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Seeking in the desert wood
Gloomy shelter, rustic food.
Now I lead a life of ease,
Far from such retreats as these;
From Anacreon's hand I eat
Food delicious, viands sweet;
Flutter o'er his goblet's brim,
Sip the foamy wine with him.
Then I dance and wanton round
To the lyre's beguiling sound;
Or with gently-fanning wings
Shade the minstrel while he sings:
Ou his harp then sink in slumbers,
Dreaming still of dulcet numbers!
This is all-away—away—
You have made me waste the day.
How I chattered! prating crow
Never yet did chatter so.

ODE XVI.1

THOU, whose soft and rosy hues siimic form and soul infuse ;*

Best of painters! come, portray
The lovely maid that's far away.3
Far away, my soul! thou art,
But I've thy beauties all by heart.
Paint her jetty ringlets straying,
Silky twine in tendrils playing;4
And if painting hath the skill
To make the spicy balm distil,5
Let every little lock exhale
A sigh of perfume on the gale.
Where her tresses' curly flow
Darkles o'er the brow of snow,
Let her forehead beam to light,
Burnished as the ivory bright.
Let her eyebrows sweetly rise
In jetty arches o'er her eyes,
Gently in a crescent gliding,
Just commingling, just dividing.
But hast thou any sparkles warm,
The lightning of her eyes to form?
Let them effuse the azure ray
With which Minerva's glances play,
And give them all that liquid fire
That Venus' languid eyes respire."

has ever been said. What an idea does it give of of excellence, from the association of beauty with the poetry of the man from whom Venus herself, that flower. Salvini has adopted this reading in the mother of the Graces and the Pleasures, pur-his literal translation: chases a little hymn with one of her favourite doves!-Longepierre.

3 If the

Della rosea arte signore. portrait of this beauty be not merely

De Pauw objects to the authenticity of this ode, because it makes Anacreon his own pane-ideal, the omission of her name is much to be gyrist; but poets have a licence for praising regretted. Meleager, in an epigram on Anathemselves, which with some indeed may be concreon, mentions the golden Eurypyle' as his sidered as comprised under their general privilege

of fiction.

This ode and the next may be called companion pictures; they are highly finished, and give us an excellent idea of the taste of the ancients in beauty. Franciscus Junius quotes them in his third book, De Pictura Veterum.

This ode has been imitated by Ronsard, Giuliano Goscini, etc. etc. Scaliger alludes to i: thus in his Anacreontica:

Olim lepore blando,

Litis versibus
Candidus Anacreon
Quam pingeret, Amicus
Descripsit Venerem suam.

The Teian bard, of former days,
Attuned his sweet descriptive lays,
And taught the painter's hand to trace
His fair beloved's every grace!

In the dialogue of Caspar Barlaæus, entitled An formosa sit ducenda, the reader will find many curious ideas and descriptions of beauty.

I have followed the reading of the Vatican MS. Painting is called 'the rosy art,' either in reference to colouring, or as an indefinite epithet

mistress :

Βεβληκως χρυσέην χειρας επ' Ευρυπυλην.

The ancients have been very enthusiastic in their praises of hair. Apuleius, in the second book of his Milesiacs, says that Venus herself, if she were bald, though surrounded by the Graces and the Loves, could not be pleasing even to her

husband Vulcan.

To this passage of our poet Selden alluded in a note on the Polyolbion of Drayton, song the second; where, observing that the epithet 'blackhaired' was given by some of the ancients to the goddess Isis, he says: Nor will I swear but that Anacreon (a man very judicious in the provoking motives of wanton love), intending to bestow on his sweet mistress that one of the titles of woman's special ornament, well-haired, thought of this when he gave his painter direction to make her black-haired.'

5 Thus Philostratus, speaking of a picture: 'I admire the dewiness of these roses, and could that their very smell was painted.' Tasso has painted the eyes of Armida, as La Fosse remarks:

Bay

Qual raggio in onda le scintilla un riso Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo.

2

O'er her nose and cheek be shed
Flushing white and mellow red;
Gradual tints, as when there glows
In snowy milk the bashful rose.
Then her lip. so rich in blisses!
Sweet petitioner for kisses!1
Pouting nest of bland persuasion,
Ripely suing Love's invasion.
Then beneath the velvet chin,
Whose dimple shades a Love within,
Mould her neck with grace descending,
In a heaven of beauty ending;
While airy charms, above, below,
Sport and flutter on its snow.
Now let a floating, lucid veil
Shadow her limbs, but not conceal ;3
A charm may peep, a hue may beam,
And leave the rest to Fancy's dream.
Enough-'tis she! 'tis all I seek;
It glows, it lives, it soon will speak!

ODE XVII.4

AND now, with all thy pencil's truth, Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth!

Within her humid, melting eyes
A brilliant ray of laughter lies,
Soft as the broken solar beam

That trembles in the azure stream.

The mingled expression of dignity and tenderness, which Anacreon requires the painter to in fuse into the eyes of his mistress, is more amply described in the subsequent ode. Both descriptions are so exquisitely touched, that the artist must have been great indeed, if he did not yield in painting to the poet.

The 'lip, provoking kisses,' in the original, is a strong and beautiful expression. Achilles atius speaks of lips soft and delicate for kissing.' A grave old commentator, Dionysius Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us, with all the authority of experience, that girls who have large lips kiss infinitely sweeter than others! 'Suavius viros osculantur puellæ labios, quam quæ sunt brevibus labris.' And Eneas Sylvius, in his tedious, uninteresting story of the adulterous loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he particularizes the beauties of the heroine (in a very false and laboured style of latinity), describes her lips as exquisitely adapted for biting: Os parvum decensque, labia corallini coloris ad morsum aptissima.'-Epist. 114, lib. i.

2 Madame Dacier has quoted here two pretty lines of Varro:

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem."

In her chin is a delicate dimple,
By the finger of Cupid imprest.

6

Let his hair, in lapses bright,
Fall like streaming rays of light;5
And there the raven's dye confuse
With the yellow sunbeam's hues.
Let not the braid, with artful twine,
The flowing of his locks confine;
But loosen every golden ring,
To float upon the breeze's wing.
Beneath the front of polished glow,
Front as fair as mountain snow,
And guileless as the dews of dawn,
Let the majestic brows be drawn,
Of ebon dyes, enriched by gold,
Such as the scaly snakes unfold.
Mingle in his jetty glances
Power that awes, and love that
trances ;7

Steal from Venus bland desire,
Steal from Mars the look of fire,
Blend them in such expression here,
That we, by turns, may hope and
fear;

Now from the sunny apple seek
The velvet down that spreads his
cheek!

There Softness, bewitchingly simple,
Has chosen her innocent nest.

3 This delicate art of description, which leaves imagination to complete the picture, has been seldom adopted in the imitations of this beautiful poem. Ronsard is exceptionably minute; and Politianus, in his charming portrait of a girl, full of rich and exquisite diction, has lifted the veil rather too much. The questo che tu m'intendo' should be always left to fancy.

The reader who wishes to acquire an accurate idea of the judgment of the ancients in beauty, will be indulged by consulting Junius, De Picturá Veterum, ninth chapter, third book, where he will find a very curious selection of descriptions and epithets of personal perfections; he compares this ode with a description of Theodoric, king of the Goths, in the second epistle, first book of Sidonius Apollinaris.

5 He here describes the sunny hair, the flava coma,' which the ancients so much admired. The Romans gave this colour artificially to their hair. See Stanisl. Kobiensyck de Luxu Romano

rum.

6 If the original here, which is particularly beautiful, can admit of any additional value, that value is conferred by Gray's admiration of it. See his Letters to West.

Some annotators have quoted on this passage the description of Photis's hair in Apuleius; but nothing can be more distant from the simplicity of our poet's manner than that affectation of richness which distinguisbes the style of Apuleius. 7 Tasso similarly describes the eyes of Clorinda:

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Then for his lips, that ripely gem-
But let thy mind imagine them!
Paint, where the ruby cell uncloses
Persuasion sleeping upon roses;1
And give his lip that speaking air,
As if a word was hovering there !2
His neck of ivory splendour trace,
Moulded with soft but manly grace;
Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy,
Where Paphia's arms have hung in joy.
Give him the winged Hermes' hand.
With which he waves his snaky wand;
Let Bacchus then the breast supply,
And Leda's son the sinewy thigh.
But oh! suffuse his limbs of fire.

With all that glow of young desire1
Which kindles when the wishful sigh
Steals from the heart, unconscious why.

Lampeggiar gli occhi, e folgorar gli sguardi Dolci ne l'ira.

Her eyes were glowing with a heavenly heat, Emaning fire, and e'en in anger sweet!

The poetess Veronica Cambara is more diffuse upon this variety of expression:

Ocehi lucenti et belli

Come esser puo ch' in un medesmo istante
Nascan de voi si nove forme et tante?
Lieti, mesti, superbi, humil' altieri

Vi mostrate in un punto, ondi di speme,
E di cimor de empiete, etc. etc.
Oh! tell me, brightly-beaming eye,
Whence in your little orbit lie
So many different traits of fire,
Expressing each a new desire?
Now with angry scorn you darkle,
Now with tender anguish sparkle.
And we, who view the various mirro
Feel at once both hope and terror.
Chevreau, citing the lines of our poet, in his
critique on the poems of Malherbe, produces a
Latin version of them from a manuscript which
ne had seen, entitled Joan. Falconis Anacreontici
Lusur

It was worthy of the delicate imagination of *he Greeks to deify Persuasion, and give her the ips for her throne. We are here reminded of a very interesting fragment of Anacreon, preserved by the scholiast upon Pindar, and supposed to belong to a poem reflecting with some severity on Simonides, who was the first, we are told, that ever made a hireling of his muse:

Ουδ' αργυρέη κατ' έλαμψε Πειθώ.

| Thy pencil, though divinely bright,
Is envious of the eye's delight,
Or its enamoured touch would show
His shoulder, fair as sunless snow,
Which now in veiling shadow lies,
Removed from all but Fancy's eyes.
Now, for his feet--but, hold-forbear-
I see a godlike portrait there ;5
So like Bathyllus!-sure there's none
So like Bathyllus but the Sun!
Oh, let this pictured god be mine,
And keep the boy for Samos' shrine;
Phoebus shall then Bathyllus be,
Bathyllus then the deity!

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We find it likewise in Hamlet Longepierre thinks that the hands of Mercury are selected by Anacreon on account of the graceful gestures which were supposed to characterize the god of eloquence; but Mercury was also the patron of thieves, and may perhaps be praised as a lightfingered deity.

I have taken the liberty here of somewhat veiling the original. Madame Dacier, in her translation, has hung out lights (as Sterne would call it) at this passage. It is very much to be regretted that this substitution of asterisks has been so much adopted in the popular interpretations of the Classics; it serves but to bring whatever is exceptionable into notice, claramque facem præferre pudendis.'

5 This is very spirited, but it requires explanation. While the artist is pursuing the portrait of Bathyllus, Anacreon, we must suppose, turns round and sees a picture of Apollo, which was intended for an altar at Samos: he instantly tells the painter to cease his work; that this picture will serve for Bathyllus; and that, when

Sunned by the meridian fire,
Panting, languid, I expire!
Give me all those humid flowers,
Drop them o'er my brow in showers.
Scarce a breathing chaplet now
Lives upon my feverish brow;
Every dewy rose I wear
Sheds its tears, and withers there.1
But for you, my burning mind !2
Oh! what shelter shall I find?
Can the bowl, or floweret's dew,
Cool the flame that scorches you?

ODE XIX.

HERE recline you, gentle maid, Sweet is this imbowering shade ;3

he goes to Samos, he may make an Apollo of the portrait of the boy which he had begun.

'Bathyllus (says Madame Dacier) could not be more elegantly praised, and this one passage does him more honour than the statue, however beautiful it might be, which Polycrates raised to him.'

There are some beautiful lines, by Angerianus, upon a garland, which I cannot resist quoting here:

Ante fores madidæ sic sic pendete corollæ,
Mane orto imponet Cælia vos capiti;

At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor,
Dicite, non roris sed pluvia hæc lacrimæ.

By Celia's arbour all the night

Hang, humid wreath, the lover's vow; And haply, at the morning light,

My love shall twine thee round her brow. Then, if upon her bosom bright,

Some drops of dew shall fall from thee, Tell her, they are not drops of night,

But tears of sorrow shed by me!

In the poem of Mr. Sheridan, Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone, there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of AngeriaDus, in the stanza which begins,

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may'st preserve.

The transition here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned; but the commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a variety of readings and conjectures.

The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we cannot help feeling a degree of coolness and freshness while we read it. Longepierre has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia the following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode:

Ερχεο, και κατ' εμαν ίζευ πίτυν, ά το μελιχρον
Προς μαλακούς ήχει κεκλιμένα ζέφυρους.
Η ιδε και κρουνισμα μελισταγες, ένθα μελισδων
Ηδυν ερημαίαις ύπνον αγω καλάμοις,

Sweet the young, the modest trees,
Ruffled by the kissing breeze,
Sweet the little founts that weep,
Lulling bland the mind to sleep;
Hark! they whisper, as they roll,
Calm persuasion to the soul;
Tell me, tell me, is not this
All a stilly scene of bliss?
Who, my girl, would pass it by?
Surely neither you nor I !4

ODE XX.

ONE day the Muses twined the hands
Of baby Love, with flowery bands;
And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant as her slave.

Come, sit by the shadowy pine
That covers my sylvan retreat,
And see how the branches incline
The breathing of Zephyr to meet.
See the fountain, that, flowing, diffuses
Around me a glittering spray;
By its brink, as the traveller muses,

I soothe him to sleep with my lay!

4 What a finish he gives to the picture by the simple exclamation of the original! In these delicate turns he is inimitable; and yet hear what a French translator says on the passage: This conclusion appeared to me too trifling after such a description, and I thought proper to add somewhat to the strength of the original.'

5 By this allegory of the Muses making Cupid the prisoner of Beauty, Anacreon seems to insinuate the softening influence which a cultivation of poetry has over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty; though in the following epigram, by the philosopher Plato, which is found in the third book of Diogenes Laertius, the Muses are made to disavow all the influence of Love:

Α Κυπρις Μουσαισι, κορασια των Αφροδίταν
Τιματ' η τον Ερωτα ύμμιν εφοπλίσομαι.
Αἱ Μοισαι ποτι Κυπριν. Αρει τα στωμυλα ταύτα
Ημιν ου πεταται τουτο το παιδάριον.
Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids ;'
Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms-
'Or Love shall flutter in your classic shades,
And make your grove the camp of Paphian arms!
No,' said the virgins of the tuneful bower,
'We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art;
Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power,
His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart!'
There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought
of which was suggested by this ode.

Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's hair,

Traced every lock with fond delays,
And, doting, lingered there.

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This something more' is the 'quidquid post oscula dulce' of Secundus.

After this ode, there follow in the Vatican MS. these extraordinary lines:

Ηδύμελης Ανακρέων Ηδύμελης δε Σαπφω Πινδαρικόν το δε μοι μέλος Συγκέρασας τις έγχεσι Τα τρία ταύτα μοι δοκεί Και Διόνυσος εισελθών Και Παφίη παραχροος Και αυτος Έρως και επιειν. These lines, which appear to me to have as little seuse as metre, are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber.

2 The commentators who have endeavoured to throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this beautiful trifle, require too much from Anacreontic philosophy.

And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the ocean s misty tears.
The moon, too, quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre from the solar beam.
Then, hence with all your sober think
ing!

Since Nature's holy law is drinking;
I'll make the laws of Nature mine,
And pledge the universe in wine!

ODE XXII.3

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,

Was once a weeping matron's form;
And Progne, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.

One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode in an epitaph on a drunkard:

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus
Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit.
Sic bibit assidue fontes et flumina Pontus,
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne te igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse;
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manus.
Hippolytus Capilupus.

While life was mine, the little hour
In drinking still unvaried flew;

I drank as earth imbibes the shower,
Or as the rainbow drinks the dew;

As ocean quaff's the rivers up,

Or flushing sun inhales the sea;
Silenus trembled at my cup,

And Bacchus was outdone by me!

3 Ogilvie, in his Essay on the Lyric Poetry of Anacreon, says: In some of his pieces there is the Ancients, in remarking upon the Odes of in that particularly which is addressed to a young exuberance and even wildness of imagination; girl, where he wishes alternately to be transformed to a mirror, a coat, a stream, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes, for the different purposes which he recites; this is mere sport and wanton

ness."

It is the wantonness, however, of a very graceful muse; ludit mubiliter. The compliment of this ode is exquisitely delicate, and so singular for the period in which Anacreon lived, when the scale of love had not yet been graduated into all its little progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument in the features of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any of those fastidious conjectures upon which some commentators have presumed so far. Degen thinks it spurious, and De Pauw pronounces it to be miserable. Longepierre and Barnes refer us to several imitations of this ode

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