Oh! that a mirror's form were mine, To sparkle with that smile divine; And, like my heart, I then should be Reflecting thee, and only thee! Or were I, love, the robe which flows ODE XXIII.' I OFTEN wish this languid lyre, This warbler of my soul's desire, I wish I were the zone that lies Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs!] This ravin was a riband, or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophium, which the women wore for the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial: Fascia crescentes dominæ compesce papillas. The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fashion of compressing the waist into a very narrow compass, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom. See Dioscorides, lib. v. Nay, sandals for those airy feet— Thus to be press'd by thee were sweet!] The sophist Philos ratus, in one of his love-letters, has borrowed this thought: ω αδέτοι πόδες, ω κάλλος ελευθερος, ω τρισευ δαιμων εγω και μακαίριος εαν πατήσετε με. "Oh lovely feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me!" In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove: Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand, And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with an idea somewhat like that of the thirteenth line: He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood, In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whimsical farrago of "all such reading as was never read," there is a very old translation of this ode, before 1632. "Englished by Mr. B. Holiday, in his Technog. act 1, scene 7." 1 This ode is first in the series of all the editions, and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an introduction to the rest; it however characterizes the genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it. -cum multo Venerem confundere mero Precepit Lyrici Teia Musa senis. Ovid. The twenty-sixth Ode, ov us λegels Tα Onbus, might, with as much propriety, be ne harbinger of his songs. Bion has expressed the sentiments of the ode before us with much simplicity in his fourth idyl. I have given it rather paraphrastically; it has been so frequently translated, that I could not otherwise avoid triteness and repetition. Could raise the breath of song sublime, I tore the panting chords away, ODE XXIV.' To all that breathe the airs of heaven, In all the glow of epic fire, To Hercules I wake the lyre!] Madame Dacier generally translates up into a lute, which I believe is rather inaccurate. "D'expliquer la lyre des anciens (says Monsieur Sorel) par un luth, c'est ignorer la d fférence qu'il y a entre ces deux instrumens de musique." Bibliothèque Française. But still its fainting sighs repeat, "The tale of Love alone is sweet!"] The word vs. vs, in the original, may imply that kind of musical dialogue practised by the ancients, in which the lyre was made to respond to the questions proposed by the singer. This was a method which Sappho used, as we are told by Hermogenes : “ όταν την λύραν ερωτα Σαπφώ, και όταν αυτή απο κρίνηται. Περι Ιδεων. Τομ. δευτ. 1 Henri Stephens has imitated the idea of this ode in the following lines of one of his poems: Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma, And the same thought occurs in those lines, spoken by Corisca in Pastor Fido: Così noi la bellezza Che 'è vertu nostra cosi propria, come El'ingegno de l'huomo. The lion boasts his savage powers, And lordly man his strength of mind; Peculiar boon, by Heaven assign'd! "An elegant explication of the beauties of this ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm en den Anmerkk. Veber einige Oden des Anakr" To man she gave the flame refined, ODE XXV.1 ONCE in each revolving year, To man she gave the flame refined, The spark of Heaven-a thinking mind!] In my first attempt to translate this ode, I had interpreted pounμa, with Baxter and Barnes, as implying courage and military virtue; but I do not think that the gallantry of the idea suffers by the import which I have now given to it. For, why need we consider this possession of wisdom as exclusive? and in truth, as the design of Anacreon is to estimate the treasure of beauty, above all the rest which Nature has distributed, it is perhaps even refining upon the delicacy of the compliment, to prefer the radiance of female charms to the cold illumination of wisdom and prudence; and to think that women's eyes are the books, the academies, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. She gave thee beauty-shaft of eyes, That very shaft of war outfiies!] Thus Achilles Tatius: κάλλος οξυτέρον τιτρώσκει βέλους, και δια των οφ θαλμών εις την ψυχήν καταρρει, Οφθαλμος γαρ οδος ερωτ τικο τραυματι, "Beauty wounds more swiftly than the arrow, and passes through the eye to the very soul; for the eye is the inlet to the wounds of love." Woman! be fair, we must adore thee; Smile, and a world is weak before thee!] Longepierre's remark here is very ing nious: "The Romans," says he, "were so convinced of the power of beauty, that they used a word implying strength in the place of the epithet beautiful. Thus Plautus, act 2, scene 2, Bacchid. Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa. 'Fortis, id est formosa,' say Servius and Nonius." 1 This is another ode addressed to the swallow. bas imitated both in one poem, beginning Perch' io pianga al tuo canto Rondinella importuna, etc. Alas! unlike the plumed loves, Alberti And never, never change their nest!] Thus Love is represented as a bird, in an epigram cited by Longepierre from the Anthologia: Αιει μοι δυνει μεν εν ουασιν ηχος έρωτος, Ω πτανοί, μη και ποτ' εφιπτασθαι μεν ερωτες "Tis Love that murmurs in my breast, Still every year, and all the year, To chase these Cupids from my heart? ODE XXVI.' THY harp may sing of Troy's alarms, ODE XXVII.2 WE read the flying courser's name Upon his side, in marks of flame; A wound within my heart I find, Oh bird of Love! with song so drear, 1 "The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. Compare also Weisse Scherz. Lieder. lib. iii. der Soldat." Guil, Degen. No-from an eye of liquid blue, A host of quiver'd Cupids flew.] Longepierre has quoted part of an epigram from the seventh book of the Anthologia, which has a fancy someth ng like this: Ου με λεληθες, Τοξοτα, Ζηνοφίλας όμμασι κρυπτόμενος. The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes, but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress "un petit camp d'amours." 2 This ode forms a part of the preceding in the Vatican MS. but I have conformed to the editions in translating them separately. "Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of Ramle Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 313 And, by their turban'd brows alone, Through them we see the small faint mark, ODE XXVIII.' As in the Lemnian caves of fire, "And dost thou smile?" said little Love; But in the lover's glowing eyes, The inlet to his bosom lies.] "We cannot see into the heart," says Madame Dacier. But the lover answers Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte ho scritto. Monsieur La Fosse has given the following lines, as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon: Lorsque je vois un amant, Il cache en vain son tourment, In vain the lover tries to veil The flame which in his bosom lies; We read it in his languid eyes. 1 This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, who, I believe, was the author of that curious little work, called "Hexameron Rustique." He makes use of this, as well as the thirty-fifth, in his ingenious but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the Nymphs. Journée Quatrième. And Love (alas! the victim heart) Tinges with gall the burning dart.] Thus Claudian Labuntur gemini fontes, hic dulcis, amarus In Cyprus' isle two rippling fountains fall, See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the close connexion which subsists between sweets and bitterness. "Apes ideo pungunt (says Petronius) quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum invenies. The allegorical description of Cupid's employment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in fancy, though not in delicacy: ferus et Cupido Semper ardentes acuens sagittas Cote cruenta. And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat softened the image by the omission of the epithet "cruenta." Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas. Eleg. 1. That though they pass the breeze's flight, ODE XXIX. YES-loving a painful thrill, And not to love, more painful still; Yes-loving is a painful thrill, And not to love more painful still, etc. Monsieur Menage, in the following Anacreontic, enforces the neces sity of loving: Περί του δειν φιλησαι. Προς Πετρον Δανιηλα Χεττον. Το τέκνον του Σωφρονίσκου, Τι δ' ανευ γένοιτ' Έρωτος; TO PETER DANIEL HUETT. Thou! of tuneful bards the first, Graver men have learn'd before; (a) This line is borrowed from an epigram by Alpheus of Mitylene. ψυχης εστιν Ερως ακόνη. Menage, I think, says somewhere, that he was the first who produced this epigram to the world. But surely 'tis the worst of pain, For gold provokes the world to arms! I feel it breaks the lover's heart! Cupid bade me wing my pace, My brow was chill with drops of dew And now I thought the spark had fled, When Cupid hover'd o'er my head, And, fanning light his breezy plume, Recall'd me from my languid gloom; Then said, in accents half-reproving, Why hast thou been a foe to loving?" ODE XXX.1 'Twas in an airy dream of night, While little Love, whose feet were twined ODE XXXI.2 ARM'D with hyacinthine rod (Arms enough for such a god,) This shall be my only curse, Of the smile from lips we love! 1 Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. I do not perceive any thing in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. 2 The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram (I do not know where he found it,) which has some similitude to this ode: Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta, ODE XXXII.' STREW me a breathing bed of leaves Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, My brow was chill with drops of dew.] I have followed those who read τειρεν ίδρως fur πειρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads pev dpws. And now my soul, exhausted, dying, To my lip was faintly flying, etc.] In the original, he says his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich, quoted by Aulus Gellius: Την ψυχήν, Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χείλεσιν εσχον Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip, And drink thy breath, in melting twine, Ready to fly and mix with thine. Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find many of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language. And, fanning light his breezy plume, Recall'd me from my languid gloom.] "The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion."-La Fosse. 1 We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup-bearer. Some interpreters have ruined the picture by making Epws the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho has assigned this office to Venus, in a fragment. Ελθε, Κυπρί, χρυσειαισιν εν κυλικεσσιν αθροις συμ μεμιγμένον θαλίαισι νεκταρ οινοχοουσα τουτοισι τοις εταίροις εμοις γε και σοις. Which may be thus paraphrased: Hither, Venus! queen of kisses, And, while in luxury's dream I sink, With cinctures, round his snowy breast, Swift as the wheels that kindling roll, ODE XXXIII.1 "T was noon of night, when round the pole The sullen Bear is seen to roll; And mortals, wearied with the day, Are slumbering all their cares away: An infant, at that dreary hour, Came weeping to my silent bower, And waked me with a piteous prayer, To save him from the midnight air! "And who art thou," I waking cry, "That bid'st my blissful visions fly?" This the night, to friendship dear, Not a soul that is not thine! "Compare with this ode (says the German commentator) the beautiful poem in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 296. Amor als Diener." 1 Monsieur Bernarde, the author of l'Art d'aimer, has written a ballet called "Les Surprises de l'Amour,' in which the subject of the third entrée is Anacreon, and the Œuvres de story of this ode suggests one of the scenes. Bernard, Anac. scene 4th. The German annotator refers us here to an imitation by Uz, lib. iii. "Amor und sein Bruder," and a poem of Kleist die Heilung. La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode. "And who art thou," I waking cry, "That bid'st my blissful visions fly?] Anacreon appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which he expresses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the odes x. and xxxvii. "O gentle sire!" the infant said, ODE XXXIV.' OH thou, of all creation blest, 'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite, etc.] See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idy' 1 Father Rapin, in a Latin ode addressed to the grasshop per, has preserved some of the thoughts of our author: quæ virenti gramin's in toro, Cicada, blande sidis, et herbidos Saltus oberras, otiosos Ingeniosa ciere cantus. Seu forte adultis floribus incubas, Coeli caducis ebria fletibus, etc. Oh thou, that on the grassy bed See what Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93 and 185 And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc.] "Some authors have affirmed (says Madame Dacier,) that it is only male |