape-stone;3 and however we may smile at their enthusiastic partiality, who pretend that it was a peculiar indulgence of Heaven, which stole him from the world by this easy and characteristic death, we cannot help admiring that his fate should be so emblematic of his disposition. Cælius Calcagninus alludes to this catastrophe in the following epitaph on our poet: 4 Then, hallow'd age, those lips which pour'd along The sweet: at Lapses of the cygnet & song. A gripe has closed for ever! Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb, Here let the rose he loved with laurels bloom, But far be thou, oh! far, unholy vine, By whom the favourite minstrel of the Nine Thy God himself now blushes to confess, Since poor Anacreon's death! In the romance of Clelia, the anecdote to which I allude is to'd of a young girl, with whom Anacreon fell in love while she personated the god Apollo in a mask, But here Mademoiselle Scuderi consulted nature more than truth. 2 There is a very interesting French poem founded upon this anecdote, imputed to Desyvetaus, and called Anacreon Citoyen.s Fabricius appears not to trust very implicitly in this story. Uve passe acino tandem suffocatus, si credimus Suide in ovoTOTNS; alii enim lioc mortis genere perisse tradunt Sophociem.. Fabrici Bibliothec. Græc. hb. ii. cap. 15. It must be confessed that Lucian, who tells us that Sophocles was choked by a grape-stone, in the very same treatise mentions the longevity of Anacrcon, and y is silent on the manner of his death. Could he have been ignorant of such a remarkable coincidence, or, knowing, could he bare neglected to remark it? See Regnier's Introduction to his Anacreon. 4 At te, sancte senex, acinus sub tartara misit, Vos, hedera, tumulum, tumulum vos, cingite lauri: At viis procul bine, procul hunc odiosa facessat, Crlius Calcagnin is his translated or imitated the epigrams 15 Thy as having merely indulged in a poetical anachronism. To infer the moral dispositions of a poet from the tone of sentiment which pervades his works, is sometimes a very fallacious analogy: but the soul of Anacreon speaks so unequivocally through his odes, that we may consult them as the faithful mirrors of his heart. We find him there the elegant voluptuary, diffusing the seductive charm of sentiment over passions and propensities at which rigid morality mast frown. His heart, devoted to indolence, seems to think that there is wealth enough in happiness, but seldom happiness enough in wealth; and the cheerfulness with which he brightens his old age is interesting and endearing like his own rose, he is fragrant even in decay. But the most peculiar feature of his mind is that love of simplicity which he attributes to himself so very feelingly, and which breathes characteristically through all that he has sung. In truth, if we omit those vices in our estimate which ethnic religion not only connived at but consecrated, we shall say that the disposition of our poet was amiable; his morality was relaxed, but not abandoned; and Virtue with her zone loosened may be an emblem of the character of Anacreon.3 Barnes is convinced of the synchronism of Anacreon and Sayṛbə; but very gratuitously. la citing his authorities, it is strange that be neglected the line which Fulvius Ursinus has quoted, as of Anacreom, among the testimonies to Sapplio: Ειμι λαβών είσαρας Σαπφω παρθένον ἀδυφωνον. Fabricius thinks that they might have been contemporary, but core- An Italian poet, in some verses on Belleau's translation of Ame Sed quo tempore nec capaciores Nor fill'd his bowl to Bacchus higher. Barnes hagen on it with enthusiastic admiration, but he is always extravagant, of ei Barnes could not have read the passage to which le refers, when be Of his person and physiognomy time has preserved | them to be inimitable. Simplicity is the distinguishing such uncertain memorials, that perhaps it were better feature of these odes, and they interest by their innoto leave the pencil to fancy; and few can read the Odescence, while they fascinate by their beauty; they are, of Anacreon without imagining the form of the ani- indeed, the infants of the Muses, and may be said to lisp mated old bard, crowned with roses, and singing to the in numbers. lyre.' After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed by the ancients and moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we need not be difüdent in expressing our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them the most polished remains of antiquity. I shall not be accused of enthusiastic partiality by those who have read and felt the original; but to others I am conscious that this should not be the language of a translator, whose faint reflection of these beauties can but little justify his admiration of them. set to any regular air, but rather a kind of musical recitation, which was varied according to the fancy and feelings of the moment. The poems of Anacreon were sung at banquets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us that he heard one of the odes performed at a birth-day entertainment." They In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were inseare all beauty, all enchantment.4 He steals us so in-parable. These kindred talents were for a long time sensibly along with him, that we sympathize even in associated, and the poet always sung his own compohis excesses. In his amatory odes there is a delicacysitions to the lyre. It is probable that they were not of compliment not to be found in any other ancient poet. Love at that period was rather an unrefined emotion; and the intercourse of the sexes was animated more by passion than sentiment. They knew not those little tendernesses which form the spiritual part of affection; their expression of feeling was therefore rude and unvaried, and the poetry of Love deprived of its most captivating graces. Anacreon, however, attained some ideas of this gallantry; and the same delicacy of mind which led him to this refinement prevented him from yielding to the freedom of language, which has sullied the pages of all the other poets. His descriptions are but the warmth is in the ideas, not the words. He is sportive without being wanton, and ardent without being licentious. His poetic invention is most brilliantly displayed in those allegorical fictions which so many have endeavoured to imitate, because all have confessed warm; ↑ Jobannes Faber, in his description of the coin of Ursinus, mentions a head on a very beautiful cornelian, which he supposes was worn The singular beauty of our poet's style, and perhaps the careless facility with which he appears to have trifled, have induced, as I remarked, a number of imitations. Some have succeeded with wonderful felicity, as may be discerned in the few odes which are attributed to writers of a later period. But none of his emulators have been so dangerous to his fame as those Greek ecclesiastics of the early ages, who, conscious of inferiority to their prototypes, determined on removing the possibility of comparison, and, under a semblance of moral zeal, destroyed the most exquisite treasures of antiquity. Sappho and Alcæus were among the victims of this violation; and the sweetest flowers of Grecian literature fell beneath the rude hand of ecclesias in a ring by some admirer of the poet. In the Iconographia of Cannitical presumption. It is true they pretended that this there is a youthful bead of Anacreon from a Grecian medal, with the letters TEIOZ around it; on the reverse there is a Neptune, holding a spear in his right hand, and a dolphin in the left, with the word TIANON, inscribed, volendoci denotare (says Canini) che quelle eittadini la coniassero in honore del suo compatriota poeta.. There is also among the coins of de Wilde one which, though it bears no efligy, was probably struck to the memory of Anacreon. It has the word THION, encircled with an ivy crown. At quidni respicit bæc corona Anacreontem, nobilem lyricum.-De Wilde. etc. 2 Besides those which are extant, he wrote hymns, elegies, epigrams, Some of the epigrams still exist. Horace alludes to a poem of his upon the rivalry of Circe and Penelope in the affections of Ulysser. lib. i. od. 17. The scholiast upon Nicander cites a fragment from a poem upon sleep by Anacreon, and attributes to him likewise a medicinal treatise. Fulgentius mentions a work of his upon the war between Jupiter and the Titans, and the origin of the consecration of the eagle. › See Horace, Maximus Tyrius, etc. His style (says Scaliger) is sweeter than the juice of the Indian reed. Pertices, Ith. i. cap. 44From the softness of his verses (says Olaus Borrichius) the ancients bestowed on him the epithets sweet, delicate, graceful, etc.. Dissertationes Academica, de Poetis, diss. 2.-Scaliger again praises him in a pun; speaking of the $205, or ode, Anacreon autem non solum dedit hæc Mn, sed etiam in ipsis mella.-See the passage of Rapin, quoted by all the editors. I cannot omit citing the following very spirited apostrophe of the author of the Commentary prefixed to the Parma edition: O vos, sublimes anime, vos, Apolliais alumni, qui post unum Alemanem in tota Hellade lyricam poesim exsuscitastis, colaistis, amplificastis, quæso vos an ullus unquam fuerit vates qui Teio cantori vel nature candore vel metri suavitate palmam præripuerit. See likewise Vincenzo Gravini della Rag Poetic, libro primo, p. 97. Among the Ritratti del Cavalier Marino, there is one of Anacreen beginning Cingetemi la fronte, etc. etc. sacrifice of genius was canonized by the interests of religion; but I have already assigned the most probable motive, and if Gregorius Nazianzenus had not written Anacreontics, we might now perhaps have the works of the Teian unmutilated, and be empowered to say exultingly with Horace, Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon The zeal by which these bishops professed to be actuated gave birth more innocently, indeed, to an absurd 1 In the Paris edition there are four of the original odes set to music, by citizens Le Sueur, Gossec, Mehul, and Cherubini. . On chante du Latin et de l'Italien, says Gil, quelquefois même sans les entendre, qui empêche que nous ne chanticns des odes Grecques? • The chromatic learning of these composers is very unlike what we are told of the simple melody of the ancients; and they have all mistaken the accentuation of the words. The Parma commentator is rather careless in referring to this passage of Aulus Gellius (lib. xix. cap. 9).-The ode was not sung by the rhetorician Julianus, as he says, but by the minstrels of both sexes, who were introduced at the entertainment. 3 See what Colomesins, in his Literary Treasures, bas quoted from Alcyonius de Exilo; it may he found in Baster. Colomesius, after citing the passage, adds, Hæc auro contra cara non potui non apponere. We may perceive by the beginning of the first hymn of Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon and Sappho his models of compo sition, Αγε μοι, λίγεια φόρμιγξ, 4. We may perceive, says Vossius that the iteration of his words conduces very much to the sweetness of his style. Henry Stephen remarks the same beauty in a note on the forty-fourth ode. This figure of iteration is his most appropriate grace. The modern writers of Juvenilía and Basia have adopted it to an ex ess which destroys the Margonius and Damascenus were likewise authors of pioss Anacreon species of parody, as repugnant to piety as it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuousness was made a preacher of the gospel, and his muse, like the Venus in armour at Lacedæmon, was arrayed in all the severities of priestly instruction. Such was the « Anacreon Recantatus,» by Carolus de Aquino, a Jesuit, published 1701, which consisted of a series of palinodes to the several songs of our poet. Such too was the Christian Anacreon of Patrignanus, another Jesuit,' who preposterously transferred to a most sacred subject all that Anacreon had sung to festivity. was then very young; and this discovery was considered by some critics of that day as a literary imposition. In 1554, however, he gave Anacreon to the world,' accompanied with Annotations and a Latin version of the greater part of the odes. The learned still hesitated to receive them as the relics of the Teian bard, and suspected them to be the fabrication of some monks of the sixteenth century. This was an idea from which the classic muse recoiled; and the Vatican manuscript, consulted by Scaliger and Salmasius, confirmed the antiquity of most of the poems. A very inaccurate copy of this MS. was taken by Isaac Vossius, and this is the authority which Barnes has followed in his collation ; accordingly he misrepresents almost as often as he quotes; and the subsequent editors, relying upon him, have spoken of the manuscript with not less confidence than ignorance. The literary world has, at length, been gratified with this curious memorial of the poet, by the industry of the Abbé Spaletti, who, in 1781, published at Rome a fac-simile of the pages of the Vatican manuscript, which contained the odes of Anacreon.3 His metre has been very frequently adopted by the modern Latin poets. Scaliger, Taubmannus, Barthius, and others, have evinced that it is by no means uncongenial with that language.3 The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, scarcely deserve the name; they are glittering with conceits, and, though often elegant, are always laboured. The beautiful fictions of Angerianus,4 have preserved, more happily than any, the delicate turn of those allegorical fables, which, frequently passing through the mediums of version and imitation, have generally lost their finest rays in the transmission. Many Monsieur Gail has given a catalogue of all the ediof the Italian poets have sported on the subjects, and tions and translations of Anacreon. I find their number in the manner of Anacreon. Bernardo Tasso first in- to be much greater than I could possibly have had an troduced the metre, which was afterwards polished and opportunity of consulting. I shall therefore content enriched by Chabriera and others. If we may judge myself with enumerating those editions only which I by the references of Degen, the German language have been able to collect; they are very few, but I be abounds in Anacreontic imitations: and Hagedorn is lieve they are the most important:one among many who have assumed him as a model. La Farre, Chaulieu, and the other light poets of France, have professed too to cultivate the muse of Téos; but they have attained all her negligence, with little of the The old French translations, by Ronsard and Belleau grace that embellishes it. In the delicate bard of Schi--the former published in 1555, the latter in 1556. It ras7 we find the kindred spirit of Anacreon: some of his gazelles, or songs, possess all the character of our poet. The edition by Henry Stephen, 1554, at Paris-the Latin version is, by Colomesius, attributed to John Dorat.4 appears that Henry Stephen communicated his manuscript of Anacreon to Ronsard before he published it. by a note of Muretus upon one of the sonnets of that poet.5 The edition by Le Fevre, 1660. The edition by Madame Dacier, 1681, with a prose translation.6 We come now to a retrospect of the editions of Anacreon. To Henry Stephen we are indebted for having first recovered his remains from the obscurity in which they had reposed for so many ages. He found the seventh ode, as we are told, on the cover of an old book, and communicated it to Victorius, who mentions thein circumstance in his Various Readings.>> Stephen The edition by Longepierre, 1684, with a translation verse. The edition by Baxter; London, 1695. Robertellus, in his work De Ratione corrigendi, promoUSES these verses to be triflings of some insipid Græcist. 2 Ronsard commemorates this event: Je vay boire à Henri Etienne Du vieil Anacreon perdu, La douce lyre Teienne. I fill the bowl to Stephen's name, Ode xr, bock S. Who rescued from the gloom of night The Teian bard of festive fame, And brought his living lyre to light. 3 This manuscript, which Spaletti thinks as old as the tenth century, was brought from the Palatine into the Vatican library; it is a kind of anthology of Greek epigrams; and in the 676th page of it are found the ημιαμβια συμποσιακα of Anacreon. 4. Le même (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avait possédé un Anacréon où Scaliger avait marqué de sa main, qu'Henri Etienne n'étais pas l'auteur de la version Latine des odes de ce poete, mais Jean Doric Paulus Colomesius, Particularités. Colomesius, however, seems to have relied too implicitly on Voss almost all these Particularités begin with M. Vossius m'a dit.. La fiction de ce sonnet, comme l'auteur même m'a dit, est pr ́se d'une ode d'Anacréon, encore non imprimée, qu'il a depuis Ladai e συ μεν φιλή χελίδων.» 6 The author of Nouvelles de la Repub. des Lett. praises this translation very liberally, I have always thought it vague and spiraless |