And, while in luxury's dream I sink, With cinctures, round his snowy breast, Swift as the wheels that kindling roll, And bring the nymph with floating eye, With wine, and love, and blisses dear, Which may be thus paraphrased: « And who art thou,» I waking cry, << That bid'st my blissful visions fly ?» « O gentle sire!» the infant said, << In pity take me to thy shed; Nor fear deceit a lonely child I wander o'er the gloomy wild. Chill drops the rain, and not a ray Illumes the drear and misty way!» I hear the baby's tale of woe; I hear the bitter night-winds blow; And, sighing for his piteous fate, I trimm'd my lamp, and oped the gate. 'T was Love! the little wandering sprite, Ilis pinion sparkled through the night! I knew him by his bow and dart; I knew him by my fluttering heart! I take him in, and fondly raise The dying embers' cheering blaze; Press from his dank and clinging hair The crystals of the freezing air, And in my hand and bosom hold His little fingers thrilling cold. And now the embers' genial ray Had warm'd his anxious fears away; I pray thee,» said the wanton child (My bosom trembled as he smiled), I pray thee let me try my bow, For through the rain I 've wander'd so, That much I fear the ceaseless shower Has injured its elastic power.» The fatal bow the urchin drew; Swift from the string the arrow flew; Oh! swift it flew as glancing flame, And to my very soul it came! «Fare thee well,» I heard him say, As laughing wild he wing'd away; « Fare thee well, for now I know The rain has not relax'd my bow; It still can send a maddening dart, As thou shalt own with all thy heart! ODE XXXIV.' OH thou, of all creation blest, Sweet insect! that delight'st to rest And who art thou, I waking cry, Anacreon appears to la been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which be presses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. odes x. and 111VII. 'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, etc.] See the han description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl. 1 Father Rapin, in a Latin ode addressed to the grasshop preserved some of the thoughts of our author: O quæ virenti graminis in toro, Ingeniosa ciere cantus. Seu forte adultis floribus incubas, Oh thou, that on the grassy bed Or, etc. See what Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93 and 181 Upon the wild wood's leafy tops, T was he who gave that voice to thee, ODE XXXV. CUPID once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc.] Some authors have afhrmed (says Madame Dacier), that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, who says EIT' Blow Of τεττιγες ουκ ευδαίμονες, εν ταις γυναιξιν ουδ' ότι ουν œvac Evi' are not the grasshoppers happy in having dumb wives ?'. This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I chose rather to make Madame Dacier my authority for it. The Muses love thy shrilly tone, etc.] Phile, de Animal, Proprietat. calls this insect Mouais 01205, the darling of the Muses, and Mouroy opviy, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius: Των παντων δ' ήγειτο πλατυςατος, αλλ' αγόρητης This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, A. where there occars the very same simile. Melodious insect! child of earth' Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the Anthologia, where he prefers the grasshopper to the swan: Αρκει τέττιγας μεθυσαι δρόσος, αλλά πιόντες Αειδειν κύκνων εισι γεγωνότεροι. In dew, that drops from morning's wings, The gay Cicada sipping floats; And, drunk with dew, his matin sings Sweeter than any cygnet's notes. • Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyl. but is very inferior, I think, to his original, în delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser in one of his smaller compositions, has Luckless urchin not to see Within the leaves a slumbering bee! sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which 1 allude begins thus: Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering All in his mother's lap. A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring, In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius, correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose, The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflections which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I hope I shall be pardoned for introducing another Greek Anacreontic of Monsieur Menage, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of this natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved. Έρως ποτ' εν χορείαις As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy ! « Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated this ode of Ana Thus he spoke, and she the while ODE XXXVI.' Ir hoarded gold possess'd a power That when the Fates would send their minion, I might some hours of life obtain, ODE XXXVII.2 "T WAS night, and many a circling bowl 1 Monsieur Fontenelle has translated th's 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 a de lana caprina, have been very busy on the authority of the phrase iv' αν θανειν επελθη. The reading οι ν' αν θανατος επελθη, which De Medenbach proposes in his Amanitates Litteraria, 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. "Traver Mev αρισον ανδρι θνητω. Δεύτερον δε, καλον φυήν γ evestai. Το τρίτον δε, πλουτειν αδόλως. Kaι TO TETAPTOV, συνήβαν μετά των φίλων. Of mortal blessings here, the first is health, 1 Compare with this ode the beautiful poem, der Traum of Uz.'» Degen. Monsieur Le Fevre, in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably As lull'd in slumber I was laid, Bright visions o'er my fancy play'd! With virgins, blooming as the dawn, I seem'd to trace the opening lawn; Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew, We flew, and sported as we flew! Some ruddy striplings, young and sleek, With blush of Bacchus on their cheek, Saw me trip the flowery wild With dimpled girls, and slyly smiledSmiled indeed with wanton glee; But ah!t was plain they envied me. And still I flew-and now I caught The panting nymphs, and fondly thought To kiss-when all my dream of joys, Dimpled girls and ruddy boys, All were gone! « Alas!» I said, Sighing for the illusions fled, 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 be suffered in No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man.. -when all my dream of joys, Dimpled girls and ruddy boys, All were gone!] Nonnus says of Bacchus, almost in the same that Anacreon uses, 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 άκρατον Of which the following is a loose paraphrase: Fly, my beloved, to yonder stream, We'll plunge us from the noontide beain! Come, while you may, of rapture sip.. And chill the pulse, which trembles warm! 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; That first I set my eyes on thee! No, no, the heart that feels with me, Can never be a slave to thee!] Loogepierre 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 χαίρετε, τον λιμεν' εὗρον. At length to Fortune, and to you, And they shall weep at your deceiving! Bacchus shall bid my winter bloom, And Venus dance me to the tomb!] The same commentator bas quoted an epitaph, written upon our poet by Julian, where he makes bim give the precepts of good-fellowship even from the tomb. Πολλακι μεν τοδ' αείσα, και εκ τυμβου δε βοήσω Πίνετε, πριν ταύτην αμφιβάλησθε κονιν. 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.. And with the maid whose every sigh ODE XLII.' 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 Oh! let me snatch her sidelong kisses, And little has it learn'd to dread The gall that Envy's tongue can shed. song 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: Que spirabat amores, And does there then remain but this, His 1 The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly depicted. 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 Μουσέων τε, και αγλαια δωρ. Αφροδίτης When to the lip the brimming cup is press'd, many a cup and With A youth, the while, with loosen'd hair And while the harp, impassion'd, flings Tuneful rapture from the strings, etc.] On the barbiton a bout # authorities may be collected, which, after all, leave us ignorant để the nature of the instrument. There is scarcely any point upon what er are so totally uninformed as the music of the ancients. The ausbers 's' extant upon the subject are, I imagine, little understood; but certains if one of their moods was a progression by quarter-tones, which m are told was the nature of the enharmonic scale, simplicity was by a means the characteristic of their melody; for this is a nicety of pgression of which modern music is not susceptible. |