And oh the worst of all its arts, It rends asunder loving hearts. ODE XXX.1 "Twas in a mocking dream of night— That you, sweet maid, have stol'n its rest; 1 Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. But I see nothing in the ode which alludes to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. * 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 which bears some similitude to this ode:Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis Carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam; Cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet. Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas, I rise and follow; all the night I stray, Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, ODE XXXI.2 ARM'D with hyacinthine rod, ODE XXXII.6 STREW me a fragrant bed of leaves, Where lotus with the myrtle weaves; Till my brow dropp'd with chilly dew.] I have followed those who read τειρεν ίδρως for πειρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads Teiрev idρws. And now my soul, exhausted, dying, To my lip was faintly flying; &c.] 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 ψυχην, Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χείλεσιν ἔσχον. Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip, And drink thy breath, in trance divine, My soul then flutters to my lip, Ready to fly and mix with thine. Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find a number of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language. And fanning light his breezy pinion, Rescued my soul from death's dominion;] "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. • We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cupbearer. Some interpreters have ruined the picture by making Eows the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho, in one of her fragments, has assigned this office to Venus. Ελθε, Κυπρι, χρυσείαισιν εν κυλικεσσιν άβροις συμμετ μιγμένον θαλιαισι νεκταρ οινοχουσα τουτοισι τοῖς ἑταιροις έμοις γε και σοις. Which may be thus paraphrased : Hither. Venus, queen of kisses, And while in luxury's dream I sink, Oh, swift as wheels that kindling roll, Is all the trace 'twill leave behind. And bring the nymph whose eye hath power Yes, Cupid! ere my shade retire, ODE XXXIII.1 'Twas 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 shield him from the midnight air. "And who art thou," I waking cry, "That bidd'st my blissful visions fly ?"? Bid the rosy current gush, "Compare with this ode (says the German commentator) the beautiful poem in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 296, Amor als Diener.'" 1 M. Bernard, 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 story of this "Ah, gentle sire!" the infant said, "In pity take me to thy shed; Nor fear deceit: a lonely child I wander o'er the gloomy wild. Chill drops the rain, and not a ray Illumes the drear and misty way!" I heard the baby's tale of wo; I heard the bitter night-winds blow; And sighing for his piteous fate, I trimm'd my lamp and oped the gate. "Twas Love! the little wand'ring sprite," His pinion sparkled through the night. I knew him by his bow and dart; I knew him by my fluttering heart. Fondly I take him in, and raise The dying embers' cheering blaze; Press from his dank and clinging hair The crystals of the freezing air, And in my hand and bosom hold His little fingers thrilling cold. 66 And now the embers' genial ray Had warm'd his anxious fears away; I pray thee," said the wanton child, (My bosom trembled as he smiled,) "I pray thee let me try my bow, For through the rain I've wander❜d so, That much I fear the midnight shower Has injured its elastic power." The fatal bow the urchin drew; Swift from the string the arrow flew ; As swiftly flew as glancing flame, And to my inmost spirit came! "Fare thee well," I heard him say, As laughing wild he wing'd away; "Fare thee well, for now I know The rain has not relax'd my bow; It still can send a thrilling dart, As thou shalt own with all thy heart!" ode suggests one of the scenes.-Œuvres de 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 bidd'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. 'Twas Love! the little wand ring sprite, &c.] See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl. ODE XXXIV. On thou, of all creation blest, 1 In a Latin ode addressed to the grasshopper, Rapin has preserved some of the thoughts of our author : O quæ virenti graminis in toro, Cicada, blande sidis, et herbidos Seu forte adultis floribus incubas, Sehat Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93, and 185. 2 And chirp thy song with such o glee, &c.] "Some authors have affirmed, (says Madame Dacier,) that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, who says er' clow of TETTIYES OUR EVČALμOVES, ὧν ταις γυναιξιν ουδ' ότι ουν φωνης ενι ; ' are not the grasshoppers happy in having dumb wives?" This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I chose rather to make a lady my authority for it. 3 The Muses love thy shrilly tone; &c.] Phile, de Animal. Proprietat. calls this insect Movcais piλos, the darling of the Muses; and Mover opviv, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius - Των πάντων δ ηγείτο πλατυστατος, αλλ' αγορητής This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, y, where there occurs the very same simile. 4 Melodious insect, child of earth,] Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the Anthologia, where he prefers the grasshopper to the swan : "Twas he who gave that voice to thee, "Tis he who tunes thy minstrelsy. Unworn by age's dim decline, The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. ODE XXXV.6 CUPID once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; Αρκει τεττιγας μεθυσαι δροσος, αλλά πίοντες In dew, that drops from morning's wings, Sweeter than any cygnet's notes. Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyl; but is very inferior, I think, to his original, in delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser, in one of his smaller compositions, has sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which I allude, begins thus: Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering All in his mother's lap; A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring, In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius, correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose. The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflections which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I may be pardoned, perhaps, for introducing here another of Menage's Anacreontics, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of the same natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved : Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις The bee awaked-with anger wild The bee awaked, and stung the child. Loud and piteous are his cries; To Venus quick he runs, he flies; 66 Oh, mother!-I am wounded through- Thus he spoke, and she the while That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, To waft me to his bleak dominion,2 I might, by bribes, my doom delay, ODE XXXVI. IF hoarded gold possess'd the power Μη δυσχέραινε, φημι. As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, And round her neck his arins he threw; The modest virgin blush'd with shame! 1 Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where, on weighing the merits of both these personages, he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet. "The German imitators of this ode are, Lessing, in his poem, Gestern Brüder,' &c. Gleim, in the ode An den Tod;' and Schmidt in der Poet. Blumenl., Gotting. 1783, p. 7."-Degen. 2 That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, To waft me to his bleak dominion, &c.] The commenta ODE XXXVII "Twas night, and many a circling bowl tors, who are so fond of disputing "de lanâ caprinâ," have been very busy on the authority of the phrase ir' av Jarcır επέλθη. The reading of iv' αν Θανατος επέλθη, which De Medenbach proposes in his Amoenitates Literariæ, was already hinted by Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice. 3 The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose social souls the goblet blends ;] This communion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life are enumerated with proverbial simplicity. Υγιαίνειν μεν αριστον ανδρι θνητῳ. Δεύτερον δε, καλόν φυην γενέσθαι. Το τρίτον δε, πλουτειν αδόλως. Και το τέταρτον συνέβαν μετα των φίλων. Of mortal blessings here the first is health, And next those charms by which the eye we move; The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth, And then, sweet intercourse with those we love! 4 "Compare with this ode the beautiful poem 'der Traum' of Uz."--Degen. Le Fevre, in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably the cause of the severe reprehension which he appears to have suffered for his Anacreon. "Fuit olim fateor, (says he in a note upon Longinus,) cum Sapphonem aniabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima foemina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone, (Anacreontem dico, si nescis, Lector.) noli sperare, &c. &c." He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of: Ουδεις φιλοπότης εστιν άνθρωπος κακος. Light, on tiptoe bathed in dew, We flew, and sported as we flew! Some ruddy striplings who look'd onWith cheeks, that like the wine-god's shone, Saw me chasing, free and wild, These blooming maids, and slyly smiled; Smiled indeed with wanton glee, Though none could doubt they envied me. A kiss that Jove himself might sip- "Again, sweet sleep, that scene restore, Oh! let me dream it o'er and o'er !"] Doctor Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, animadverting upon the commentators of that poet, who pretended, in every little coincidence of thought, to detect an imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the following words to the line of Anacreon before us:-"I have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, 'I cried to sleep again,' the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like any other man, the same wish on the same occasion." "Compare with this beautiful ode to Bacchus the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v. 'das Gesellschaftliche;' and of Bürger, p. 51, &c. &c."-Degen. Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms So oft has fondled in her arms.] Robertellus, upon the epithalamium of Catullus, mentions an ingenious derivation Oh 'tis from him the transport flows, Which sweet intoxication knows; With him, the brow forgets its gloom, And brilliant graces learn to bloom. Behold!-my boys a goblet bear, "Tis only wine can strike a spark ! And through the dance meandering glide; Of odors chafed to fragrant death; A more ambrosial, richer gale! To hearts that court the phantom Care, of Cytherma, the name of Venus, παρα το κεύθειν τους έρωτας, which seems to hint that "Love's fairy favors are lost, when not concealed." Alas, alas, in ways so dark, 'Tis only wine can strike a spark!] The brevity of life allows arguments for the voluptuary as well as the moralist. Among many parallel passages which Longepierre has adduced, I shall content myself with this epigram from the Anthologia: Λουσαμενοι, Προδίκη, πυκασωμεθα, και τον ακρατον Of which the following is a paraphrase: Let's fly, my love, from noonday's beam, |