In bowls he makes my senses swim, When I drink, my heart refines, And rises as the cup Rises in the genial flow That none but social spirits know, See, in yonder flowery braid, ODE LII.' AWAY, away, you men of rules, They'd make me learn, they 'd make me think, ODE LI.' FLY not thus, my brow of snow, Or this: Indi mi mena Mentre lictro ebro deliro Baccho in giro Per la vaga aura serena. When youthful revellers, round the bowl, Dilating, mingle soul with soul!] Subjoine to Gail's edition of Anacreon, there are some curious letters upon the eiro 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 suggest ed 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. 1 Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilupus, in the following epigram, has given a version of it: Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis amores? Oh! why repel my soul's impassion'd vow, See the rich garland, cull'd in vernal weather, Longepierre, Barnes, etc, 1 This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived, rhetoricians were not known."-Degen. Though the antiquity of this ode is confirmed by the Vatican manuscript, I am very much inclined to gres in this argument against its authenticity; for, though the dawnings of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon. Our poet anticipated the ideas of Epicurus, in his aversion to the labours of learning, as well as his devotion to Πασαν παιδειαν μακαριοι φεύγετε, said voluptuousness. the philosopher of the garden in a letter to Pythocles Teach me this, and let me twine My arms around the nymph divine!] By zpoons AopeSTS here, I understand some beautiful girl; in the same "Golden" is manner that Auzios is often used for wine. frequently an epithet of beauty. Thus in Virgil, "Venus aurea;" and in Propertius, "Cynthia aurea." Tibullus, bowever, calls an old woman "golden." The translation d'Autori Anonimi, as usual, wantons on this passage of Anacreon: E m' insegni con piu rare Il bel cinto d' onestade. And there's an end-for ah! you know, They drink but little wine below!] Thus the witty Mainard: Memory wakes her tragic trance, And wings me lightly through the dance. Come, Cybeba, smiling maid! Cull the flower and twine the braid; And let me, while the wild and young ODE LIV.' METHINKS, the pictured bull we see Is amorous Jove-it must be he! How fondly blest he seems to bear That fairest of Phoenician 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 ? La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois Au sein d'une fosse profonde, 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 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." "It 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. No: he descends from climes above, He looks the God, he breathes of Jove! ODE LV.' WHILE We invoke the wreathed spring, The rose's fair luxuriance sung; 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: The God forgot himself, his heaven for love, 1 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 ancienta attached to this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according to Suidas, poda μ3sspuxas, "You have spoken roses, a phrase somewhat similar to the "dire des fleurettes" of the French. In the same idea of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word podov, for which the inquisitive reader may consult Gaulminus 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 teneo. Now I again embrace thee, dearest, 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 Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing.] I have passed He still can kiss the goblet's brim, etc.] Wine is pre-over the line uv Tapi auges μstany; it is corrupt in this scribed by Galen as an excellent medicine for old men: original reading, and has been very little improved by the "Quod frigidos et humoribus expletos calefaciat," etc.; annotators. I should suppose it to be an interpolation, if it but Nature was Anacreon's physician. were not for a line which occurs afterwards: 1p dy ques There is a proverb in Eriphus, as quoted by Athenæus, "that wine makes an old man dance, whether which says, he will or not." Λόγος εστ' αρχαίος, ου κακώς έχων, Οίνον λέγουσι τους γέροντας, ω πατέρα 1 "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 woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. viii. cap. 23. "Sidonii numismata cum fumina auri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante, cuderunt in sus honorem. In the little treatise upon the goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, λέγωμεν. The rose is warm Dione's bliss, etc.] Belleau, in a note upon an old French poet, quoting the original here a podσT' asupμa, translates it, "comme les délices et mignardises de Vénus." Oft has the poet's magic tongue The rose's fair luxuriance sung, etc.] The following is mance of Achilles Tatius, who appears to have resolved a fragment of the Lesbian poetess. It is cited in the rothe numbers into prose. E TO USERTY MASKED • Zaus επιθείναι βασιλέα, το ρόδον ων των ανθέων εβασίλευε, γης ερύθημα, κάλλος αστράπτον. εστι κόσμος, φυτών αγλαισμα, οφθαλμός ανθέων, λειμωνος προξενεί, εκείδεσι φύλλοις κόμα, ευκίνητοις πεταλοι Έρωτος πνει, Αφροδίτην τρύφα, το πεταλον το Ζέφυρο γελά. And long the Muses, heavenly maids, If Jove would give the leafy bowers Till, glowing with the wanton's play, When morning paints the orient skies, Her fingers burn with roseat dyes, etc.] In the original here, he enumerates the many epithets of beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by the poets, apa TWV σOOWY. We see that poets were dignified in Greece with the title of Bages; even the careless Anacreon, who lived but for love and voluptuousness, was called by Plato the wise Anacreon. Fuit hæc sapientia quondam. Preserves the cold inurned clay, etc.] He here alludes to the use of the rose in embalming; and, perhaps (as Barnes thinks,) to the rosy unguent with which Venus anointed the corpse of Hector. Homer's Iliad. . It may likewise regard the ancient practice of putting garlands of roses on the dead, as in Statius, Theb. lib. x. 782. hi sertis, hi veris honore soluto Accumulant artus patriaque in sede reponunt Where "veris honor," though it mean every kind of flowers, may seem more particularly to refer to the rose, which our poet, in another ode, calls expos Mixnx. We read, in the Hieroglyphics of Pierius, lib. Iv. that some of the ancients used to order in their wills, that roses should be annually scattered on their tombs; and he has adduced some sepulchral inscriptions to this purpose. And mocks the vestige of decay.] When he says that this flower prevails over time itself, he still alludes to its efficacy in embalment (tenera poneret ossa rosa. Propert. lib. i. eleg. 17,) or perhaps to the subsequent idea of its fragrance surviving its beauty; for he can scarcely mean to praise for duration the "nimium breves flores" of the rose. Philostratus compares this flower with love, and says, that they both defy the influence of time; xpovov & OUT Epes, OUT! poda OLDER. Unfortunately the similitude lios not in their duration, but their transience. And when, at length, in pale decline, Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung? Which sprung, with blushing tinctures dress'd, The gods beheld this brilliant birth, ODE LVI.' HE, who instructs the youthful crew To bathe them in the brimmer's dew, Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odour e'en in death.] Thus Caspar Barlæus, ir his Ritus Nuptiarum: Ambrosium late rosa tunc quoque spargit odorem, Nor then the rose its odour loses, The sweetly orient buds they dyed, etc.] The author of the "Pervigilium Veneris" (a poem attributed to Catullus, the style of which appears to me to have all the laboured luxuriance of a much later period) ascribes the tincture of the rose to the blood from the wound of Adonis rosm Fusce aprino de cruore according to the emendation of Lipsius. In the following epigram this hue is differently accounted for: Illa quidem studiosa suum defendere Adonim, While the enamour'd queen of joy On whom the jealous war-god rushes; And while the wound with crimson flows, The snowy flowret feels her blood, and blushes! 1 "Compare with this elegant ode the verses of Uz, lib i. die Weinlese."-Degen. This appears to be one of the hymns which were sung at the anniversary festival of the vintage; one of the vavos, as our poet himself terms them in the fifty-ninth ode. We cannot help feeling a peculiar veneration for these relics of the religion of antiquity. Horace may be supposed to have written the nineteenth ode of his second book, and the twenty-fifth of the third, for some bacchanalian celebration of this kind. And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses, No youth shall then be wan or weak, Lie faintly glowing, half-conceal'd, ODE LVII.' AND whose immortal hand could shed The Queen of Love's voluptuous form, Oh! he has given the raptured sight A witching banquet of delight; And all those sacred scenes of Love, Where only hallowed eyes may rove, ODE LVIII.1. WHEN gold, as fleet as Zephyr's pinion, sion ought to be; glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients have attained this modesty of description, which is like the golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, impervious to every beam but that of fancy. Her bosom, like the humid rose, etc.] "Padav (saya an anonymous annotator) is a whimsical epithet for the bosom." Neither Catullus nor Gray have been of his opinion. The former has the expression, En hic in roseis latet papillis. And the latter, Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd hours, etc. Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth, Illuminate the sons of earth!] In the original OTO αστόνον κομίζων. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet here had the nepenthé of Homer in his mind. Odyssey, lib. iv. This nepenthe was a something of exquisite charm, Crottus, a modern Latinist, might indeed be censured for infused by Helen into the wine of her guests, which had the too vague an use of the epithet "rosy," when he applies i power of dispelling every anxiety. A French writer, with very elegant gallantry, conjectures that this spell, which made the bowl so beguiling, was the charm of Helen's conversation. See de Meré, quoted by Bayle, art. Helène. 1 This ode is a very animated description of a picture of Venus on a discus, which presented the goddess in her first emergence from the waves. About two centuries after our poet wrote, the pencil of the artist Apelles embellished this subject, in his famous painting of the Venus Anad vomené, the model of which, as Pliny informs us, was the beautiful Campaspe, given to him by Alexander; though, according to Natalis Comes, lib. vii. cap. 16, it was Phryne who sat to Apelles for the face and breast of this Venus. There are a few blemishes in the reading of the ode before us, which have influenced Faber, Heyne, Brunck, etc. to denounce the whole poem as spurious. Non ego paucis offendar maculis. I think it is beautiful enough to be authentic. to the eyes: "e roseis oculis." young Desire, etc.] In the original_Iμapes, who was the same deity with Jocus among the Romans. Aurelius Augurellus has a poem beginning Invitat olim Bacchus ad cœnam suos Gay Bacchus, liking Estcourt's wine, And, for the guests that were to dine, 1 I have followed Barnes's arrangement of this ode; it deviates somewhat from the Vatican MS. but it appeared to me the more natural order. When gold, as fleet as Zephyr's pinion, Escapes like any faithless, minion, etc.] In the original And whose immortal hand could shed Ο δραπέτας ο χρυσος. There is a kind of pun in the Upon this disk the ocean's bed?] The abruptness of words, as Madame Dacier has already remarked; for ChryaрM TIS TOPSUTS OTO, is finely expressive of sudden sos, which signifies gold, was also a frequent name for a admiration, and is one of those beauties which we cannot slave. In one of Lucian's dialogues, there is, I think, a but admire in their source, though, by frequent imitation, similar play upon the word, where the followers of Chry they are now become languid and uuimpressive. sippus are called golden fishes. The puns of the ancients are, in general, even more vapid than our own some of And all those sacred scenes of love, Where only hallow'd eyes may rove, etc.] The picture the best are those recorded of Diogenes. here has all the delicate character of the semi-reducta Ve And flies me (as he flies me ever,) etc.] A d', me mo nus, and is the sweetest emblem of what the poetry of pas-suger This grace of iteration has already been taken ODES OF ANACREON. No, let the false deserter go, For who would court his direst foe? And cast them to the vagrant airs. Scares from her bower the tuneful maid; notice of. Though sometimes merely a playful beauty, it is peculiarly expressive of impassioned sentiment, and we may easily believe that it was one of the many sources of that energetic sensibility which breathed through the style of Sappho. See Gyrald. Vet. Poet. Dial. 9. It will not be said that this is a mechanical ornament by any one who can feel its charm in those lines of Catullus, where he complains of the infidelity of his mistress, Lesbia. Coli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, ODE LIX.' Ποθών κυπελλα κόρνης. "Or leave a kiss within the cup, as in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and Lucian Degen, in the true spirit of literary scepticism, doubts that this ode is genuine, without assigning any reason for such a suspicion. Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;" but this is far from satisfactory criticism. Swears that the herbage Heaven had spread, Was sacred as the nuptial bed, etc.] The original here has been variously interpreted. Some, in their zeal for our author's purity, have supposed that the youth only persuades violation of the nuptial vow. The turn which I have given her to a premature marriage. Others understand from the it is somewhat like the sentiment of Heloisa, "amorem conwords por DE, that he seduces her to a jugio, libertatem vinculo præferre." (See her original Letters.) The Italian translations have almost all wantoned mium lubricus aspici." upon this description: but that of Marchetti is indeed "pi |