1

1

ODE LVI.'

HE, who instructs the youthful crew
To bathe them in the brimmer's dew,
And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses,
All the bliss that wine possesses;
He, who inspires the youth to bound
Elastic through the dance's round, –
Bacchus, the god again is here,
And leads along the blushing year;
The blushing year with vintage teems,
Ready to shed those cordial streams,
Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth,
Illuminate the sons of earth!

Then, when the ripe and vermeil wine,-Blest infant of the pregnant vine,

Which now in mellow clusters swells,

Oh! when it bursts its roseate cells,
Brightly the joyous stream shall flow,
To balsam every mortal woe!
None shall be then cast down or weak,
For health and joy shall light each cheek;

No heart will then desponding sigh,

For wine shall bid despondence fly.

Thus till another autumn's glow Shall bid another vintage flow.

ODE LVII.3

WHOSE was the artist hand that spread Upon this disk the ocean's bed?1

1 "Compare with this elegant ode the verses of Uz, lib. i. * Die Wenlese." - Degen.

This appears to be one of the hymns which were sung at the anniversary festival of the vintage; one of the cmAqvini úμvoi, 98 ur poet himself terms them in the fifty-ninth ode. We cannot help feeling a sort of reverence for these classic relics of the religion of antiquity. Horace may be supposed to have written the nineteenth ode of his second book, and the twenty-fifth of the third, for some bacchanalian celebration of this kind.

1 Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth,

Thestrate the sims of earth 1] In the original ποτον αστονου και Madame Dacier thinks that the poet here had the nepenthe of Hemer in his mind. Odyssey, lib. iv. This nepenthe was a Kething of exquisite charm, infused by Helen into the wine of her guests, which had the power of dispelling every anxiety. A French writer, De Meré, conjectures that this spell, which made the bowl so beguiling, was the charm of Helen's conversation. See Bayle, art. Helene.

1 This ode is a very animated description of a picture of Venus a discus, which represented the goddess in her first emergence from the waves. About two centuries after our poet wrote, the pencil of the artist Apelles embellished this subject, in his famous painting of the Venus Anadyomené, the model of which, as Pliny informs us, was the beautiful Campaspe, given to him by Alexander; tough, according to Natalis Comes, lib. vii. cap. 16., it was Phryne What to Apelles for the face and breast of this Venus.

There are a few blemishes in the reading of the ode before us, which have influenced Faber, Heyne, Brunck, &c. to denounce the whole poem as spurions. But," non ego paucis offendar maculis." I think it is quite beautiful enough to be authentic. 4 Whose was the artist hand that spread

Upon this disk the ocean's bed?] The abruptness of apa Tic TOBUTE TOTUS is finely expressive of sudden admiration, and is one of

And, in a flight of fancy, high
As aught on earthly wing can fly,
Depicted thus, in semblance warm,
The Queen of Love's voluptuous form
Floating along the silv'ry sea

In beauty's naked majesty!

Oh! he hath given th' enamour'd sight

A witching banquet of delight,
Where, gleaming through the waters clear,
Glimpses of undreamt charms appear,
And all that mystery loves to screen,
Fancy, like Faith, adores unseen."

Light as the leaf, that on the breeze,
Of summer skims the glassy seas,
She floats along the ocean's breast,
Which undulates in sleepy rest;
While stealing on, she gently pillows
Her bosom on the heaving billows.
Her bosom, like the dew-wash'd rose,"
Her neck, like April's sparkling snows,
Illume the liquid path she traces,
And burn within the stream's embraces.
Thus on she moves, in languid pride,
Encircled by the azure tide,

As some fair lily o'er a bed

Of violets bends its graceful head.

Beneath their queen's inspiring glance,

The dolphins o'er the green sea dance,
Bearing in triumph young Desire,'
And infant Love with smiles of fire!

While, glittering through the silver waves,
The tenants of the briny caves

those beauties which we cannot but admire in their source, though, by frequent imitation, they are now become familiar and unimpressive.

5 And all that mystery loves to screen,

Fancy, like Faith, adores unscen, &c.] The picture here has all the delicate character of the semi-reducta Venus, and affords a happy specimen of what the poetry of passion ought to be - glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients have attained this modesty of description, which, like the golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, is impervious to every beam but that of fancy.

6 Her bosom, like the dew-wash'd rose, &c.] "Podewv (says an anonymous annotator) is a whimsical epithet for the bosom." Neither Catullus nor Gray have been of his opinion. The former has the expression,

Around the pomp their gambols play, And gleam along the watery way.

ODE LVIII. 1

3

WHEN Gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion,
Escapes like any faithless minion, 2
And flies me (as he flies me ever), 3
Do I pursue him? never, never!
No, let the false deserter go,
For who could court his direst foe?
But, when I feel my lighten'd mind
No more by grovelling gold confin'd,
Then loose I all such clinging cares,
And cast them to the vagrant airs.
Then feel I, too, the Muse's spell,
And wake to life the dulcet shell,
Which, rous'd once more, to beauty sings,
While love dissolves along the strings!

But scarcely has my heart been taught How little Gold deserves a thought, When, lo! the slave returns once more, And with him wafts delicious store Of racy wine, whose genial art In slumber seals the anxious heart. Again he tries my soul to sever From love and song, perhaps for ever!

Away, deceiver! why pursuing Ceaseless thus my heart's undoing? Sweet is the song of amorous fire, Sweet the sighs that thrill the lyre;

Oh! sweeter far than all the gold

Thy wings can waft, thy mines can hold.

1 I have followed Barnes's arrangement of this ode, which, though deviating somewhat from the Vatican MS., appears to me the more natural order.

2 When Gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion,

Escapes like any faithless minion, &c.] In the original O pawerno & Xovoos. There is a kind of pun in these words, as Madame Dacier has already remarked; for Chrysos, which signifies gold, was also a frequent name for a slave. In one of Lucian's dialogues, there is, I think, a similar play upon the word, where the followers of Chrysippus are called golden fishes. The puns of the ancients are, in general, even more vapid than our own; some of the best are those recorded of Diogenes.

3 And flies me (as he flies me ever), &c.] Ae 8', an we devyes. This grace of iteration has already been taken notice of. Though sometimes merely a playful beauty, it is peculiarly expressive of impassioned sentiment, and we may easily believe that it was one of the many sources of that energetic sensibility which breathed through the style of Sappho. See Gyrald. Vet. Poet. Dial. 9. It will not be said that this is a mechanical ornament by any one who can feel its charm in those lines of Catullus, where he complains of the infidelity of his mistress, Lesbia:

Cali, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,

Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam,

Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes,
Nunc, &c.

Si sic omnia dixisset! - but the rest does not bear citation.

Well do I know thy arts, thy wiles—

They wither'd Love's young wreathed smiles;
And o'er his lyre such darkness shed,

I thought its soul of song was fled!
They dash'd the wine-cup, that, by him,
Was fill'd with kisses to the brim.
Go-fly to haunts of sordid men,
But come not near the bard again.
Thy glitter in the Muse's shade,
Scares from her bower the tuneful maid;
And not for worlds would I forego
That moment of poetic glow,
When my full soul, in Fancy's stream,
Pours o'er the lyre its swelling theme.
Away, away! to worldlings hence,
Who feel not this diviner sense;
Give gold to those who love that pest,
But leave the poet poor and blest.

ODE LIX.3

RIPEN'D by the solar beam,
Now the ruddy clusters teem,
In osier baskets borne along
By all the festal vintage throng
Of rosy youths and virgins fair,
Ripe as the melting fruits they bear.
Now, now they press the pregnant grapes,
And now the captive stream escapes,
In fervid tide of nectar gushing,
And for its bondage proudly blushing!
While, round the vat's impurpled brim,
The choral song, the vintage hymn
Of rosy youths and virgins fair,
Steals on the charm'd and echoing air.

4 They dash'd the wine-cup, that, by him, Was fill'd with kisses to the brim.] Original:

Φιλημάτων δε κεδνων,

Ποθών κυπελλα κόρνης.

Horace has " Desiderique temperare poculum," not figuratively, however, like Anacreon, but importing the love-philtres of the witches. By "cups of kisses" our poet may allude to a favourite gallantry among the ancients, of drinking where the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim:

"Or leave a kiss within the cup, And I'll not ask for wine."

As in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and Lucian has a conceit upon the same idea, “'Iva kai sung dua kai pily," "that you may at once both drink and kiss."

5 The title Envios turos, which Barnes had given to this ode, is by no means appropriate. We have already had one of those hymns (ode 56.), but this is a description of the vintage; and the title oor, which it bears in the Vatican MS., is more correct than any that have been suggested.

Degen, in the true spirit of literary scepticism, doubts that this ode is genuine, without assigning any reason for such a suspicion) "non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare." But this is far from being satisfactory criticism.

Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes,
The orient tide that sparkling flies,
The infant Bacchus, born in mirth,
While Love stands by, to hail the birth.

When he, whose verging years decline
As deep into the vale as mine,
When he inhales the vintage-cup,
His feet, new-wing'd from earth spring up,
And as he dances, the fresh air

Plays whispering through his silvery hair.
Meanwhile young groups whom love invites,
To joys ev'n rivalling wine's delights,
Seek, arm in arm, the shadowy grove,
And there, in words and looks of love,
Such as fond lovers look and say,
Pass the sweet moonlight hours away.'

ODE LX.2

AWAKE to life, my sleeping shell,
To Phoebus let thy numbers swell;
And though no glorious prize be thine,
No Pythian wreath around thee twine,
Yet every hour is glory's hour

To him who gathers wisdom's flower.
Then wake thee from thy voiceless slumbers,
And to the soft and Phrygian numbers,
Which, tremblingly, my lips repeat,
Send echoes from thy chord as sweet.
'Tis thus the swan, with fading notes,
Down the Cayster's current floats,
While amorous breezes linger round,
And sigh responsive sound for sound.

Muse of the Lyre! illume my dream,
Thy Phoebus is my fancy's theme;

Those well acquainted with the original need hardly be reminded that, in these few concluding verses, I have thought right to give only the general meaning of my author, leaving the details untouched

This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been written by Anacreon; and it is undoubtedly rather a sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But, in a poet of whose works so small a proportion has reached us, diversity of style is by no means a sade criterion. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas 7 that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. We can perceive in what an altered and imperfect state his works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace citing an ode from the third book of Anacreon.

And how the tender, timid maid

Flew trembling to the kindly shade, &c.] Original:

Το μεν εκπεφευγε κεντρου,

Φύσεως δ' αμείψε μορφήν.

I find the word so here has a double force, as it also signifies that" omnium parentem, quam sanctus Numa, &c. &c." (See Martal.) In order to confirm this import of the word here, those who are curious in new readings, may place the stop after puses, thus:Το μεν εκπέφευγε κεντρον Φύσεως, δ' αμείψα μορφήν.

And hallow'd is the harp I bear,
And hallow'd is the wreath I wear,
Hallow'd by him, the god of lays,
Who modulates the choral maze.

I sing the love which Daphne twin'd
Around the godhead's yielding mind;
I sing the blushing Daphne's flight
From this ethereal son of Light;
And how the tender, timid maid
Flew trembling to the kindly shade,3
Resign'd a form, alas, too fair,
And grew a verdant laurel there;
Whose leaves, with sympathetic thrill,
In terror seem'd to tremble still!
The god pursu'd, with wing'd desire;
And when his hopes were all on fire,
And when to clasp the nymph he thought,
A lifeless tree was all he caught;
And, stead of sighs that pleasure heaves,
Heard but the west-wind in the leaves!

But, pause, my soul, no more, no more—
Enthusiast, whither do I soar ?
This sweetly madd'ning dream of soul
Hath hurried me beyond the goal.
Why should I sing the mighty darts
Which fly to wound celestial hearts,
When ah, the song, with sweeter tone,
Can tell the darts that wound my own?
Still be Anacreon, still inspire
The descant of the Teian lyre:
Still let the nectar'd numbers float,
Distilling love in every note!

And when some youth, whose glowing soul
Has felt the Paphian star's control,
When he the liquid lays shall hear,
His heart will flutter to his ear,
And drinking there of song divine,
Banquet on intellectual wine!

4 Still be Anacreon, still inspire

The descant of the Teian lyre:] The original is Tov Avaxprovra Mo. I have translated it under the supposition that the hymn is by Anacreon; though, I fear, from this very line, that his claim to it can scarcely be supported.

Tov Avaxpeovrа μov, "Imitate Anacreon." Such is the lesson given us by the lyrist; and if, in poetry, a simple elegance of sentiment, enriched by the most playful felicities of fancy, be a charm which invites or deserves imitation, where shall we find such a guide as Anacreon? In morality, too, with some little reserve, we need not blush, I think, to follow in his footsteps. For, if his song be the language of his heart, though luxurious and relaxed, he was artless and benevolent; and who would not forgive a few irregularities, when atoned for by virtues so rare and so endearing? When we think of the sentiment in those lines:

Away! I hate the sland'rous dart,

Which steals to wound th' unwary heart,

how many are there in the world, to whom we would wish to say, Τον Ανακρέοντα μίμου!

5 Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS., whose authority helps to confirm the genuine antiquity of them all, though a few have stolen among the number, which we may hesitate in attributing to Anacreon. In the little essay prefixed to this translation, I observed that Barnes has quoted this manuscript incorrectly, relying upon an imperfect copy of it, which Isaac Vossius

had taken. I shall just mention two or three instances of this inaccuracy-the first which occur to me. In the ode of the Dove, on the words Πτεροισι συγκαλύψω, he says, " Vatican MS, συσκιάζων, etiam Prisciano invito:" but the MS. reads ouveaλvw, with avokaow interlined. Degen, too, on the same line, is somewhat in error. In the twenty-second ode of this series, line thirteenth, the MS. has revin with a interlined, and Barnes imputes to it the reading of revon. In the fifty-seventh, line twelfth, he professes to have preserved the reading of the MS. Αλαλημένη δ' επ' αυτή, while the latter has αλαλημενος δ' επ' αυτά. Almost all the other annotators have transplanted these errors from Barnes.

The intrusion of this melancholy ode, among the careless levities of our poet, reminds us of the skeletons which the Egyptians used to hang up in their banquet-rooms, to inculcate a thought of mortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it were not for the beauty of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown this ode. "Quid habet illius, illius quæ spirabat amores?"

To Stobæus we are indebted for it.

2 Bloomy graces, dalliance gay,

All the flowers of life decay.] Horace often, with feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human enjoyments. See book ii. ode 11.; and thus in the second epistle, book ii.:

Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes;
Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ludum.

The wing of every passing day

Withers some blooming joy away;
And wafts from our enamour'd arms

The banquet's mirth, the virgin's charms.

3 Dreary is the thought of dying! &c.] Rezier, a libertine French poet, has written some sonnets on the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling repentance. Chaulieu, however, supports more consistently the spirit of the Epicurean philosopher. See his poem, addressed to the Marquis de Lafare

Plus j'approche du terme et moins je le redoute, &c.

4 And, when once the journey's o'er,

Ah! we can return no more ] Scaliger, upon Catullus's wellknown lines," Qui nune it per iter, &c." remarks that Acheron, with the same idea, is called avefodo; by Theocritus, and dvσendpopos by Nicander.

For though the bowl's the grave of sadness,
Ne'er let it be the birth of madness.
No, banish from our board to-night
The revelries of rude delight;
To Scythians leave these wild excesses,
Ours be the joy that soothes and blesses!
And while the temperate bowl we wreathe,
In concert let our voices breathe,
Beguiling every hour along
With harmony of soul and song.

ODE LXIIIJ

To Love, the soft and blooming child,
I touch the harp in descant wild;
To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers,
The boy, who breathes and blushes flowers;
To Love, for heaven and earth adore him,
And gods and mortals bow before him!

ODE LXIV.S

HASTE thee, nymph, whose well-aim'd spear Wounds the fleeting mountain-deer!

5 This ode consists of two fragments, which are to be found in Athenæus, book x., and which Barnes, from the similarity of their tendency, has combined into one. I think this a very justifiable liberty, and have adopted it in some other fragments of our poet. Degen refers us here to verses of Uz, lib. iv.," der Trinker." 6 But let the water amply flow,

To cool the grape's intemperate glow; &c.] It was Amphietyan who first taught the Greeks to mix water with their wine; in eur memoration of which circumstance they erected altars to Bacchus and the nymphs. On this mythological allegory the following epigram is founded:

Ardentem ex utero Semeles lavere Lyæum
Naiades, extincto fulminis igne sacri;
Cum nymphis igitur tractabilis, at sine nymphis
Candenti rursus fulmine corripitur.

Which is, non verbum verbo,

PIERIUS VALERIANES.

While heavenly fire consum'd his Theban dame,
A Naiad caught young Bacchus from the flame,
And dipp'd him burning in her purest lymph;
Hence, still he loves the Naiad's crystal urn,
And when his native fires too fiercely burn,
Seeks the cool waters of the fountain nymph.

7 "This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. lib. vi. and in Arsenius, Collect. Græc."-Barnes.

It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in praise of Love. 8 This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephaestion. There is an anecdote of our poet, which has led some to doubt whether he ever wrote any odes of this kind. It is related by the sch- liast upca Pindar (Isthmionic, od. fi. v. 1. as cited by Barnes) that Ausereon being asked, why he addressed all his hymns to women, and note to the deities? answered, "Because women are my deities."

I have assumed, it will be seen, in reporting this anecdote, the same liberty which I have thought it right to take in translating some of the odes; and it were to be wished that these little inrdelities were always allowable in interpreting the writings of the ancients; thus, when nature is forgotten in the original, in the translation" tamen usque recurret."

Dian, Jove's immortal child,

Huntress of the savage wild!
Goddess with the sun-bright hair!
Listen to a people's prayer.
Turn, to Lethe's river turn,

There thy vanquish'd people mourn !!
Come to Lethe's wavy shore,

Tell them they shall mourn no more. Thine their hearts, their altars thine; Must they, Dian-must they pine?

ODE LXV.2

LIKE some wanton filly sporting,
Maid of Thrace, thou fly'st my courting.
Wanton filly! tell me why

Thou trip'st away, with scornful eye,
And seem'st to think my doating heart
Is novice in the bridling art?
Believe me, girl, it is not so;

Thou'lt find this skilful hand can throw
The reins around that tender form,
However wild, however warm.
Yes-trust me I can tame thy force,
And turn and wind thee in the course.
Though, wasting now thy careless hours,
Thou sport amid the herbs and flowers,
Soon shalt thou feel the rein's control,
And tremble at the wish'd-for goal!

And oh! thou nuptial Power, to thee
Who bear'st of life the guardian key,
Breathing my soul in fervent praise,
And weaving wild my votive lays,
For thee, O Queen! I wake the lyre,
For thee, thou blushing young Desire,
And oh! for thee, thou nuptial Power,
Come, and illume this genial hour.

Look on thy bride, too happy boy, And while thy lambent glance of joy Plays over all her blushing charms, Delay not, snatch her to thine arms, Before the lovely, trembling prey, Like a young birdling, wing away! Turn, Stratocles, too happy youth, Dear to the Queen of amorous truth, And dear to her, whose yielding zone Will soon resign her all thine own. Turn to Myrilla, turn thine eye, Breathe to Myrilla, breathe thy sigh. To those bewitching beauties turn; For thee they blush, for thee they burn.

Not more the rose, the queen of flowers, Outblushes all the bloom of bowers, Than she unrivall'd grace discloses, The sweetest rose, where all are roses. Oh! may the sun, benignant, shed His blandest influence o'er thy bed; And foster there an infant tree,

To bloom like her, and tower like thee!"

ODE LXVI.3

To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine, Fairest of all that fairest shine;

To thee, who rul'st with darts of fire This world of mortals, young Desire!

Turn, to Lethe's river turn,

There thy vanquish'd people mourn!] Lethe, a river of Ionia, according to Strabo, falling into the Meander. In its neighbourhood was the city called Magnesia, in favour of whose inhabitants our pet is supposed to have addressed this supplication to Diana. It was written as Madame Dacier conjectures) on the occasion of some battle, in which the Magnesians had been defeated.

This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian girl, exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the alleFory, which runs so obviously through the poem, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging to Polycrates.

Perius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, cites this ode, and tforms us that the horse was the hieroglyphical emblem of pride. This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scolium at the nuptial banquet.

Among the many works of the impassioned Sappho, of which time and ignorant superstition have deprived us, the loss of her epithalamiums is not one of the least that we deplore. The following lines are cited as a relic of one of those poems:

Ολίβια γαμβρε, στι μεν δη γαμος ώς άρας,
Εκτεχελεστό, σχεις δε παρθενον αν αριθ.

ODE LXVII.5

RICH in bliss, I proudly scorn The wealth of Amalthea's horn;

See Scaliger, in his Poetics, on the Epithalamium.

4 And foster there an infant tree,

To bloom like her, and tower like thee Original Kumaρirros de πεφυκοι σαν ανι κήπων Passeratius, upon the words "cum castum amisit florem," in the Nuptial Song of Catullus, after explaining "flos" in somewhat a similar sense to that which Gaulminus attributes to sodov, says "Hortum quoque vocant in quo flos ille carpitur, et Graecis κηπου «στι το εφηβαίον γυναίκων."

I may remark, in passing, that the author of the Greek version of this charming ode of Catullus, has neglected a most striking and Anacreontic beauty in those verses" Ut flos in septis, &c." which is the repetition of the line, "Multi illum pueri, multæ optavêre puellæ," with the slight alteration of nulli and nulla. Catullus himself, however, has been equally injudicious in his version of the famous ode of Sappho; having translated yeλwoas iuepoer, but omitted all notice of the accompanying charm, ddv avovsas. Horace has caught the spirit of it more faithfully:

Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem.

5 This fragment is preserved in the third book of Strabo.