REMARKS ON ANACREON. THERE is very little known with certainty of the life of Anacreon. Chamæleon Heracleotes,* who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of our poet have collected the few trifling 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.‡ * He is quoted by Athenæus εν τω περι το Ανακρεοντος. The History of Anacreon, by Monsieur Gaçon (le poëte 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 Téos. The learned Monsieur Bayle has detected some infidelities of quotation in Le Fevre. See Dictionnaire Historique, &c. Madame Dacier is not more accurate than her father: they have almost made Anacreon prime minister to the monarch of Samos. B 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.‡ 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 * The Asiatics were as remarkable for genius as for luxury. "Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fecêre Poeta, Anacreon, inde Mimnermus et Antimachus, &c." Solinus. + I have not attempted to define 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 vecu il me semble que l'on ne doit point s'enfermer dans des bornes si étroites." 85 ans, 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 had obferved it before him. are told too by Maximus Tyrius, that by the influence of his amatory songs, he softened the mind of Polycrates into a spirit of benevolence towards his subjects.* 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 allowed 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, * Avaxpear Expiois Monary nurwore. Maxim. Tyr. § 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? †.In the romance of Clelia, the anecdote which I allude to is told of a young girl, with whom Anacreon fell in love while she personated the god Apollo in a masque. But here Mademoiselle Scuderi consulted nature more than truth. according to Plato, who edited the poems of Homer, and commanded them to be sung by the rhapsodists at the celebration of the Panathenæa. 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 85th year of his age he was choaked by a grape-stone;* 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 : * Fabricius appears not to trust very implicitly in this story. "Uvæ passæ acino tandem suffocatus, si credimus Suidæ in voorns; alii enim hoc mortis genere periisse tradunt Sophoclem." Fabricii Bibliothec. Græc. Lib. ii. cap. 15. It must be confessed that Lucian, who tells us that Sophocles was choaked by a grape-stone, in the very same treatise mentions the longevity of Anacreon, and yet is silent on the manner of his death. Could he have been ignorant of such a remarkable coincidence, or knowing, could he have neglected to remark it? See Regnier's introduction to his Anacreon. * Then, hallow'd Sage, those lips which pour'd along A grape has clos'd for ever! Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb, Here let the rose he lov'd with laurels bloom, In bands that ne'er shall sever! 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! 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 * At te, sancte senex, acinus sub tartara misit; Vos, hederæ, tumulum, tumulum vos cingite lauri At vitis procul hinc, procul hinc odiosa facessat, Quæ causam diræ protulit, uva, necis, Creditur ipse minus vitem jam Bacchus amare, In vatem tantum quæ fuit ausa nefas. Cælius Calcagninus has translated or imitated the epigrams us ry Mupwvos Ber which are given under the name of Anacreon. |