Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

Let not the fiery god be single,
But with the nymphs in union mingle;
For, though the bowl's the grave of
sadness,

Oh! be it ne'er 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,

Our choral hymns shall sweetly breathe,
Beguiling every hour along
With harmony of soul and song!

ODE LXIII.1

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.o

HASTE thee, nymph, whose winged spear

Wounds the fleeting mountain deer! Dian, Jove's immortal child, Huntress of the savage wild!

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.

This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephæstion. There is an anecdote of our poet, which his led to some doubt whether he ever wrote any odes of this kind. It is related by the Scholiast upon Pindar (Isthmionic. od. ii. v. 1, as cited by Barnes). Anacreon being asked why he addressed all his hy n to women, and none to the deities, answ red, Because women are my deities. have assumed the same liberty in reporting this anecdote which I have done in translating some of the odes; and it were to be wished that these ittle infidelities were always considered pardonable in the interpretation of the ancients; thus, when nature is forgotten in the original, in the translation, 'tamen usque recurret.'

I

3 Lethe, a river of louin, according to Strabo, Calling into the Meander. Near to it was situated the town. Magnesia, in favour of whose in

Goddess with the sun-bright hair!
Listen to a people's prayer.
Turn, to Lethe's river turn,
There thy vanquished people mourn !3
Come to Lethe's wavy shore,
There thy people's peace restore.
Thine their hearts, their altars thine;
Dian! must they-must they pine?

ODE LXV.4

LIKE some wanton filly sporting,
Maid of Thrace! thou fly'st my court
ing.

Wanton filly! tell me why
Thou trip'st away, with scornful eye,
And seem'st to think my doting heart
Is novice in the bridling art?
Believe me, girl, it is not so;
Thou'lt find this skilful hand can throw
The reins upon that tender form,
However wild, however warm!
Thou'lt own that I can tame thy force,
And turn and wind thee in the course.
Though wasting now thy careless hours,
Thou sport'st amid the herbs and
flowers,

Thou soon shalt feel the rein's control,
And tremble at the wished-for goal!

ODE LXVI.5

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

habitants our poet 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 mitated very frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, which runs so obviously throughout it, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging to Polycrates. There is more modesty than ingenuity in the lady's conjecture. Pierius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, cites this ode, and informs us that the horse was the hieroglyphical emblem of pride.

5 This ode is introduced in the romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scholium at the unptial banquet.

Among the many works of the impassioned

Look on

To thee, thou blushing young Desire,
And oh ! thou nuptial Power, to thee
Who bear'st of life the guardian key;
Breathing my soul in fragrant 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.
And while thy lambent glance of joy
thy bride, luxuriant boy!
Plays
Over all her blushing charms,
Delay not, snatch her to thine arms,
Before the lovely trembling prey,
Like a young birdling, wing away!
Oh! Stratocles, impassioned 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;

[blocks in formation]

RICH in bliss, I proudly scorn
The stream of Amalthea's horn!
Nor should I ask to call the throne
Of the Tartessian prince my own ;3

For thee they mantle, flush, and burn! To totter through his train of years,
Not more the rose, the queen of flowers, The victim of declining fears.

Outblushes all the glow of bowers,
Than she unrivalled bloom 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 blush like her, and bloom like thee !|

ODE LXVII.1

GENTLE Youth! whose looks assume
Such a soft and girlish bloom,
Why repulsive, why refuse

One little hour of joy to me
Is worth a dull eternity!

ODE LXIX.4

Now Neptune's sullen month appears.
The angry night-cloud swells with

tears;

And savage storms, infuriate driven,
Fly howling in the face of heaven!
Now, now, my friends, the gatherin
gloom

The friendship which my heart pursues? With roseate rays of wine illume:

Sapphe, of which time and ignorant superstition who has thus compiled the 57th of his edition, is not one of the least that we deplore. A sub-w Tai, which he has subjoined to the epigrams. have deprived us, the loss of her epithalamiums and the little ode beginning dep' vdwp, pep' ourov, warmly felt, and must have been warmly de- 96th, 97th, and 100th of Barnes' edition, to which scribed, by such a soul and such an imagination. I refer the reader for the names of the authors The following lines are cited as a relic of one of by whom they are preserved.

her epithalamiums:

Όλβιε γαμβρε. σοι μεν δη γαμος ώς αραο,
Εκτετελεστ, εχεις δε παρθένον αν αραι.

This fragment is preserved in the third book of Strabo.

3 He here alludes to Arganthonius, who lived, according to Lucian, a hundred and fifty years;

-See Scaliger, in his Poetics, on the Epitha- and reigned, according to Herodotus, eighty.

lamium.

See Barnes.

This is composed of two fragments, the 70th

I have formed this poem of three or four different fragments, which is a liberty that per- and 81st in Barnes. They are both found in haps may be justified by the example of Barnes. Eustathius.

[blocks in formation]

Three fragments form this little ode, all of which are preserved in Athenæus. They are the 82d, 75th, and 83d in Barnes.

2 Longepierre, to give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a courtezan, who, in order to gratify three lovers, without leaving euse for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of the third; so that each was satisfied with his favour, and flattered himself with the preference.

This circumstance is extremely like the subject of one of the tensons of Savari de Mauléon, a troubadour. See l'Histoire Littéraire des Troubadours. The recital is a curious picture of the puerile gallantries of chivalry.

This poem is compiled by Barnes, from Athenæus, Hephæstion, and Arsenius. See Barnes, 80.

This I have formed from the 84th and 85th of Barnes' edition. The two fragments are found

in Athenæus.

> In the original.

ODE LXXII.4

WITH twenty chords my lyre is hung, And while I wake them all for thee, Thou, O virgin! wild and young,

Disport'st in airy levity.

The nursling fawn, that in some shade Its antlered mother leaves behind," Is not more wantonly afraid,

More timid of the rustling wind!

ODE LXXIII.6

FARE thee well, perfidious maid!
My soul, too long on earth delayed,
Delayed, perfidious girl! by thee,
Is now on wing for liberty.

I fly to seek a kindlier sphere,
Since thou hast ceased to love me here.

ODE LXXIV.7

I BLOOMED, awhile, a happy flower,
Till love approached, one fatal hour,
And made my tender branches feel
The wounds of his avenging steel.
Then, then I feel like some poor willow
That tosses on the wintry billow!

ODE LXXV.8

MONARCH Love! resistless boy, With whom the rosy Queen of Joy,

Ος εν ύλη κεροεσσης Απολειφθεις ύπο μήτρος.

'Horned' here undoubtedly seems a strange epithet. Madame Dacier, however, observe that Sophocles, Callimachus, etc., have all applied it in the very same manner; and she seems to agree in the conjecture of the scholiast upon Pindar, that perhaps horns are not always peculiar to the males. I think we may with more ease conclude it to be a licence of the poet, 'jussit habere puellam cornua.'

6 This fragment is preserved by the scholiast upon Aristophanes, and is the 87th in Barnes. 7 This is to be found in Hephæstion, and is the 89th of Barnes' edition.

I must here apologize for omitting a very considerable fragment imputed to our poet, Eave 8 Eupunuan uede, etc., which is preserved in the twelfth book of Athenæus, and is the 91st in Barnes. If it was really Anacreon who wrote it, nil fuit unquam sic impar ibi. It is in a style of gross satire, and is full of expressions which never could be gracefully translated.

8 This fragment is preserved by Dion Chrysos tom, Orat. ii, de Regno.-See Barues. 93.

Fair thy silky locks unfold:
Listen to a hoary sage,

Sweetest maid with vest of gold!

And nymphs, that glance ethereal blue, | Pretty nymph, of tender age,
Disporting tread the mountain-dew;
Propitious, oh! receive my sighs,
Which, burning with entreaty, rise;
That thou wilt whisper, to the breast
Of her I love, thy soft behest;
And counsel her to learn from thee
The lesson thou hast taught to me.
Ah! if my heart no flattery tell,
Thou'lt own I've learned that lesson
well!

ODE LXXVI.1

SPIRIT of Love! whose tresses shine
Along the breeze, in golden twine,
Come, within a fragrant cloud,
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud;
And, on those wings that sparkling play,
Waft, oh! waft me hence away!
Love! my soul is full of thee,
Alive to all thy luxury.

But she, the nymph for whom I glow,
The pretty Lesbian, mocks my woe;
Smiles at the hoar and silvered hues
Which Time upon my forehead strews.
Alas! I fear she keeps her charms
In store for younger, happier arms!

ODE LXXVII.2
HITHER, gentle Muse of mine,
Come and teach thy votary old
Many a golden hymn divine,
For the nymph with vest of gold.

This fragment, which is extant in Athenæus (Barnes, 101), is supposed, on the authority of Chameleon, to have been addressed to Sappho. We have also a stanza attributed to her, which some romancers have supposed to be her answer to Anacreon. 'Mais par malheur (as Bayle says) Sappho vint au monde environ cent ou six vingts ans avant Anacréon.' Nouvelles de la Rép. des Lett, tom. ii. de Novembre 1684. The following is her fragment, the compliment of which is very finely imagined; she supposes that the Muse has dictated the verses of Anacreon:

[blocks in formation]

ODE LXXVIII. 3

WOULD that I were a tuneful lyre,
Of burnished ivory fair,
Which in the Dionysian choir

Some blooming boy should bear !
Would that I were a golden vase,

And then some nymph should hold My spotless frame with blushing grace, Herself as pure as gold!

ODE LXXIX.4

WHEN Cupid sees my beard of suow, Which blanching time has taught to flow,

Upon his wing of golden light

He passes with an eaglet's flight, And, flitting on, he seems to say, 'Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!

CUPID, whose lamp has lent the ray
Which lightens our meandering way—
Cupid, within my bosom stealing,
Excites a strange and mingled feeling,
Which pleases, though severely teasing.
And teases, though divinely pleasing

But, goddess, from thy throne of gold,
The sweetest hymn thou'st ever told,

He lately learned and sang for me.
2 This is formed of the 124th and 119th frag-
ments in Barnes, both of which are to be found
in Scaliger's Poetics.

De Pauw thinks that those detached lines and couplets, which Scaliger has adduced as examples in his Poetics, are by no means authentic, but of his own fabrication.

3 This is generally inserted among the remains of Alcæus. Some, however, have attributed it to Anacreon. See our poet's 22nd ode, and the

notes.

See Barnes, 173. This fragment, to which I have taken the liberty of adding a turn not to be found in the original, is cited by Lucian in his little essay on the Gallic Hercules.

5 Barnes, 125. This, if I remember right, is in Scaliger's Poetica, Gail has omitted it in his collection of fragments.

LET me resign a wretched breath,
Since now remains to me
No other balm than kindly death,
To soothe my misery!1

I KNOW thou lov'st a brimming measure,
And art a kindly, cordial host;
But let me fill and drink at pleasure
Thus I enjoy the goblet most."

I FEAR that love disturbs my rest,
Yet feel not love's impassioned care;
I think there's madness in my breast,
Yet cannot find that madness there! 3

FROM dread Leucadia's frowning steep
I'll plunge into the whitening deep,
And there I'll float, to waves resigned,
For love intoxicates my mind !4

Mix me, child, a cup divine,
Crystal water, ruby wine:
Weave the frontlet, richly flushing,
O'er my wintry temples blushing.
Mix the brimmer-love and I
Shall no more the gauntlet try,
Here-upon this holy bowl,
I surrender all my soul !5

Among the Epigrams of the Anthologia there are some panegyrics on Anacreon, which I had translated, and originally intended as a kind of Coronis to this work; but I found. upon consideration, that they wanted variety: a frequent recurrence of the same thought, within the limits of an epigram, to which they are confined, would render a collection of them rather uninteresting. I shall take the liberty, however, of subjoining a few, that I may not appear to have totally neglected those elegant tributes to the reputation of Anacreon. The four epigrams which I give are imputed to Antipater Sidonius. They are rendered, perhaps, with too much freedom; but, designing a translation of all that are on the subject, I imagined it was necessary to enliven their uniformity by sometimes indulging in the liberties of paraphrase.

[blocks in formation]

5 This fragment is collected by Barnes from Demetrius Phalareus and Eustathius, and is subjoined in his edition to the epigrams attributed to our poet. And here is the last of those little scattered flowers which I thought I might venture with any grace to transplant. I wish it could he said of the garland which they form,

I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell
The cause of my love and my hate, may I die I To d' wh' AvaкpeovтOS.

« ForrigeFortsæt »