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AN ODE

BY THE TRANSLATOR.

ΕΠΙ ῥυδίνοις ταπησι,

Τηΐος ποτ' ὁ μελιστης
Ίλαρος γελων εκειτο,
Μεθνών τε και λυρίζων
Αμφι αυτον οἱ δ' ερωτες
*Απαλοι συνεχόρευσαν
Ο βέλη τα της Κυθήρης
Εποιεί, ψυχής οἴστους
*Ο δε λευκα το σφυροισι
Κρινα συν ῥοδοισι πλέξας,
Εφίλει στέφων γεροντα
*Η δε θεαων ανασσα,
ΣΟΦΙΗ ποτ' εξ Ολύμπου
Εσόρωση Ανακρέοντα,
Εσόρωσα τους έρωτας,
Υπομειδικά ας ειπε
Σοφε δ ̓ ὡς Ανακρέοντα
Τον σοφώτατον ἁπάντων,
Καλεουσιν οἱ σοφισταί,
Τι, γερων, τεον βιον μεν
Τοις ερωσι, τῳ Λυαίῳ,
Κ' ουκ εμοι κρατειν έδωκας;
Τι φίλημα της Κυθήρης,
Τι κυπελλα του Λυαίου,

Διει γ' ετρύφησας αδών,
Ουκ

εμους νόμους διδάσκων,
Ουκ εμον λαχων αυτόν ;
'Ο δε Τηϊος μελιστης
Μητε δυσχεραινε, φησι,
'Οτι, θεα, σου γ' ανευ μεν,
* Ο σοφώτατος ἁπαντων
Παρα των σοφών καλούμαι
Φιλεω, πιω, λυρίζω,

Μετα των καλων γυναικών
Αφελως δε τερπνα παίζω,
*Ως λυρη γαρ, εμον ητορ
Αναπνει μόνους έρωτας
*Ωδε βιοτου γαληνην
Φιλεων μάλιστα παντων,
Ου σοφος μελωδος ειμι ;
Τις σοφώτερος μεν εστι

CORRECTIONS OF THE PRECEDING ODE,

SUGGESTED BY AN EMINENT GREEK SCHOLAR.

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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, ἐσαεὶ τρυφῶν ἀείδεις, ἐμὰ θέσμι ̓ οὐ διδάσκων, ἐμὸν οὐ λαχὼν ἄωτον ; ὁ δὲ Τήϊος μελωδός, Σὺ παρὲκ 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 μεῦ, ἀναπνεῖ μόνους Έρωτας. βιότου δὲ τὴν γαλήνην φιλέων μάλιστα πάντων, σοφὸς οὐ μελωδός εἰμι ;

19

Ὑπομειδιασσας είπε
Τον σοφωτατὸν ἁπάντων

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5. Tmesis pro ἀμφεχόρευον. Theocr. Id. vi. 142. πωτῶν

το ξουθαὶ περὶ πίδακας ἀμφὶ μέλισσαι, h. e. αμφεπωτῶντο. 6. Pseud-Anacr. Od. LII. 12. τρομεροῖς ποσὶν χορεύει.

REMARKS ON ANACREON.

THERE is but little known with certainty of the life of Anacreon. Chameleon 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

7, 10. ὁ μὲν, hic— δὲ, ille. Bion. Id. 1. 82. χὼ μὲν ὀϊστώς, | Barnes be forgiven, who, with all the confidence of a bio

[ δς δ' ἐπὶ τόξον ἔβαιν', κ. τ. λ. itidem de Amoribus. 8. 9. ἐποίει-ἐκ κεραυνού. Pseud-Anacr. Od. xxνι. 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 καταβᾶσα. 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. xxiv. 2. βιότου τρίβον οδεύειν. 25.

sch. Eumen. 538. μηδέ νιν, | κέρδος ἰδῶν, ἀθέῳ ποδι λαξ ἀτί- \ σης.

32. παρὲκ νόον γε μή μοι χαλέπαινε, ne prater rationem in me savi. Il. Υ. 133. Ηρη, μὴ χαλέπαινε παρὶκ νόον. Similem positionem particularum μή μοι exhibe: Pseud-Anacr. Od. XXVIII. 13.

1 He is quoted by Athenæus εν τῷ περὶ του Ανακρέοντος. The History of Anacreon, by Gaçon (le Poète sans fard, as he styles himself,) is professedly a romance; nor does

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grapher, traces every wandering of the poet, and settles him at last, in his old age, at a country villa near Teos ?

3 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 Bayle 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.1

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 Panathena. 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 his age
he was choked by a grape-stone; and, however
we may smile at their enthusiastic partiality, who
see in this easy and characteristic death a peculiar
indulgence of Heaven, we cannot help admiring
that his fate should have been so emblematic of
his disposition. Cælius Calcagninus alludes to this
catastrophe in the following epitaph on our poet :—
Those lips, then, hallow'd sage, which pour'd along
A music sweet as any tygnet's song,

The grape hath closed forever!
Here let the ivy kiss the poet's tomb,
Here let the rose he loved with laurels tom,
In bands that ne'er shall sever
But far be thou, oh! far, unholy vine,
By whom the favorite minstrel of the Nine
Lost his sweet vital breath;
Thy God himself now blushes to confess,
Once hallow'd vine! he feels he loves thee less

Since poor Anacreon's death.

It has been supposed by some writers that A nacreon and Sappho were contemporaries; and the very thought of an intercourse between persons so congenial, both in warmth of passion and delicacy of genius, gives such play to the imagination, that the mind loves to indulge in it. But the vision dissolves before historical truth; and Chamæleon and Hermesianax, who are the source of the supposition, are considered as having merely indulged in a poetical anachronism."

To infer the moral dispositions of a poet from the tone of sentiment which pervades his works, is sometimes a very fallacious analogy; but the soul of Anacreon speaks so unequivocally through his odes, that we may safely consult them as the faithful mirrors of his heart. We find him there the elegant voluptuary, diffusing the seductive The manner of Anacreon's death was singular. charm of sentiment over passions and propensities

1 Ανακρέων Σαμίοις Πολυκράτην ἡμερωσε. Maxim. Tyr. 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. Uva passæ acino tandem suffocatus, si credimus Suidæ in ovOTorns; alii enim hoc mortis genere periise tradunt Sophoclem."-Fabricii Bibliothec. Græc. 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;
Cygneæ clausit qui tibi vocis iter.

Vos, hederæ, tumulum, tumulum vos cingite, lauri,
Hoc rosa perpetuo vernet odora loco;
At vitis procul hinc, procul hinc odiosa facessat,
Quæ causam diræ protulit, uva, necis,
Crechtur ipse minus vitem jam Bacchus amare,
In vatem tantum quæ fuit ausa nefas.
The author of this epitaph, Calius Calcagninus, has
translated or imitated the epigrams εις την Μύρωνος βουν,
which are given under the name of Anacreon.

• Barnes is convinced (but very gratuitously) of the synchronism of Anacreon and Sappho. In citing his authorities, he has strangely neglected the line quoted by Fulvius Ursinus, as from Anacreon, among the testimonies to Sappho:

Ειμι λαβών είσαρας Σαπφω παρθενον ἁδύφωνον. Fabricius thinks that they might have been contemporary, but considers their amour as a tale of imagination. Vossius rejects the idea entirely; as do also Olaus Borrichius and others.

An Italian poet, in some verses on Belleau's translation

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