ODE VII.1 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, With mantling cup and cordial smile; ODE VIII.4 I CARE not for the idle state Of Persia's king, 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. 2 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, Ειτ εισιν, είτ' απήλθον, Ουκ οίδα. 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? Why do you scorn my want of youth, 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. I care not for the idle state Of Persia's king, &c.] "There is a fragment of Archilochus in Plutarch, De tranquillitate animi,' which our poet has very closely imitated here; it begins, ODE IX. I PRAY thee, by the gods above, 7 Give me the mighty bowl I love, Ου μοι τα Γυγέω του πολυχρύσου μέλει. BARNES. In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find the same thought: Ψυχήν εμήν ερωτώ, Τι σοι θελεις γενεσθαι; 6 Be mine the rich perfumes that flow, To cool and scent my locks of snow.] In the original, uvροισι καταβρέχειν ύτηνην. 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, Hæc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo This be my care, to wreathe my brow with flowers, 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." And let me sing, in wild delight, The grape alone shall bleed by me; Alcides' self, in days of yore, Imbru'd his hands in youthful gore, And brandish'd, with a maniac joy, The quiver of th' expiring boy : And Ajax, with tremendous shield, Infuriate scour'd the guiltless field. But I, whose hands no weapon ask, No armour but this joyous flask; The trophy of whose frantic hours Is but a scatter'd wreath of flowers, Ev'n I can sing with wild delight, "I will-I will be mad to-night!" ODE X.. How am I to punish thee, For the wrong thou'st done to me, This ode is addressed to a swallow. I find from Degen and from Gail's index, that the German poet Weisse has imitated it, Scherz. Lieder, lib. ii. carm. 5. ; that Ramler also has imitated it, Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 335.; and some others. See Gail de Editionibus. We are here referred by Degen to that dull book, the Epistles of Alciphron, tenth epistle, third book; where Iophon complains to Eraston of being awakened by the crowing of a cock, from his vision of riches. 2 Silly swallow, prating thing, &c.] The loquacity of the swallow was proverbialised; thus Nicostratus: Ει το συνεχως και πολλά και τα έως λαλών If in prating from morning till night 3 Or, as Tereus did, of old, &c.] Modern poetry has confirmed the name of Philomel upon the nightingale; but many respectable authorities among the ancients assigned this metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel the swallow, as Anacreon does here. 4 It is difficult to preserve with any grace the narrative simplicity of this ode, and the humour of the turn with which it concludes. I feel, indeed, that the transaction must appear vapid, if not ludicrous, to an English reader. And I can no longer keep Little gods, who murder sleep!] I have not literally rendered the epithet rayragira; if it has any meaning here, it is one, perhaps, better omitted. 6 I must burn with warm desire, Or thou, my boy—in yonder fire.] From this Longepierre conjectures, that, whatever Anacreon might say, he felt sometimes the inconveniences of old age, and here solicits from the power of Love a warmth which he could no longer expect from Nature ODE XII. THEY tell how Atys, wild with love, While floating odours round me swim, 4 ODE XIII. I WILL, I will, the conflict's past, And I'll consent to love at last. They tell how Atys, wild with love, Roams the mount and haunted grove ;] There are many contradictory stories of the loves of Cybele and Atys. It is certain that he was mutilated, but whether by his own fury, or Cybele's jealousy, is a point upon which authors are not agreed. 2 Cybele's name he howls around, &c.] I have here adopted the accentuation which Elias Andreas gives to Cybele: - In montibus Cybèlen Magno sonans boatu. 3 Oft too, by Claros' hallow'd spring, &c.] This fountain was in a grove, consecrated to Apollo, and situated between Colophon and Lebedos, in Ionia. The god had an oracle there. Scaliger thus alludes to it in his Anacreontica: Semel ut concitus œstro, Veluti qui Clarias aquas Quo plus canunt, plura volunt. 4 While floating odours, &c.] Spaletti has quite mistaken the import of xsgarfur, as applied to the poet's mistress-" Meå fatigatus amica; "-thus interpreting it in a sense which must want either delicacy or gallantry; if not, perhaps, both. And what did I unthinking do? I took to arms, undaunted, too;] Longepierre has here quoted an epigram from the Anthologia, in which the poet assumes Reason as the armour against Love. Ώπλισμοι προς έρωτα περί στέρνοισι λογισμόν, Alas! then, unable to combat the two, This idea of the irresistibility of Cupid and Bacchus united, is delicately expressed in an Italian poem, which is so truly Anacreontic, that its introduction here may be pardoned. It is an imitation, indeed, of our poet's sixth ode. Lavossi Amore in quel vicino fiume Lascivetto mi scherza al cor intorno. Sarci, piu che non sono ebro d'Amore. I felt him to my bosom glide; And now the wily, wanton minion A day it was of fatal star, But ah, 'twere even more fatal far, If, Bacchus, in thy cup of fire, I found this flutt'ring, young desire: Ev'n more than ever, drunk with love! 6 And, having now no other dart, He shot himself into my heart!] Dryden has parodied this thought in the following extravagant lines: I'm all o'er Love; Nay, I am Love, Love shot, and shot so fast, He shot himself into my breast at last. My heart-alas the luckless day! ODE XIV.. COUNT me, on the summer trees, The poet, in this catalogue of his mistresses, means nothing more than, by a lively hyperbole, to inform us, that his heart, unfettered by any one object, was warm with devotion towards the sex in general. Cowley is indebted to this. ode for the hint of his ballad, called "The Chronicle;" and the learned Menage has imitated it in a Greek Anacreontic, which has so much ease and spirit, that the reader may not be displeased at seeing it here: ΠΡΟΣ ΒΙΩΝΑ. Ει αλσίων τα φύλλα, Tell the foliage of the woods, Count me all the flames I prove, Rhodes a pretty swarm can boast; Sum them all-of brown and fair Oh! I'm such a roving elf, 2 Count me, on the summer trees, Every leaf, &c.] This figure is called, by rhetoricians, the Impossible (advvarov), and is very frequently made use of in poetry. The amatory writers have exhausted a world of imagery by it, to express the infinite number of kisses which they require from the lips of their mistresses: in this Catullus led the way. - Quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox, In stolen joys enamour'd lie, So many kisses, ere I slumber, Upon those dew-bright lips I'll number; So many kisses we shall count, Envy can never tell the' amount. No tongue shall blab the sum, but mine; 3 In the fam'd Corinthian grove, Carm. 7. Where such countless wantons rove, &c.] Corinth was very famous for the beauty and number of its courtezans. Venus was the deity principally worshipped by the people, and their constant prayer was, that the gods should increase the number of her worshippers. We may perceive from the application of the verb xcgvba, in Aristophanes, that the lubricity of the Corinthians had become proverbial. 4 There, indeed, are nymphs divine, Dangerous to a soul like mine!]" With justice has the poet attributed beauty to the women of Greece."- Degen. M. de Pauw, the author of Dissertations upon the Greeks, is of a different opinion; he thinks, that by a capricious partiality of nature, the other sex had all the beauty; and by this supposition endeavours to account for a very singular depravation of instinct among that people. What, you stare? I pray you, peace! Gades' warm, desiring train ; ODE XV. 1 TELL me, why, my sweetest dove, 2 Thus your humid pinions move, Shedding through the air in showers Essence of the balmiest flowers? Tell me whither, whence you rove, Tell me all, my sweetest dove. Curious stranger, I belong To the bard of Teian song; With his mandate now I fly To the nymph of azure eye; She, whose eye has madden'd many, 3 But the poet more than any. 1 Gades' warm, desiring train ;] The Gaditanian girls were like the Baladières of India, whose dances are thus described by a French author; "Les danses sont presque toutes des pantomimes d'amour; le plan, le dessein, les attitudes, les mesures, les sons et les cadences de ces ballets, tout respire cette passion et en exprime les voluptés et les fureurs." - Histoire du Commerce des Europ. dans les deux Indes. Raynal. The music of the Gaditanian females had all the voluptuous character of their dancing, as appears from Martial :Cantica qui Nili, qui Gaditana susurrat. Lib. iii. epig. 63. Lodovico Ariosto had this ode of our bard in his mind, when he wrote his poem "De diversis amoribus." See the Anthologia Italorum. 2 The dove of Anacreon, bearing a letter from the poet to his mistress, is met by a stranger, with whom this dialogue is imagined. The ancients made use of letter-carrying pigeons, when they went any distance from home, as the most certain means of conveying intelligence back. That tender domestic attachment, which attracts this delicate little bird through every danger and difficulty, till it settles in its native nest, affords to the author of "The Pleasures of Memory" a fine and interesting exemplification of his subject. Led by what chart, transports the timid dove Venus, for a hymn of love, I shall serve him till I die. Far from rugged haunts like these. This is all-away-awayYou have made me waste the day. How I've chatter'd! prating crow Never yet did chatter so. See the poem. Daniel Heinsius, in speaking of Dousa, who adopted this method at the siege of Leyden, expresses a similar sentiment. Quo patriæ non tendit amor? Mandata referre Postquam hominem nequiit mittere, misit avem. Fuller tells us, that at the siege of Jerusalem, the Christians intercepted a letter, tied to the legs of a dove, in which the Persian Emperor promised assistance to the besieged. - Holy War, cap. 24. book i. 3 She, whose eye has madden'd many, &c.] For rugavvov, in the original, Zeune and Schneider conjecture that we should read Tugavvou, in allusion to the strong influence which this object of his love held over the mind of Polycrates. See Degen. 4 Venus, for a hymn of love, Warbled in her votive grove, &c.] "This passage is invaluable, and I do not think that any thing so beautiful or so delicate has ever been said. What an idea does it give of the poetry of the man, from whom Venus herself, the mother of the Graces and the Pleasures, purchases a little hymn with one of her favourite doves!" Longepierre. De Pauw objects to the authenticity of this ode, because it makes Anacreon his own panegyrist; but poets have a licence for praising themselves, which, with some indeed, may be considered as comprised under their general privilege of fic tion. |