not those little tendernesses which form the spiritual part of affection; their expression of feeling was therefore rude and unvaried, and the poetry of love deprived it of its most captivating graces. Anacreon, however, attained some ideas of this purer gallantry; and the same delicacy of mind which led him to this refinement, prevented him also from yielding to the freedom of language, which has sullied the pages of all the other poets. His descriptions are warm; but the warmth is in the ideas, not the words. He is sportive without being wanton, and ardent without being licentious. His poetic invention is always most brilliantly displayed in those allegorical fictions which so many have endeavoured to imitate, though all have confessed them to be inimitable. Simplicity is the distinguishing feature of these odes, and they interest by their innocence, as much as they fascinate by their beauty. They may be said, indeed, to be the very infants of the Muses, and to lisp in numbers. I shall not be accused of enthusiastic partiality by those who have read and felt the original; but, to others, I am conscious, this should not be the language of a translator, whose faint reflection of such beauties can but ill justify his admiration of them. imitators. Some of these have succeeded with Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon The zeal by which these bishops professed to be actuated, gave birth more innocently, indeed, to an absurd species of parody, as repugnant to piety as it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuousness In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were was made a preacher of the gospel, and his muse, inseparable. These kindred talents were for a like the Venus in armour at Lacedæmon, was long time associated, and the poet always sung his arrayed in all the severities of priestly instruction. own compositions to the lyre. It is probable that Such was the "Anacreon Recantatus," by Carolus they were not set to any regular air, but rather a de Aquino, a Jesuit, published 1701, which conkind of musical recitation, which was varied ac-sisted of a series of palinodes to the several songs cording to the fancy and feelings of the moment.' The poems of Anacreon were sung at banquets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us that he heard one of the odes performed at a birth-day entertainment.? The singular beauty of our poet's style, and the apparent facility, perhaps, of his metre have attracted, as I have already remarked, a crowd of of our poet. Such, too, was the Christian Anacreon of Patriganus, another Jesuit, who preposterously transferred to a most sacred subject all that the Grecian poet had dedicated to festivity and love. His metre has frequently been adopted by the modern Latin poets; and Scaliger, Taubman, Barthius 6, and others, have shown that it is by no 1 In the Paris edition there are four of the original odes set to music, by Le Sueur, Gossec, Mehul, and Cherubini. "On chante du Latin, et de l'Italien," says Gail," quelquefois même sans les entendre; qui empêche que nous ne chantions des odes Grecques ?" The chromatic learning of these composers is very unlike what we are told of the simple melody of the ancients; and they have all, as it appears to me, mistaken the accentuation of the words. The Parma commentator is rather careless in referring | to this passage of Aulus Gellius (lib. xix. cap. 9.). The ode was not sung by the rhetorician Julianus, as he says, but by the minstrels of both sexes, who were introduced at the entertainment. 3 See what Colomesius, in his "Literary Treasures," has quoted from Alcyonius de Exilio; it may be found in Baxter. Colomesius, after citing the passage, adds, "Hæc auro contra cara non potui non apponere." 4 We may perceive by the beginning of the first hymn of Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon and Sappho his models of composition. Αγε μοι, λίγεια φορτιγέ Margunius and Damascenus were likewise authors of pious This, perhaps, is the "Jesuita quidam Græculus "alluded to by Barnes, who has himself composed an Avangian XiTies, as absurd as the rest, but somewhat more skilfully executed. I have seen somewhere an account of the MSS. of Bar thius, written just after his death, which mentions many more Anacreontics of his than I believe have ever been published. means uncongenial with that language. 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 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, how 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.8 To judge by the references of Degen, the German language abounds in Anacreontic imitations; and Hagedorn + is one among many who have as-ever, has at length been gratified with this curious sumed 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 1 Thus too Albertus, a Danish poet : Fidii tui minister Gaudebo semper esse, Gaudebo semper illi Litare thure mulso; Gaudebo semper illum See the Danish Poets collected by Rostgaard. These pretty littlenesses defy translation. A beautiful Anacreontic by Hugo Grotius, may be found Lib. i. Farraginis. * To Angerianus Prior is indebted for some of his happiest mythological subjects. * See Crescimbeni, Historia della Volg. Poes. 4 "L'aimable Hagedorn vaut quelquefois Anacréon.”— Dorat, Idée de la Poësie Allemande. > See Toderini on the learning of the Turks, as translated by de Cournard. Prince Cantemir has made the Russians acquainted with Anacreon. See his Life, prefixed to a translation of his Satires, by the Abbé de Guasco. • Rot ortellus, in his work "De Ratione corrigendi,” pronounces these verses to be the triflings of some insipid Græcist. 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 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 676 h page of it are found the 'Happia Zvμтeriaza of Anacreon. 9" Le méine (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avoit possédé un Anacreon, 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 3, Salvini, Marchetti, and one by several anonymous authors.+ 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, I took the wreath, whose inmost twine 1 "La fiction de ce sonnet, comme l'auteur même m'a dit, est prise d'une ode d'Anacreon, encore nou 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 perceive, 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. This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican manuscript, which attributes it to no other poet than Anacreon. They who assert that the manuscript imputes it to Basilius, have been misled by the words Tou aurou Bariki in the margin, which are merely intended as a title to the following ode. Whether it be the production of Anacreon or not, it has all the features of ancient simplicity, and is a beautiful imitation of the poet's happiest manner. 7 Sparkled in his eyes of fire, Through the mist of soft desire.] "How could he know at the first look (says Baxter) that the poet was cover?" 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, κυμαίνοντες εν αύτοις, εις αφροδισια και ευπάθειαν επτοηνται· ουτε δε αδικεί, ούτε κακουργοί, ουτε 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. Juhan. 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 αντιτέμψον, μηκετι πνέοντα ῥόδων μόνον αλλά και σου. "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: — "But thou thereon didst only breathe Since when it looks and smells, I swear, I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow ODE II. GIVE me the harp of epic song, Flashing around such sparks of thought, 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, Sketch'd in painting's bold display, 1 And ah! I feel its magic now:] This idea, as Longepierre remarks, occurs in an epigram of the seventh book of the Anthologia. Εξέτι μοι πίνοντι συνισταουσα Χαρικλώ Πως 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. 2 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 symposiarch, or master of the festival. I have translated according to those who consider κυπελλα θεσμών as an inversion of θεσμούς κυπελλων. La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by Many a city, revelling free, ODE IV.4 VULCAN! hear your glorious task; I care not for the glitt'ring wain, Its blushing tendrils round the bowl, Looks laughing at the joyous scene, And young Lycus by her side 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 αμπελους και Και βότρυας κατ' αὐτων Και μαινάδας τρυγώσας. Ποιεί δε ληνον μου, Ληνείατας πατούντας, Τους σάτυρους γελωντάς, Και χρύσους τους έρωτας, Και Κυθέρην γελώσαν, Όμου καλώ Λυαίο, Έρωτα κ' 'Αφροδίτην. ODE V.. SCULPTOR, wouldst thou glad my soul, Fit for a simple board like mine. 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, Fluttering on the busy wing, A train of naked Cupids came, And thus in the Pervigilium Veneris: Ite nymphæ, posuit arma, feriatus est amor. 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, ODE VI.4 As late I sought the spangled bowers, I caught the boy, a goblet's tide be the genuine offspring of Anacreon. It has, indeed, all the features of the parent: et facile insciis Noscitetur ab omnibus. Where many an early rose was weeping, I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.] This idea is prettily Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove, Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro flore |