ODE XLIV.

BUDS of roses, virgin flowers, Cull'd from Cupid's balmy bowers, In the bowl of Bacchus steep,

Till with crimson drops they weep! Twine the rose, the garland twine, Every leaf distilling wine;

Drink and smile, and learn to think
That we were born to smile and drink.
Rose! thou art the sweetest flower
That ever drank the amber shower;
Rose! thou art the fondest child

Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild!
Even the gods, who walk the sky,
Are amorous of thy scented sigh.
Cupid too, in Paphian shades,
His hair with rosy fillet braids,
When, with the blushing naked Graces,
The wanton winding dance he traces.
Then bring me showers of roses, bring,
And shed them round me while I sing,
Great Bacchus! in thy hallow'd shade,
With some celestial, glowing maid,
While gales of roses round me rise,
In perfume sweeten'd by her sighs,
I'll bill and twine in early dance,
Commingling soul with every glance!

ODE XLV.

WITHIN this goblet, rich and deep,
I cradle all my woes to sleep.

Why should we breathe the sigh of fear,
Or pour the unavailing tear?

For Death will never heed the sigh,
Nor soften at the tearful eye;
And eyes that sparkle, eyes that weep,
Must all alike be seal'd in sleep:

Then let us never vainly stray,

In search of thorns, from pleasure's way;
Oh! let us quaff the
rosy wave

Which Bacchus loves, which Bacchus gave;
And in the goblet, rich and deep,
Cradle our crying woes to sleep!

This spirited poem is an 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 Tatins, 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 reses of Pieria, See the notes on the fifty-fifth ode. Compare with this forty-fourth odo (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.

ODE XLVI.

SEE, the young, the rosy Spring,
Gives to the breeze her spangled wing;
While virgin Graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way!
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languish'd into silent sleep;
And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away;

And cultured field, and winding stream,
Are sweetly tissued by his beam.
Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters ripe festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury!

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 delcate expressions and luxuriant imagery. The abruptness of Ids wes apos paverтos is striking and spirited, and has been imitated rather languidly by Horace:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte

The imperative ide is infinitely more impressive, as in Shak

speare,

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

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, be contemplated the beauties of nature, and enjoyed the folicities of retirement. Vide Barnes, in Anac. vita, 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 Chevreau, OEuvres Mêlées.

. 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, Covory, the roses display their graces. This is not uningeniFling roses o'er her dewy way!] De Pauw reads. Xapras jede

ous; but we lose by it the beauty of the personification, to the boldness of which Regnier has objected very frivolously.

The murmuring billows of the deep

Have languish'd into silent sleep, etc.] It has been justly remarked that the liquid few of the line απαλυνεται γαληνη is perfectly expressive of the tranquillity which it describes.

And cultured field, and winding stream, etc.] By Sportov Epga, the works of men, (says Baster), he means cites, temples, and towns, which are then illuminated by the beams of the suu.

As deep as any stripling fair

Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear;
And if, amidst the wanton crew,
I'm call'd to wind the dance's clue,
Thou shalt behold this vigorous hand
Not faltering on the bacchant's wand,
But brandishing a rosy flask,
The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask!

Let those who pant for Glory's charms
Embrace her in the field of arms;
While my inglorious, placid soul
Breathes not a wish beyond the bowl.
Then fill it high, my ruddy slave,
And bathe me in its honied wave!
For, though my fading years decay,
And though my bloom has pass'd away,
Like old Silenus, sire divine,

With blushes borrow'd from my wine,
I'll wanton 'mid the dancing train,
And live my follies all again!

ODE XLIX.'

WHEN Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy,
The rosy harbinger of joy,
Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,
Thaws the winter of our soul;
When to my inmost core he glides,
And bathes it with his ruby tides,

A flow of joy, a lively heat,
Fires my brain, and wings my feet!
'Tis surely something sweet, I think,
Nay, something heavenly sweet, to drink!
Sing, sing of love, let Music's breath
Softly beguile our rapturous death,
While, my young Venus, thou and I
To the voluptuous cadence die!
Then waking from our languid trance,
Again we'll sport, again we'll dance.

ODE XLVIII.

WHEN my thirsty soul I steep,
Every sorrow's lull'd to sleep.
Talk of monarchs! I am then
Richest, happiest, first of men;
Careless o'er my cup I sing,
Fancy makes me more than king;
Gives me wealthy Croesus' store,
Can I, can I, wish for more?
On my velvet couch reclining,
Ivy leaves my brow entwining,
While my soul dilates with glee,
What are kings and crowns to me?
If before my
feet they lay,
I would
them all away!
spurn
Arm you, arm you, men of might,
Hasten to the sanguine fight;
Let me, oh, my budding vine!
Spill no other blood than thine.
Yonder brimming goblet see,
That alone shall vanquish me;
Oh! I think it sweeter far
To fall in banquet than in war!

But brandishing a rosy flask, etc.] Aoxos was a kind of leathern vessel for wine, very much in use, as should seem by the proverb axos xa Juxanos, 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.

Try leaves my brow entwining, etc.} The ivy was consecrated t 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, Barues, etc. etc.

Arm you, arm you, men of might,

Hasten to the sanguine fight;] I have adopted the interpretation of Reguier and others:

Altri segua Marte fero:

Che sol Bacco è l mio conforto.

ODE L.2

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
Each gloomy phantom of the mind!
When I drink, the jesting boy,
Bacchus himself, partakes my joy;

1 This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the same character are merely chansons à boire. Most likely they were the effusions ef, the moment of conviviality, and were sung, we imɔgiae, with rapture in Greece; but that interesting associat on, by which they alw recalled the convivial emotions that produced them, can be very litre felt by the most enthusiastic reader, and much less by a phlegmate grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dialects and particles.

Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,

*

Thaws the winter of our soul.] Avalos is the title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a carious circumstance, that Plutarch mistook the name of Levi among the Jews for Atül (one of the bacchanal cries), and accordingly supposed that they worshipped Bacchus.

2 Faber thinks this spurious; but, I believe, he is singular in ha 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 hae

And, while we dance through breathing bowers,
Whose every gale is rich with flowers,
In bowls he makes my senses swim,
Till the gale breathes of nought but him!
When I drink, I deftly twine
Flowers, begemm'd with tears of wine;
And, while with festive hand I spread
The smiling garland round my head,
Something whispers in my breast,
How sweet it is to live at rest!
When I drink, and perfume stills
Around me all in balmy rills,
Then as some beauty, smiling roses,
In languor on my breast reposes,
Venus! I breathe my vows to thee,
In many a sigh of luxury!
When I drink, my heart refines,
And rises as the cup declines,-
Rises in the genial flow

That none but social spirits know,

When youthful revellers, round the bowl,
Dilating, mingle soul with soul!
When I drink, the bliss is mine,-
There's bliss in every drop of wine!
All other joys that I have known,
I've scarcely dared to call my own;
But this the Fates can ne'er destroy,
Till Death o'ershadows all my joy!

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 Oragon 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.

Though the wane of age is mine,
Though the brilliant flush is thine,
Still I'm doom'd to sigh for thee,
Blest, if thou couldst sigh for me!
See, in yonder flowery braid,
Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid,
How the rose, of orient glow,
Mingles with the lily's snow;
Mark, how sweet their tints agree,
Just, my girl, like thee and me!

ODE LII.'

AWAY, away, you men of rules,
What have I to do with schools?
They'd make me learn, they'd make me think.
But would they make me love and drink?
Teach me this, and let me swim

My soul upon the goblet's brim;
Teach me this, and let me twine
My arms around the nymph divine!
Age begins to blanch my brow,
I've time for nought but pleasure now.
Fly, and cool my goblet's glow
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;

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.

Пaray wardriar paxaplos peugete, said the philosopher of the garden in a letter to Pythocles.

Teach me this, and let me twine

Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores?
Cur fugis e nostro pulebra puella sinu?

Ne fagia, sint sparsa licet mea tempora canis,
Inque too roseus fulgeat ore color.
Aspice ut intextas deceant quoque flore corollas
Candida purpureis lilia mixta rosis.

Ob why repel my soul's impassion'd vow,
And fly, beloved maid, these longing arms?

Golden is frequently an epithet fbeauty. Thus in Virgil, Venus aurea, and in Propertius, « Cynthia aurea.. Tibullus, however, calls an old woman golden..

The translation d'Autori Abonimi, as usual, wantons on this passage

of Anacron

Em insegni con piu rare

Forme accorte d'involare Ad amabile beltade

Il bel cinto d' onestade,

And there's an end-for ah! you know, They drink but little wine below!

ODE LIII.

When I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I'm young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance,

And wings ine lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!

Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose

Burn upon my brow of snows;

And let ine, while the wild and young mazy

Trip the dance along,

Fling my heap of years away,
And be as wild, as young as they.
Hither haste, some cordial soul!
Give my lips the brimming bowl;
Oh! you will see this hoary sage
Forget his locks, forget his age.
He still can chaunt the festive hymn,
He still can kiss the goblet's brim;
He still can act the mellow raver,
And play the fool as sweet as ever!

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 little wine below!] Thus the witty MainardLa 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 1 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

woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes. lib. viii. cap. 23. . Sidonii numismata cum foemina tauri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, cuderunt ia ejus honorem.. la the little trea tise upon the goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedicated by the Sidoniaus 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 Jure.] Thus Moschus:

Κρυψε θεον και τρέψε δέμας· και γίνετο ταύρος.

The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love,
And a bull's form belied the almighty Jove.

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 t this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes according to Suidas, poda μ express, You have spoken roses, a phrase somewhat similar to the dire des fleurettes of the French. In the same ides of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word podoy, for which the inquisitive reader may consult Gaulm`nus upon the epithalamum of our poet, where it is intoduced in the romance of Theodorus. Muretus, in one of his cle

Jam te igitur rursus teneo, formosula, jam te (Quid trepidas?) teneo; jam, rosa, te teneo.

Now I again embrace thee, dearest,
(Tell me, wanton, why thou fearest ')
Again my longing arms infold thee,
Again, my rose, again I hold thee.

Eleg. 8.

This, like most of the terms of endearment in the modern Latio i poets, is taken from Plautus; they were vulgar and colloquial in ba time, and they are among the elegancies of the modera Latinista. Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the beginning of lus poem on the Rose:

Carmine digna rosa est; vellem caneretur ut illam
Teius arguta cecinit testudine vates.

Resplendent rose to thee we'll sing.] I have passed over the line συνέταιρες αυξει μέλπην ; ut is corrupt in this original real ing, and has been very Lttle 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 λέγωμεν.

The rose is worm Dione's bliss, etc.] Belleau, in a note upon an old

French port, qui ting the original here

podioiar o' abufud, translates it, comme les délices et mignardises de Vénus..

Oft has the poet's magic tongue
The rose's fair luxuriance sung;
And long the Muses, heavenly maids,
Have reard it in their tuneful shades.
When, at the early glance of morn,
It sleeps upon the glittering thorn,

T is sweet to dare the tangled fence,
To cull the timid flow'ret thence,
And wipe, with tender hand, away
The tear that on its blushes lay!
'Tis sweet to hold the infant stems,
Yet dropping with Aurora's gems,
And fresh inhale the spicy sighs
That from the weeping buds arise.
When revel reigns, when mirth is high,
And Bacchus beams in every eye,
Our rosy fillets scent exhale,

And fill with balm the fainting gale!
Oh, there is nought in nature bright,
Where roses do not shed their light!
When morning paints the orient skies,
Her fingers burn with roseate dyes;
The nymphs display the rose's charms,
It mantles o'er their graceful arms;
Through Cytherea's form it glows,
And mingles with the living snows.
The rose distils a healing balm,
The beating pulse of pain to calm;
Preserves the cold inurned clay,
And mocks the vestige of decay:

Oft has the poet's magic tongue

If Jove would give the leafy bowers

A queen for all their world of flowers,
The rose would be the choice of Jove,
And blush the queen of every grove.
Sweetest child of weeping morning,
Gem, the vest of earth adorning,
Eye of flow'rets, glow of lawns,
Bud of beauty nursed by dawns.
Soft the soul of love it breathes,
Cypria's brow with magic wreathes,
And, to the Zephyr's warm caresses,
Diffuses all its verdant tresses,

Till, glowing with the wanton's play,
It blushes a diviner ray!

When morning paints the orient skies,

Her fingers burn with roseate dyes, etc.] In the original here, he enumerates the many epithets of beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by the poets, apa Tav σov. 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.

Preterves 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 pat ting garlands of roses on the dead, as in Statius, Theb. lib. x. 782.

➖➖➖➖hi sertis, hi veris honore soluto

Accumulant astas patriaque in sede reponunt
Corpus odoratum,

Where veris honor, though it mean every kind of flowers, may

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?
Attend-for thus the tale is sung.

When, humid, from the silvery stream,
Effusing beauty's warmest beam,
Venus appear'd, in flushing hues,
Mellow'd by Ocean's briny dews;
When, in the starry courts above,
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance,
The nymph who shakes the martial lance!
Then, then, in strange eventful hour,
The earth produced an infant flower,
Which sprung, with blushing tinctures dress d,
And wanton'd o'er its parent breast.

The gods beheld this brilliant birth,
And hail'd the Rose, the boon of earth!
With nectar drops, a ruby tide,
The sweetly orient buds they dyed,
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine
Of him who sheds the teeming vine;
And bade them on the spangled thorn
Expand their bosoms to the morn.

seem more particularly to refer to the rese, which our poet, in another ode, calls tapos pornμa. We read, in the Hieroglyphics of Pierius, lib. Iv. that some of the ancients used to order in their wills, that roses should be annually scattered on their tombs, and be Las adduced some sepulchral inscriptions to this purpuse.

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

the rose.

scarcely mean to praise for duration the emimium breves fores of Philostratus compares this flower with love, and says, that they both defy the influence of time: χρονον δε οὔτε Έρως, OUTE poda oider. Unfortunately the similitude lies not in their duration, but their transience.

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,

Cum fluit, aut multo languida sole jacet.

Nor then the rose its odour loses,
When all its flushing beauties die;
Nor less ambrosial balm diffuses,
When wither'd by the solar eye!

With nectar drops, a ruby tidé,

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 Adoais

Fuse aprino de cruore

according to the emendation of Lipsius. In the following epigram this bue is differently accounted for:

Illa quidem studiosa suum defendere Adonim,
Gradivus stricto quem petit ease ferox,
Aflixit duris vestigia cæca rosetis,
Albaque divino picia cruore rosa est.
While the enamour'd queen of joy
Flies to protect her lovely boy,

On whom the jealous war-god rashes ;
She treads upen a thorned ruse,
And while the wound with crimson flows,

The snowy tow ret feels her blood, and blushes!