means uncongenial with that language.1 The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, scarcely deserve the name; as they glitter all over with conceits, and, though often elegant, are always laboured. The beautiful fictions of Angerianus preserve more happily than any others the delicate turn of those allegorical fables, which, passing so frequently through the mediums of version and imitation, have generally lost their finest rays in the transmission. Many of the Italian poets have indulged their fancies upon the subjects, and in the manner of Anacreon. Bernardo Tasso first introduced the metre, which was afterwards polished and enriched by Chabriera and others.3

To judge by the references of Degen, the German language abounds in Anacreontic imitations; and Hagedorn is one among many who have assumed him as a model. La Farre, Chaulieu, and the other light poets of France, have also professed to cultivate the muse of Téos; but they have attained all her negligence with little of the simple grace that embellishes it. In the delicate bard of Schiras we find the kindred spirit of Anacreon: some of his gazelles, or songs, possess all the character of our poet.

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, so singularly, they had for many ages reposed. He found the seventh ode, as we are told, on the cover of an old book, and communicated it to Victorius, who mentions the circumstance in his "Various Readings." Stephen 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 7, 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 his authority, have spoken of the manuscript with not less confidence than ignorance. The literary world, however, has at length been gratified with this curious memorial of the poet, by the industry of the Abbé Spaletti, who published at Rome, in 1781, a facsimile of those pages of the Vatican manuscript which contained the odes of Anacreon.s

A catalogue has been given by Gail of all the different editions and translations of Anacreon. Finding their number to be much greater than I could possibly have had an opportunity of consulting, I shall here content myself with enumerating only those editions and versions which it has been in my power to collect; and which, though very few, are, I believe, the most important.

The edition by Henry Stephen, 1554, at Paris the Latin version is attributed by Colomesius to John Dorat.9

The old French tranlations, by Ronsard and Belleau—the former published in 1555, the latter in 1556. It appears from a note of Muretus upon one of the sonnets of Ronsard, that Henry Stephen

Who rescued from the gloom of night
The Teian bard of festive fame,

And brought his living lyre to light.

8 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 'Happia Zvuosiana of Anacreon.

9" Le même (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avoit possédé un Anacréon, où Scaliger avoit marqué de sa main, qu'Henri Etienne n'étoit pas l'auteur de la version Latine des odes de ce poëte, mais Jean Dorat."-Paulus Colomesius, Particularités.

Colomesius, however, seems to have relied too implicitly on Vossius; - almost all these Particularités begin with "M. Vossius m'a dit."

communicated to this poet his manuscript of Anacreon, before he promulgated it to the world.'

The edition by Le Fevre, 1660.

The edition by Madame Dacier, 1681, with a prose translation.2

The edition by Longepierre, 1684, with a translation in verse.

The edition by Baxter; London, 1695. A French translation by la Fosse, 1704. "L'Histoire des Odes d'Anacreon," by Gaçon ; Rotterdam, 1712.

A translation in English verse, by several hands, 1713, in which the odes by Cowley are inserted. The edition by Barnes; London, 1721.

The edition by Dr. Trapp, 1733, with a Latin version in elegiac metre.

A translation in English verse, by John Addison, 1735.

A collection of Italian translations of Anacreon, published at Venice, 1736, consisting of those by Corsini, Regnier », Salvini, Marchetti, and one by several anonymous authors.4

A translation in English verse, by Fawkes and Doctor Broome, 1760.5

Another, anonymous, 1768.

The edition by Spaletti, at Rome, 1781; with the fac-simile of the Vatican MS.

The edition by Degen, 1786, who published also a German translation of Anacreon, esteemed the best.

A translation in English verse, by Urquhart, 1787.

The edition by Gail, at Paris, 1799, with a prose translation.

ODES OF ANACREON."

ODE I.

I SAW the smiling bard of pleasure,
The minstrel of the Teian measure;
'T was in a vision of the night,
He beam'd upon my wondering sight.
I heard his voice, and warmly prest
The dear enthusiast to my breast.
His tresses wore a silvery dye,
But beauty sparkled in his eye;
Sparkled in his eyes of fire,
Through the mist of soft desire. 7
His lip exhal'd, whene'er he sigh'd,
The fragrance of the racy tide;
And, as with weak and reeling feet
He came my cordial kiss to meet,
An infant, of the Cyprian band,
Guided him on with tender hand.
Quick from his glowing brows he drew
His braid, of many a wanton hue;

I took the wreath, whose inmost twine
Breath'd of him and blush'd with wine. 8

1 "La fiction de ce sonnet, comme l'auteur même m'a dit, est prise d'une ode d'Anacreon, encore non imprimée, qu'il a depuis traduit, Συ μεν φίλη χελίδων.

2 The author of Nouvelles de la Répub. des Lett, bestows on this translation much more praise than its merits appear to me to justify.

3 The notes of Regnier are not inserted in this edition; but they must be interesting, as they were for the most part communicated by the ingenious Menage, who, we may per ceive, from a passage in the Menagiana, bestowed some research on the subject. "C'est aussi lui (M. Bigot) qui s'est donné la peine de conférer des manuscrits en Italie dans le tems que je travaillois sur Anacréon."-Menagiana, seconde partie.

4 I find in Haym's Notizia de' Libri rari, Venice, 1670, an Italian translation by Cappone, mentioned.

5 This is the most complete of the English translations.

at the first look (says Baxter) that the poet was chivos ? "* There are surely many tell-tales of this propensity; and the following are the indices, which the physiognomist gives, describing a disposition perhaps not unlike that of Anacreon: Οφθαλμοι κλυζομένοι, κυμαινοντες εν αύτοις, ως αφροδισια και ευπαθείαν επτοηνται· ουτί δε αδικοι, ούτε κακουργοί, ούτε φυσίως φαυλής, ούτε αμουσοι. — Adamantius. "The eyes that are humid and fluctuating show a propensity to pleasure and love; they bespeak too a mind of integrity and beneficence, a generosity of disposition, and a genius for poetry."

Baptista Porta tells us some strange opinions of the ancient physiognomists on this subject, their reasons for which were curious, and perhaps not altogether fanciful. Vide Physiognom. Johan. Baptist. Porta.

8 I took the wreath, whose inmost twine

Breath'd of him, &c.] Philostratus has the same thought in one of his Egariza, where he speaks of the garland which he had sent to his mistress. Ει δε βούλει τι φίλω χαρίζεσθαι, τα λείψανα αντιπέμψον, μηκετι πνέοντα ῥόδων μόνον αλλά και "If thou art inclined to gratify thy lover, send him back the remains of the garland, no longer breathing of roses only, but of thee!" Which pretty conceit is borrowed (as the author of the Observer remarks) in a well-known little song of Ben Jonson's:

σου.

"But thou thereon didst only breathe And sent it back to me ;

Since when it looks and smells, I swear, Not of itself, but thee!"

I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow
And ah! I feel its magic now: 1
I feel that even his garland's touch
Can make the bosom love too much.

ODE II.

GIVE me the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrill'd along;
But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing.
Proclaim the laws of festal rite,2
I'm monarch of the board to-night;
And all around shall brim as high,
And quaff the tide as deep as I.

And when the cluster's mellowing dews
Their warm enchanting balm infuse,
Our feet shall catch th' elastic bound,
And reel us through the dance's round.
Great Bacchus! we shall sing to thee,
In wild but sweet ebriety;

Flashing around such sparks of thought, As Bacchus could alone have taught.

Then, give the harp of epic song, Which Homer's finger thrill'd along; But tear away the sanguine string, For war is not the theme I sing.

ODE III.3

LISTEN to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!

Sketch'd in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;

1 And ah! I feel its magic now:] This idea, as Longepierre remarks, occurs in an epigram of the seventh book of the Anthologia.

Εξετε και πίνοντι συνισταουσα Χαρίκλω
Λαθρή τους ίδιους αμφέβαλε στεφανους,

Πυρ όλέον δαπτει με.

While I unconscious quaff'd my wine,
'Twas then thy fingers slily stole
Upon my brow that wreath of thine,

Which since has madden'd all my soul.

Proclaim the laws of festal rite.] The ancients prescribed certain laws of drinking at their festivals, for an account of which see the commentators. Anacreon here acts the sympostarch, or master of the festival. I have translated according to those who consider κυπελλα θεσμών as an inversion of δισκους κυπελλων.

3 La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by

Many a city, revelling free,
Full of loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain;
Piping, as they roam along,
Roundelay or shepherd-song.
Paint me next, if painting may
Such a theme as this portray,
All the earthly heaven of love
These delighted mortals prove.

ODE IV.4

VULCAN! hear your glorious task;

I do not from your labours ask
In gorgeous panoply to shine,
For war was ne'er a sport of mine.
No-let me have a silver bowl,
Where I may cradle all my soul;
But mind that, o'er its simple frame
No mimic constellations flame;
Nor
grave upon the swelling side,
Orion, scowling o'er the tide.
I care not for the glitt'ring wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But let the vine luxuriant roll

Its blushing tendrils round the bowl,
While many a rose-lipp'd bacchant maid 5
Is culling clusters in their shade.
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes,
Wildly press the gushing grapes,
And flights of Loves, in wanton play,
Wing through the air their winding way;
While Venus from her harbour green,

Looks laughing at the joyous scene,
And young Lyæus by her side

Sits, worthy of so bright a bride.

considerable interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably necessary to the completion of the description. 4 This ode, Aulus Gellius tells us, was performed at an entertainment where he was present.

5 While many a rose-lipp'd bacchant maid, &c.] I have availed myself here of the additional lines given in the Vatican manuscript, which have not been accurately inserted in any of the ordinary editions: -

Ποίησον αμπέλους και Και βοτρυας κατ' αὐτων Και μαινάδας τρυγώσας. Ποιεί δε ληνον οίνου,

Ληνοβατας πατούντας, Τους σάτυρους γελωντάς, ο Και χρυσούς τους έρωτας, Και Κυθέρην γελώσαν, Όμου καλω Λυαίω, Έρωτα κ' 'Αφροδίτην.

ODE V..

SCULPTOR, wouldst thou glad my soul,
Grave for me an ample bowl,
Worthy to shine in hall or bower,
When spring-time brings the reveller's hour.
Grave it with themes of chaste design,

Fit for a simple board like mine.
Display not there the barbarous rites
In which religious zeal delights;
Nor any tale of tragic fate
Which History shudders to relate.
No- cull thy fancies from above,
Themes of heav'n and themes of love.
Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy,
Distil the grape in drops of joy,
And while he smiles at every tear,
Let warm-ey'd Venus, dancing near,
With spirits of the genial bed,
The dewy herbage deftly tread.
Let Love be there, without his arms 2,
In timid nakedness of charms;
And all the Graces, link'd with Love,
Stray, laughing, through the shadowy grove;

1 Degen thinks that this ode is a more modern imitation of the preceding. There is a poem by Cælius Calcagninus, in the manner of both, where he gives instructions about the making of a ring.

Tornabis annulum mihi

Et fabre, et apte, et commode, &c. &c.

2 Let Love be there, without his arms, &c.] Thus Sannazaro in the eclogue of Gallicio nell' Arcadia:

Vegnan li vaghi Amori

Senza fiammelle, ò strali,
Scherzando insieme pargoletti e nudi.

Fluttering on the busy wing,

A train of naked Cupids came,
Sporting around in harmless ring,
Without a dart, without a flame.

And thus in the Pervigilium Veneris:

Ite nymphæ, posuit arma, feriatus est amor.
Love is disarm'd-ye nymphs, in safety stray,
Your bosoms now may boast a holiday!

3 But ah! if there Apollo toys,

I tremble for the rosy boys.] An allusion to the fable, that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth, while playing with him at quoits. "This (says M. la Fosse) is assuredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other."

The Italian translators, to save themselves the trouble of a note, have taken the liberty of making Anacreon himself explain this fable. Thus Salvini, the most literal of any of them :

Ma con lor non giuochi Apollo;

Che in fiero risco

Col duro disco

A Giacinto fiaccò il collo.

4 This beautiful fiction. which the commentators have attributed to Julian, a royal poet, the Vatican MS. pronounces to

While rosy boys disporting round,
In circlets trip the velvet ground.
But ah! if there Apollo toys,
I tremble for the rosy boys.3

ODE VI.4

As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.

I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,

I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelm'd him in the racy spring.
Then drank I down the poison'd bowl,
And Love now nestles in my soul.
Oh yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.

be the genuine offspring of Anacreon. It has, indeed, all the features of the parent:

et facile insciis Noscitetur ab omnibus.

5 Where many an early rose was weeping,

I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.] This idea is prettily
imitated in the following epigram by Andreas Naugerius: —
Florentes dum forte vagans mea Hyella per hortos
Texit odoratis lilia cana rosis,

Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem
Et simul annexis floribus implicuit.
Luctatur primo, et contra nitentibus alis
Indomitus tentat solvere vincla puer :
Mox ubi lacteolas et dignas matre papillas
Vidit et ora ipsos nata movere Deos,
Impositosque coma ambrosios ut sentit odores
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs;
"I (dixit) mea, quære novum tibi, mater, Amorem,
Imperio sedes hæc erit apta meo."

As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove,
A wreath of many mingled flow'rets wove,
Within a rose a sleeping Love she found,
And in the twisted wreaths the baby bound.
Awhile he struggled, and impatient tried
To break the rosy bonds the virgin tied;
But when he saw her bosom's radiant swell,
Her features, where the eye of Jove might dwell;
And caught th' ambrosial odours of her hair,
Rich as the breathings of Arabian air;
"Oh! mother Venus," (said the raptur'd child,
By charms, of more than mortal bloom, beguil'd,)
Go, seek another boy, thou'st lost thine own,
"Hyella's arms shall now be Cupid's throne!"
This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodovico Dolce
in a poem, beginning

Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro fiore
Vicina a un rio di chiare et lucid' onde,
Lidia, &c. &c.

ODE VII.

THE women tell me every day
That all my bloom has past away.
Behold," the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And, like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,
I'm sure I neither know nor care; 2
But this I know, and this I feel,
As onward to the tomb I steal,
That still as death approaches nearer,
The joys of life are sweeter, dearer; 3
And had I but an hour to live,
That little hour to bliss I'd give.

But oh! be mine the rosy wreath,
Its freshness o'er my brow to breathe ;
Be mine the rich perfumes that flow,
To cool and scent my locks of snow.6
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to-morrow ne'er would shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimm'd their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile

With mantling cup and cordial smile;
And shed from each new bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine.
For Death may come, with brow unpleasant,
May come, when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the sable shore,
And grimly bid us-drink no more!

ODE VIII.

I CARE not for the idle state

Of Persia's king 3, the rich, the great:

I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasur'd gold my own.

1 Alberti has imitated this ode in a poem, beginning Nisa mi dice e Clori

Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio.

↑ Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,

I'm sure I neither know nor care ;] Henry Stephen very justly remarks the elegant negligence of expression in the original here:

Εγω δε τας κοιας μεν, EIT LOW, UT' asnλber, 08 ફેબ્રુ.

And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus, what he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of manner :

Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit Longepierre was a good critic; but perhaps the line which he has selected is a specimen of a carelessness not very commendable. At the same time I confess, that none of the Latin poets have ever appeared to me so capable of imitating the graces of Anacreon as Catullus, if he had not allowed a depraved imagination to hurry him so often into mere vulgar licentiousness.

3 That still as death approaches nearer,

The joys of life are sweeter, dearer;] Pontanus has a very delicate thought upon the subject of old age:

Quid rides, Matrona? senem quid temnis amantem?
Quisquis amat nullá est conditione senex.

Why do you scorn my want of youth,

And with a smile my brow behold?

Lady dear! believe this truth,

That he who loves cannot be old.

4" The German poet Lessing has imitated this ode. Vol. i. p. 24." Degen. Gail de Editionibus.

Baxter conjectures that this was written upon the occasion of our poet's returning the money to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobæus.

ODE IX.

I PRAY thee, by the gods above, 7 Give me the mighty bowl I love,

Ου μοι τα Γυγία του πολυχρυσου μελει.” BARNES.

In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find the same thought:

Ψυχήν εμήν ερωτώ,

Τι σοι θελεις γενεσθαι;
Θελεις Γυγέω τα και τα

6 Be mine the rich perfumes that flow,

To cool and scent my locks of snow.] In the original, uvgooi NaTabÇEXUV . On account of this idea of perfuming the beard, Cornelius de Pauw pronounces the whole ode to be the spurious production of some lascivious monk, who was nursing his beard with unguents. But he should have known, that this was an ancient eastern custom, which, if we may believe Savary, still exists: "Vous voyez, Monsieur (says this traveller), que l'usage antique de se parfumer la tête et la barbe, célébré par le prophète Roi, subsiste encore de nos jours." Lettre 12. Savary likewise cites this very ode of Anacreon. Angerianus has not thought the idea inconsistent, having introduced it in the following lines:

Hæc mihi cura, rosis et cingere tempora myrto,
Et curas multo delapidare mero.

Hæc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo
Assyrio et dulces continuare jocos.

This be my care, to wreathe my brow with flowers,
To drench my sorrows in the ample bowl;
To pour rich perfumes o'er my beard in showers,
And give full loose to mirth and joy of soul !

7 The poet is here in a frenzy of enjoyment, and it is, indeed, "amabilis insania; "

Furor di poesia,

Di lascivia, e di vino,

Triplicato furore,

Baccho, Apollo, et Amore.

Ritratti del Cavalier Marino.

This is truly, as Scaliger expresses it,

Insanire dulce

Et sapidum furere furorem.

• "Sicut unguentum in capite quod descendit in barbam Aaronis. Pseaume cxxxiii."