AN ODE BY THE TRANSLATOR Τηῖος ποτ' ὁ μελιστης Διει γ' ετρύφησας αδων, Παρα των σοφών καλούμαι Μετα των καλών γυναικών CORRECTIONS OF THE PRECEDING SUGGESTED BY AN EMINENT GREEK SCHO περὶ δ ̓ αὐτὸν ἀμφ' Έρωτες τρομεροῖς ποσὶν χόρευον. τὰ βέλεμν ̓ ὁ μὲν Κυθήρης ἐποίες καλῆς, δῖστοὺς πυρόεντας, ἐκ κεραυνοῦ ὁ δὲ λευκὰ καλλιφύλλοις κρίνα σὺν ῥόδοισι πλέξας, ἐφίλει στέφων γέροντα. κατὰ δ ̓ εὐθὺς ἐξ ̓Ολύμπου Σοφίη θέαινα βᾶσα, ἐσορῶσ' Ανακρέοντα, ἐσορῶσα τοὺς ̓Ερωτας, ὑπομειδιῶσά φησι Σόφι, ἐπεὶ βροτῶν σὲ τοῦτο καλέουσι φύλα πάντα, καλέουσιν οἱ σοφισταί, τί, γέρων, μάτην οδεύεις βιότου τρίβον τεοῦ μὲν μετὰ τῶν καλῶν ̓Ερώτων, μετὰ τοῦ καλοῦ Λυαίου ἐμὲ δ ̓ ὧδε λὰξ ἀτίζεις ; τί φίλημα τῆς Κυθήρης, τί κύπελλα τοῦ Λυαίου, ἐσπεὶ τρυφῶν ἀείδεις, ἐμὰ θέσμι ̓ οὐ διδάσκων, ἐμὸν οὐ λαχὼν ἀωτον ; ὁ δὲ Τήϊος μελφός, Σὲ παρὶς νόον γε μή μοι χαλέπαινε, φήσ', ἄνευθε ὅτι σεῦ σοφὸς καλοῦμαι παρὰ τῶν σοφῶν ἁπάντων. φιλέω, τίω, λυρίζω, μετὰ τῶν καλῶν γυναικῶν, ἀφελῶς δὲ τερπνὰ παίζω κιθάρη γὰρ, ὡς κέαρ μεν, ἀναπνεῖ μόνους Ερωτας. βιότου δὲ τὴν γαλήνην φιλίων μάλιστα πάντων, σοφὸς οὐ μελωδός εἰμι ; Τοῖς Ερωσι, τῳ Λυαίῳ 25 Κ' ουκ εμοι κρατειν έδωκας 5. Tmesis pro αμφεχόρευον. Theocr. Id. vi. 142. πωτῶντο ξουθαὶ περὶ πίδακας ἀμφὶ μέλισσαι, h. e. αμφεπωτῶντο. 6. Pseud-Anacr. Od. Lu. 12. τρομεροῖς ποσὶν χορεύει. 7. 10. ὁ μὲν, hicὁ δὲ, ille. Bion. Id. 1. 82. χὼ μὲν ὀϊστὼς, [ δ; δ' ἐπὶ τόξον ἔβαιν', κ. τ. λ. itidem de Amoribus. 8. 9. ἐποίει-ἐκ κεραυνοῦ. Pseud-Anacr. Od. XXVIII. 18. τὸ δὲ βλέμμα νῦν ἀληθῶς | ἀπὸ τοῦ πυρὸς ποίησον. 10. 11. καλλιφύλλοιςῥόδοισι. Pseud-Anacr. Od. v. 3. τὸ ῥόδον τὸ καλλίφυλλον. 13. Tmesis pro καταβασα. Pseud-Anacr. Od. III. 15. ἀνὰ δ' εὐθὺ λύχνον ἅψας, h. e. ἀνάψας. 18. Supple όνομα, quo τοῦτο referatur. Eurip. Phœn. 12. τοῦτο γὰρ πατὴρ | ἔθετο. h. e. τοῦτο ὄνομα, βροτῶν φύλα πάντα adumbratum ex Pseud-Anacr. Od. 111. 4. μερόπων δὲ φύλα πάντα. 21. Pseud-Anacr. Od. xxιν. 2. βιότου τρίβον οδεύειν. 25. Esch. Eumen. 538. μηδέ νιν, | κέρδος ἰδῶν, ἀθέῳ ποδι λὰς ἀεί- \ σης. 32 παρέκ νέον γε μή μοι χαλέπαινε, ne prater rationem in πε εστί. 1. Υ. 133. Ηρη, μὴ χαλέπαινε παρὶκ νόον. Similem positionem particularum μή μοι exhibet Pseud-Anacr. Od. ΣΕΡΕΙΣ. 13. 1 He is quoted l, Athenaus εν τῷ περὶ του Ανακρεοντος. The History of Anacreon, by Gaçon (le Poète sans fard, as he styles himself,) is professedly a romance; nor does 45 Τις σοφώτερος μεν εστι REMARKS ON ANACREON. THERE is but little known with certainty of the life of Anacreon. Chamæleon Heracleotes,' who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of the poet have collected the few trifling anecdotes which are scattered through the extant authors of antiquity, and, supplying the deficiency of materials by fictions of their own imagination, have arranged, what they call, a life of Anacreon. These specious fabrications are intended to indulge that interest which we naturally feel in the biography of illustrious men ; but it is rather a dangerous kind of illusion, as it confounds the limits of history and romance, and is too often supported by unfaithful citation." 2 Our poet was born in the city of Téos, in the delicious region of Ionia, and the time of his birth appears to have been in the sixth century before Christ. He flourished at that remarkable period, when, under the polished tyrants Hipparchus and Polycrates, Athens and Samos were become the rival asylums of genius. There is nothing certain known about his family, and those who pretend to discover in Plato that he was a descendant of the monarch Codrus, show much more of zeal than of either accuracy or judgment. Mademoiselle Scuderi, from whom he borrowed the idea, pretend to historical veracity in her account of Anacreon and Sappho. These, then, are allowable. But how can | Barnes be forgiven, who, with all the confidence of a biographer, traces every wandering of the poet, and settles him at last, in his old age, at a country villa near Téos ? The learned Bayle has detected some infidelities of quotation in Le Fevre. (Dictionnaire Historique, &c.) Madame Dacier is not more accurate than her father: they have almost made Anacreon prime minister to the monarch of Samos. 4 The Asiatics were as remarkable for genius as for luxury. “Ingenia Asiatica inclyta per gentes fecere Poetæ, Anacreon, inde Mimnermus et Antimachus,” &c.-Solinus. I have not attempted to define the particular Olympiad, but have adopted the idea of Bayle, who says, “Je n'ai point marqué d'Olympiade; car pour un homme qui a vécu 85 ans, il me semble que l'on ne doit point s'enfermer dans des bornes si étroites." • This mistake is founded on a false interpretation of a very obvious passage in Plato's Dialogue on Temperance ; it originated with Madame Dacier, and has been received implicitly by many. Gail, a late editor of Anacreon, seems to claim to himself the merit of detecting this error; but Baylo had observed it before him. The disposition and talents of Anacreon recommended him to the monarch of Samos, and he was formed to be the friend of such a prince as Polycrates. Susceptible only to the pleasures, he felt not the corruptions of the court; and, while Pythagoras fled from the tyrant, Anacreon was celebrating his praises on the lyre. We are told too by Maximus Tyrius, that, by the influence of his amatory songs, he softened the mind of Polycrates into a spirit of benevolence towards his subjects.' The amours of the poet, and the rivalship of the tyrant, I shall pass over in silence; and there are few, I presume, who will regret the omission of most of those anecdotes, which the industry of some editors has not only promulged, but discussed. Whatever is repugnant to modesty and virtue is considered in ethical science, by a supposition very favorable to humanity, as impossible; and this amiable persuasion should be much more strongly entertained, where the transgression wars with nature as well as virtue. But why are we not allowed to indulge in the presumption? Why are we officiously reminded that there have been really such instances of depravity? Hipparchus, who now maintained at Athens the power which his father Pisistratus had usurped, was one of those princes who may be said to have polished the fetters of their subjects. He was the first, according to Plato, who edited the poems of Homer, and commanded them to be sung by the rhapsodists at the celebration of the Panathenæa. From his court, which was a sort of galaxy of genius, Anacreon could not long be absent. Hipparchus sent a barge for him; the poet readily embraced the invitation, and the Muses and the Loves were wafted with him to Athens." We are told that in the eighty-fifth year of he was choked by a grape-stone;' and, we may smile at their enthusiastic partial see in this easy and characteristic death a indulgence of Heaven, we cannot help that his fate should have been so emble his disposition. Cælius Calcagninus alludes catastrophe in the following epitaph on our Those lips, then, hallow'd sage, which pour'd A music sweet as any tygnet's song, The grape hath closed forever! It has been supposed by some writers tha reon and Sappho were contemporaries; very thought of an intercourse between pe congenial, both in warmth of passion and of genius, gives such play to the imaginat the mind loves to indulge in it. But th dissolves before historical truth; and Cha and Hermesianax, who are the source of position, are considered as having merely in a poetical anachronism." To infer the moral dispositions of a po the tone of sentiment which pervades his is sometimes a very fallacious analogy; soul of Anacreon speaks so unequivocally his odes, that we may safely consult them faithful mirrors of his heart. We find hi the elegant voluptuary, diffusing the s The manner of Anacreon's death was singular. charm of sentiment over passions and proj 1 Ανακρέων Σαμίοις Πολυκράτην ἡμερωσε. Maxim. Τyr. 121. Maximus Tyrius mentions this among other instances of the influence of poetry. If Gail had read Maximus Tyrius, how could he ridicule this idea in Moutonnet, as unauthenticated? 2 In the romance of Clelia, the anecdote to which I allude is told of a young girl, with whom Anacreon fell in love while she personated the god Apollo in a mask. But here Mademoiselle Scuderi consulted nature more than truth. 3 There is a very interesting French poem founded upon this anecdote, imputed to Desyvetaux, and called "Anacreon Citoyen." 4 Fabricius appears not to trust very implicitly in this story. "Uvæ passæ acino tandem suffocatus, si credimus Suidæ in OvOTorns; alii enim hoc mortis genere periise tradunt Sophoclem."—Fabricii Bibliothec. Grec. lib. ii. cap. 15. It must be confessed that Lucian, who tells us that Sophocles was choked by a grape-stone, in the very same treatise mentions the longevity of Anacreon, and yet is silent on the manner of his death. Could he have been ignorant of such a remarkable coincidence, or, knowing, could he have neglected to remark it? See Regnier's introduction to his Anacreon. At te, sancte senex, acinus sub Tartara misit; Vos, hederæ, tumulum, tumulum vos cingite, • Barnes is convinced (but very gratuitously) of chronism of Anacreon and Sappho. In citing his au he has strangely neglected the line quoted by Fuly nus, as from Anacreon, among the testimonies to S Ειμι λαβων εισαρας Σαπφω παρθενον άδύφων Fabricius thinks that they might have been conte but considers their amour as a tale of imagination. rejects the idea entirely; as do also Olaus Borrid others. An Italian poet, in some verses on Belleau's tr Et which rigid morality must frown. His heart, devoted to indolence, seems to have thought that there is wealth enough in happiness, but seldom happiness in mere wealth. The cheerfulness, indeed, with which he brightens his old age is interesting and endearing: like his own rose, he is fragrant even in decay. But the most peculiar feature of his mind is that love of simplicity which he attributes to himself so feelingly, and which breathes characteristically throughout all that he has sung. In truth, if we omit those few vices in our estimate which religion, at that time, not only connived at, but consecrated, we shall be inclined to say that the disposition of our poet was amiable; that his morality was relaxed, but not abandoned; and that Virtue, with her zone loosened, may be an apt emblem of the character of Anacreon.1 Of his person and physiognomy time has preserved such uncertain memorials, that it wore better, perhaps, to leave the pencil to fancy; and few can read the Odes of Anacreon without imagining to themselves the form of the animated old bard, crowned with roses, and singing cheerfully to his lyre. But the head of Anacreon, prefixed to this work, has been considered so authentic, that we scarcely could be justified in the omission of it; and some have even thought that it is by no means deficient in that benevolent suavity of expression which should characterize the countenance of such a poet. After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed both by ancients and moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we need not be difficent in expressing our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them the most polished remains of antiquity. ment. They are, indeed, all beauty, all enchantHe steals us so insensibly ong with him, that we sympathize even in his excesses In his amatory odes there is a delicacy of compliment not to be found in any other ancient poet. Love at that period was rather an unrefined emotion: and the intercourse of the sexes was animated more by of Anacreon, pretends to imagine that our bard did not feel right hand, and a dolphin, with the word TIANAN inscribed, as he wrote: Lyæum, Venerem, Cupidinemque Senex lusit Anacreon poeta. Sed quo tempore nec capaciores Rogabat cyathos, nec inquietis To Love and Bacchus ever young Nor fill'd his bowl to Bacchus higher. Those flowery days had faded long, When youth could act the lover's part; And passion trembled in his song, But never, never, reach'd his heart. 1 Anacreon's character has been variously colored. Barnes | lingers on it with enthusiasti: admiration; but he is always extravagant, if not sometimes also a little profane. Baillet runs too much into the opposite extreme, exaggerating also the testimonies which he has consulted; and we cannot surely agree with him when he cites such a compiler as Athenæus, as "un des plus savans critiques de l'antiquité." -Jugement des Sçavans, M. CV. Barnes could hardly have read the passage to which he refers, when he accuses Le Fevre of having censured our poet's character in a note on Longinus; the note in question being manifest irony, in allusion to some censure passed apon Le Fevre for his Anacreon. It is clear, indeed, that praise rather than censure is intimated. See Johannes Vulpaus, (de Utilitate Poëtices,) who vindicates our poet's repu tation It is taken from the Bibliotheca of Fulvius Ursinus. Bellori has copied the same head into his Imagines. Johannes Faber, in his description of the coin of Ursinus, mentions another head on a very beautiful cornelian, which he supposes was worn in a ring by some admirer of the poet. In the Iconographia of Canini there is a youthful head of Anacreon from a Grecian medal, with the letters TEIO2 around #; on the reverse there is a Neptune, holding a spear in his in the left; "volendoci denotare (says Canini) che quelle cittadini la coniassero in honore del suo compatriota poeta." There is also among the coins of De Wilde one, which though it bears no effigy, was probably struck to the memory of Anacreon. It has the word THION, encircled with an ivy crown. "At quidni respicit hæc corona Anacreontem, nobilem lyricum ?"-De Wilde. 3 Besides those which are extant, he wrote hymns, elegies, epigrams, &c. Some of the epigrams still exist. Horace, in addition to the mention of him, (lib. iv. od. 9,) alludes also to a poem of his upon the rivalry of Circe and Penelope in the affections of Ulysses, lib. i. od. 17; and the scholiast upon Nicander cites a fragment from a poem upon Sleep by Anacreon, and attributes to him likewise a medicinal treatise. Fulgentius mentions a work of his upon the war between Jupiter and the Titans, and the origin of the consecration of the engle. 4 See Horace, Maximus Tyrius, &c. "His style (says Scaliger) is sweeter than the juice of the Indian reed."Puet. lib. i. cap. 44. "From the softness of his verses (says Olaus Borrichius) the ancients bestowed on him the epithets sweet, delicate, graceful, &c."-Dissertationes Academica, de Poetis, diss. 2. Scaliger again praises him thus in a pun; speaking of the pɛλos, or ode, “Anacreon autem non solum dedit hæc μɛλŋ sed etiam in ipsis mella." See the passage of Rapin, quoted by all the editors. I cannot omit citing also the following very spirited apostrophe of the author of the Commentary prefixed to the Parma edition: "O vos sublimes animæ, vos Apollinis alumni, qui post unum Alcmanem in totâ Hellade lyricam poesim exsuscitastis, coluistis, amplificastis, quæso vos an ullus unquam fuerit vates qui Teio cantori vel naturæ candore vel metri suavitate palmam præripuerit." See likewise Vincenzo Gravini della Rag. Poetic. libro primo, p. 97. Among the Ritratti of Marino, there is one of Anacreon beginning "Cingetemi la fronte," &c. &c. "We may perceive," says Vossius," that the iteration of his words conduces very much to the sweetness of his style." Henry Stephen remarks the same beauty in a note on the forty-fourth ode. This figure of iteration is his most appropriate grace :-but the modern writers of Juvenilia and Basia have adopted it to an excess which destroys the effect. imitators. Some of these have succeed wonderful felicity, as may be discerned in odes which are attributed to writers of period. But none of his emulators have b so dangerous to his fame as those Greek astics of the early ages, who, being cons their own inferiority to their great prototype mined on removing all possibility of cen and, under a semblance of moral zeal, depr world of some of the most exquisite trea ancient times. The works of Sappho and were among those flowers of Grecian 1 which thus fell beneath the ude hand of astical presumption. It is true they preten this sacrifice of genius was hallowed by t Sim-ests of religion; but I have already assig passion than by sentiment. They knew not those I shall not be accused of enthusiastic partiality by those who have read and felt the original; but, to others, I am conscious, this should not be the language of a translator, whose faint reflection of such beauties can but ill justify his admiration of them. In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were inseparable. These kindred talents were for a long time associated, and the poet always sung his own compositions to the lyre. It is probable that they were not set to any regular air, but rather a kind of musical recitation, which was varied according to the fancy and feelings of the moment.' The poems of Anacreon were sung at banquets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us that he heard one of the odes performed at a birthday entertainment.2 The singular beauty of our poet's style, and the apparent facility, perhaps, of his metre, have attracted, as I have already remarked, a crowd of most probable motive; and if Gregorius Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon The zeal by which these bishops profess actuated, gave birth more innocently, inde absurd species of parody, as repugnant to it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuous made a preacher of the gospel, and his m the Venus in armor at Lacedæmon, was ar all the severities of priestly instruction. S the "Anacreon Recantatus," by Carolus de a Jesuit, published 1701, which consisted of of palinodes to the several songs of our poet too, was the Christian Anacreon of Pa another Jesuit," who preposterously transfer most sacred subject all that the Grecian dedicated to festivity and love. His metre has frequently been adopted modern Latin poets; and Scaliger, T Barthius," and others, have shown that it 4 We may perceive by the beginning of the firs Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon and S 1 In the Paris edition there are four of the original odes set to music, by Le Sueur, Gossec, Mehul, and Cherubini. "On chante du Latin, et de l'Italien," says Gail, “quelque- | models of composition. fois même sans les entendre; qui empêche que nous ne chantions des odes Grecques ?" The chromatic learning of these composers is very unlike what we are told of the simple melody of the ancients; and they have all, as it appears to me, mistaken the accentuation of the words. 2 The Parma commentator is rather careless in referring to this passage of Aulus Gellius, (lib. xix. cap. 9.) The ode was not sung by the rhetorician Julianus, as he says, but by the minstrels of both sexes, who were introduced at the entertainment. See what Colomesius, in his "Literary Treasures," has quoted from Alcyonius de Exilio; it may be found in Baxter. Colomesius, after citing the passage, adds, "Hæc auro contra cara non potui non apponere." Αγε μοι, λίγεια φόρμιγξ, Margunius and Damascenus were likewise author This, perhaps, is the "Jesuita quidam Græ luded to by Barnes, who has himself composed an Xpioriavos, as absurd as the rest, but somewhat fully executed. I have seen somewhere an account of the MS thius, written just after his death, which menti more Anacreontics of his than I believe have published. |