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And with the maid whose every sigh
Is love and bliss, entranced to lie
Where the embowering branches meet-
Oh! is not this divinely sweet?

ODE XLII.'

YES, be the glorious revel mine,

Where humour sparkles from the wine!
Around me let the youthful choir
Respond to my beguiling lyre;

And while the red cup circles round,
Mingle in soul as well as sound!

Let the bright nymph, with trembling eye,
Beside me all in blushes lie;

And, while she weaves a frontlet fair
Of hyacinth to deck my hair,
Oh! let me snatch her sidelong kisses,
And that shall be my bliss of blisses!
My soul, to festive feeling true,
One pang of envy never knew;

And little has it learn'd to dread

The gall that Envy's tongue can shed.
Away-I hate the slanderous dart
Which steals to wound the unwary heart;
And oh! I hate, with all
my soul,

Discordant clamours o'er the bowl,
Where every cordial heart should be
Attuned to peace and harmony.
Come, let us hear the soul of song
Expire the silver harp along :
And through the dance's ringlet move,
With maidens mellowing into love;
Thus simply happy, thus at peace,
Sure such a life should never cease!

ODE XLIII.

WHILE Our rosy fillets shed Blushes o'er each fervid head,

And with the maid, whose every sigh

Is love and bliss, etc.] Thus Horace:

Quid habes illius, illius

Quæ spirabat amores,

Quæ me surpuerat mihi.

And does there then remain but this,

And hast thou lost each rosy ray
Of her, who breathed the soul of bliss,
And stole me from myself away?

1 The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly depicted. His love of social, harmonized pleasures is expressed with a warmth, amiable and endearing. Among the epigrams imputed to Anacreon is the following; it is the only one worth translation, and it breathes the same sentiments with this ode:

Ου φίλος, ός κρητήρι παρα πλέω οινοποτάζων,
Νείκεα και πολεμον δακρυόεντα λέγει.

Αλλ' όςις Μουσεων τε, και αγλαα δωρ' Αφροδίτης
Ευμμισγών, ερατης μνήσκεται ευφροσύνης.

When to the lip the brimming cup is press'd,
And hearts are all afloat upon the stream,
Then banish from my board the unpolish'd guest
Who makes the feats of war his barbarous theme.
Bat bring the man, who o'er his goblet wreathes
The Muse's laurel with the Cyprian flower:
Oh give me him whose heart expansive breathes
All the refinements of the social hour.

With many a cup and many a smile
The festal moments we beguile.
And while the harp, impassion'd, flings
Tuneful rapture from the strings,
Some airy nymph, with fluent limbs,
Through the dance luxuriant swims,
Waving, in her snowy hand,
The leafy Bacchanalian wand,
Which, as the tripping wanton flies,
Shakes its tresses to her sighs!

A youth, the while, with loosen'd hair
Floating on the listless air,

Sings, to the wild harp's tender tone,
A tale of woes, alas! his own;
And then, what nectar in his sigh,
As o'er his lips the murmurs die!
Surely never yet has been
So divine, so blest a scene!
Has Cupid left the starry sphere,
To wave his golden tresses here?
Oh yes! and Venus, queen of wiles,
And Bacchus, shedding rosy smiles,
All, all are here, to hail with me
The Genius of Festivity!

And while the harp, impassion'd, flings

Tuneful rapture from the strings, etc.] On the barbiton a host of authorities may be collected, which, after all, leave us ignorant of the nature of the instrument. There is scarcely any point upon which we are so totally uninformed as the music of the ancients. The authors (a) extant upon the sbject are, I imagine, little understood, but certainly if one of their moods was a progression by quartertones, which we are told was the nature of the enbarmonic scale. simplicity was by no means the characteristic of their melody, for this is a nicety of progression of which modern music is not susceptible.

The invention of the barbiton is, by Athenæus, attributed to Asacreon. See his fourth book, where it is called to qua too Avanpeoutos. Neanthes of Cyzicus, as quoted by Gyraldus, asserta the same. Vide Chabot, in Horat. on the words Lesboum barbiton, in the first ode.

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The kiss that she left on my lip

Like a dew-drop shall lingering lie;

'T was nectar she gave me to sip,
'T was nectar I drank in her sigh!

The dew that distill'd in that kiss,

To my soul was voluptuous wine;
Ever since it is drank with the bliss,
And feels a delirium divine!

Has Cupid left the starry sphere, To ware his golden tresses here? The introduction of these deities to the festival is merely allegorical. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet describes a masquerade, where these deities were personated by the company in masks. The translation will conform with either |

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ODE XLIV.'

BUDS of roses, virgin flowers,
Cull'd from Cupid's balmy bowers,
In the bowl of Bacchus steep,

Till with crimson drops they weep!
Twine the rose, the garland twine,
Every leaf distilling wine;

Drink and smile, and learn to think
"That we were born to smile and drink.
Rose! thou art the sweetest flower
That ever drank the amber shower;
Rose! thou art the fondest child

Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild!
Even the gods, who walk the sky,
Are amorous of thy scented sigh.
Cupid too, in Paphian shades,
His hair with rosy fillet braids,

When, with the blushing naked Graces,
The wanton winding dance he traces.
Then bring me showers of roses, bring,
And shed them round me while I sing;
Great Bacchus! in thy hallow'd shade,
With some celestial, glowing maid,
While gales of roses round me rise,
In perfume sweeten'd by her sighs,
I'll bill and twine in early dance,
Commingling soul with every glance!

ODE XLV.

WITHIN this goblet, rich and deep,
I cradle all my woes to sleep.
Why should we breathe the sigh of fear,
Or pour the unavailing tear?
For Death will never heed the sigh,
Nor soften at the tearful eye;

And eyes that sparkle, eyes that weep,
Must all alike be seal'd in sleep:
Then let us never vainly stray,

In search of thorns, from pleasure's way;
Oh! let us quaff the rosy wave
Which Bacchus loves, which Bacchus gave;
And in the goblet, rich and deep,
Cradle our crying woes to sleep!

This spirited poem is a eulogy on the rose and again, in the fifty-fifth ode, we shall find our author rich in the praises of that flower. In a fragment of Sappho, in the romance of Achilles Tatius, to which Barnes refers us, the rose is very elegantly styled the eye of flowers; and the same poetess, in another fragment, calls the favours of the Muse the roses of Pieria. See the notes on the fiftyfifth ode.

Compare with this forty-fourth ode (says the German annotator)

the beautiful ode of Uz die Rose..

When with the blushing, naked Graces,

The wanton winding dance he traces.] This sweet idea of Love dancing with the Graces, is almost peculiar to Anacreon.»-DEGEN.

With some celestial glowing maid, etc.] The epithet 3x0uxoros, which he gives to the nymph, is literally full-bosomed: if this was really Anacreon's taste, the heaven of Mahomet would suit him in every particular. See the Koran, cap. 72.

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ODE XLVI. '

SEE, the young, the rosy Spring,
Gives to the breeze her spangled wing;
While virgin Graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way!
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languish'd into silent sleep;
And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away;

And cultured field, and winding stream,
Are sweetly tissued by his beam.
Now the earth prolific swells

With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters ripe festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see
Nursing into luxury!

ODE XLVII.

'T is true, my fading years decline, Yet I can quaff the brimming wine

The fastidious affectation of some commentators has denounced this ode as spurious. Degen pronounces the four last lines to be the patch-work of some miserable versificator, and Brunck condemns the whole ode. It appears to me to be elegantly graphical; full of delicate expressions and luxuriant imagery. The abruptness of Ιδε πως εαρος φανέντος is striking and spirited, and bas been imitated rather languidly by Horace:

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte

The imperative tog is infinitely more impressive, as in Shakspeare,

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

There is a simple and poetical description of Spring, in Catullus's beautiful farewell to Bithynia. Carm. 44.

Barnes conjectures, in his life of our poet, that this ode was written after he had returned from Athens, to settle in his paternal seat at Teos; there, in a little villa at some distance from the city, which commanded a view of the Egean Sea and the islands, he contemplated the beauties of nature, and enjoyed the felicities of retirement. Vide Barnes, in Anac. vita, sect. xxxv. This supposition, however unauthenticated, forms a pleasant association, which makes the poem more interesting.

Monsieur Chevreau says that Gregory Nazianzenus has paraphrased somewhere this description of Spring: I cannot find it. See Che

vreau, OEuvres Mélées.

Compare with this ode (says Degen) the verses of Hagedorn, book fourth der Frühling, and book fifth der Mai..

While virgin Graces, warm with May,

Bрuoust, the roses display their graces. This is not uningeFling roses o'er her dewy way!] De Pauw reads, Xxpitas podz

nious; but we lose by it the beauty of the personification, to the boldness of which Regnier has objected very frivolously.

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As deep as any stripling fair
Whose cheeks the flush of morning wear;
And if, amidst the wanton crew,
I'm call'd to wind the dance's clue,
Thou shalt behold this vigorous hand
Not faltering on the bacchant's wand,
But brandishing a rosy flask,
The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask!

Let those who pant for Glory's charms
Embrace her in the field of arms;
While my inglorious placid soul
Breathes not a wish beyond the bowl.
Then fill it high, my ruddy slave,
And bathe me in its honied wave!
For, though my fading years decay,
And though my bloom has pass'd away,
Like old Silenus, sire divine,
With blushes borrow'd from
I'll wanton 'mid the dancing train,
And live

my follies all again!

my wine,

ODE XLIX. '

WHEN Bacchus, Jove's immortal boy,
The

rosy harbinger of joy,

Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,
Thaws the winter of our soul;
When to my inmost core he glides,
And bathes it with his ruby tides,

A flow of joy, a lively heat,
Fires my brain, and wings my feet!
'T is surely something sweet, I think,
Nay, something heavenly sweet, to drink!
Sing, sing of love, let Music's breath
Softly beguile our rapturous death,
While, my young Venus, thou and I
To the voluptuous cadence die!
Then waking from our languid trance,
Again we 'll sport, again we 'll dance.

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But brandishing a rosy flask, etc.] Ax25 was a kind of leathern vessel for wine, very much in use; as should seem by the proverb axos xxl Dudaxos, which was applied to those who were intemperate in eating and drinking. This proverb is mentioned in some verses quoted by Athenæus, from the Hesione of Alexis.

The only thyrsus e'er I'll ask! Phornutus assigns as a reason for the consecration of the thyrsus to Bacchus, that inebriety often renders the support of a stick very necessary.

Ivy leaves my brow entwining, etc.] The ivy was consecrated to Bacchus (says Montfaucon), because he formerly lay hid under that tree, or, as others will have it, because its leaves resemble those of the vine. Other reasons for its consecration, and the use of it in garlands at banquets, may be found in Longepierre, Barnes, etc. etc.

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ODE L.'

WHEN I drink, I feel, I feel

Visions of poetic zeal!

Warm with the goblet's freshening dews,

My heart invokes the heavenly Muse.

When I drink, my sorrow 's o'er;

I think of doubts and fears no more;

But scatter to the railing wind
Each gloomy phantom of the mind!
When I drink, the jesting boy,
Bacchus himself, partakes my joy;

This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the same character, are merely chansons à boire. Most likely they were the effusions of the moment of conviviality, and were sung, we imagine, with rapture in Greece; but that interesting association by which they always recalled the convivial emotions that produced them, can be very little felt by the most enthusiastic reader; and much less by a phlegmatic grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dialects and particles. Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,

Thaws the winter of our soul.] Auztag is the title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a curious circumstance, that Piutarch mistook the name of Levi among the Jews for Agüt (one of the bacchanal cries), and accordingly supposed that they worshipped Bacchus.

Faber thinks this spurious; but, I believe, he is singular in his opinion. It has all the spirit of our author. Like the wreath which be presented in the dream, it smells of Anacreon.

The form of this ode, in the original, is remarkable. It is a kind of song of seven quatrain stanzas, each beginning with the line

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And, while we dance through breathing bowers,
Whose every gale is rich with flowers,
In bowls he makes my senses swim,

Till the gale breathes of nought but him!
When I drink, I deftly twine

Flowers, begemm'd with tears of wine;
And, while with festive hand I spread
The smiling garland round my head,
Something whispers in my breast,
How sweet it is to live at rest!
When I drink, and perfume stills
Around me all in balmy rills,
Then as some beauty, smiling roses,
In languor on my breast reposes,
Venus! I breathe my vows to thee
In many a sigh of luxury!
When I drink, my heart refines,
And rises as the cup declines,-
Rises in the genial flow

That none but social spirits know,

When youthful revellers, round the bowl,
Dilating, mingle soul with soul!
When I drink, the bliss is mine,—
There's bliss in every drop of wine!
All other joys that I have known,
I've scarcely dared to call my own;
But this the Fates can ne'er destroy,
Till Death o'ershadows all my joy!

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When youthful revellers, round the bowl, Dilating, mingle soul with soul!] Subjoined to Gail's edition of Anacreon, there are some curious letters upon the isot of the ancients, which appeared in the French Journals. At the opening of the Odeon, in Paris, the managers of the spectacle requested Professor Gail to give them some uncommon name for the fêtes of this

institution. He suggested the word Thiase, which was adopted;

but the literati of Paris questioned the propriety of it, and addressed their criticisms to Gail, through the medium of the public prints. Two or three of the letters he has inserted in his edition, and they have elicited from him some learned research on the subject. Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilupus, in the following epigram, has given a version of it:

Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores?
Car fugis e nostro pulchra puella sinu?

Ne fugias, sint sparsa licet mea tempora canis,
Inque tuo roseus fulgeat ore color.
Aspice ut intextas deceant quoque flore corollas
Candida purpureis lilia mixta rosis.
Oh why repel my soul's impassion'd vow,
And fly, beloved maid, these longing arms?

Though the wane of age is mine,
Though the brilliant flush is thine,
Still I'm doom'd to sigh for thee,
Blest, if thou couldst sigh for me!
See, in yonder flowery braid,
Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid,
How the rose, of orient glow,
Mingles with the lily's snow;
Mark, how sweet their tints agree,
Just, my girl, like thee and me!

ODE LII.'

AWAY, away, you men of rules!
What have I to do with schools?
They'd make me learn, they'd make me think,

But would they make me love and drink?
Teach me this, and let me swim

My soul upon the goblet's brim;
Teach me this, and let me twine
My arms around the nymph divine!
Age begins to blanch my brow,

I've time for nought but pleasure now.
Fly, and cool my goblet's glow

At yonder fountain's gelid flow;

I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink

This soul to slumber as I drink!

Soon, too soon, my jocund slave,

You'll deck your master's grassy grave;

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And there's an end-for ah! you know,

They drink but little wine below!

ODE LIII.

WHEN I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I'm young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance,

And wings me lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!

Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose
Burn upon my brow of snows;
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along,
Fling my heap of years away,
And be as wild, as young as they.
Hither haste, some cordial soul!
Give my lips the brimming bowl;
Oh! you will see this hoary sage
Forget his locks, forget his age.
He still can chaunt the festive hymn,
He still can kiss the goblet's brim;
He still can act the mellow raver,
And play the fool as sweet as ever!

ODE LIV..

METHINKS, the pictured bull we see Is amorous Jove-it must be he!

And there's an end-for ah! you know,

They drink but liule wine below!] Thus the witty Mainard:

La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois

Nous ont enfermés une fois

Au sein d'une fosse profonde,

Adieu bons vins et bons repas,

Ma science ne trouve pas

Des cabarets en l'autre monde.

From Mainard, Gombauld, and De Cailly, old French poets, some of the best epigrams of the English language are borrowed.

Bid the blush of summer's rose

It

Burn upon my brow of snows, etc.] Licetus, in his Hieroglyphica, quoting two of our poet's odes, where he calls for garlands, remarks, Constat igitur floreas coronas poetis et potantibus in symposio convenire, non autem sapientibus et philosophiam affectantibus. appears that wreaths of flowers were adapted for poets and revellers at banquets, but by no means became those who had pretensions to wisdom and philosophy. On this principle, in his 152d chapter, he discovers a refinement in Virgil, describing the garland of the poet Silenus as fallen off; which distinguishes, he thinks, the divine intoxication of Silenus from that of common drunkards, who always wear their crowns while they drink. This, indeed, is the labor ineptiarum of commentators.

He still can kiss the goblet's brim, etc.] Wine is prescribed by Galen as an excellent medicine for old men: « Quod frigidos et humoribus expletos calefaciat, etc.; but Nature was Anacreon's phy

sician.

There is a proverb in Eriphns, as quoted by Athenæus, which says that wine makes an old man dance, whether he will or not.»

Λόγος ες' αρχαίος, ου κακώς έχων,
Οινον λέγουσι τους γέροντας, ω πατερ,
Πείθειν χορεειν ου θέλοντας.

This ode is written upon a picture which represented the rape of Europa. Madame Dacier.

It may perhaps be considered as a description of one of those coins which the Sidonians struck off in honour of Europa, representing a

How fondly blest he seems to bear
That fairest of Phenician fair!
How proud he breasts the foamy tide,
And spurns the billowy surge aside!
Could any beast of vulgar vein
Undaunted thus defy the main ?
No: he descends from climes above,
He looks the God, he breathes of Jove!

ODE LV.'

WHILE we invoke the wreathed spring,
Resplendent rose! to thee we 'll sing;
Resplendent rose! the flower of flowers,
Whose breath perfumes Olympus' bowers;
Whose virgin blush, of chasten'd dye,
Enchants so much our mortal eye.
When Pleasure's bloomy season glows,
The Graces love to twine the rose;
The rose is warm Dione's bliss,
And flushes like Dione's kiss!

woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. viii, cap. 23. Sidonii numismata cum fœmina tauri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, caderant in ejus honorem. In the little treatise upon the goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedicated by the Sidonians to Astarte, whom some, it appears, confounded with Europa. Moschus has written a very beautiful idyl on the story of Europa.

No: he descends from climes above,

He looks the God, he breathes of Jove.] Thus Moschus:

Κρυψε θεον και τρεψε δέμας· και γινετο ταύρος.

The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love,
And a bull's form belied the almighty Jove.

This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. All antiquity (says Barnes) has produced nothing more beautiful..

From the idea of peculiar excellence which the ancients attached to this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according to Suidas, poetprxas, You have spoken roses, a phrase somewhat similar to the dire des Beurettes of the French. In the same idea of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word poo, for which the inqui sitive reader may consult Gaulminas upon the epithalamium of our poet, where it is introduced in the romance of Theodorus. Muretus, in one of his elegies, calls his mistress his rose.

Jam te igitur rursus teneo, formosula, jam te
(Quid trepidas?) teneo; jam, rosa, te teneu.

Now I again embrace thee, dearest,
(Tell me, wanton, why thou fearest?)
Again my longing arms infold thee,
Again, my rose, again I hold thee.

Eleg. 8,

This, like most of the terms of endearment in the modern Latin poets, is taken from Plautus; they were vulgar and colloquial in his time, and they are among the elegancies of the modern Latinists. Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the beginning of his poem on the Rose:

Carmine digna rosa est; vellem caneretur ut illam
Teius arguta cecinit testudine vates.

Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing.] I have passed over the line συν εταιρει αύξει μέλπην; it is corpupt in this original reading, and has been very little improved by the annotators. I should suppose it to be an interpolation, if it were not for a line which oc curs afterwards: φερε δη φυσιν λέγωμεν.

The rose is warm Dione's bliss, etc.] Belleau, in a note upon an old French poet, quoting the original here appodtones t'alluppa, translates it, - comme les délices et mignardises de Vénus..

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