Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.1
I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,
I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelm'd him in the racy spring.
Oh! then I drank the poisoned bowl,
And Love now nestles in my soul !
Yes, yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,
I feel him fluttering in my breast.

ODE VII.2

THE women tell me every day
That all my bloom has passed away.
"Behold,' the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;

1 This idea is prettily imitated in the following

epigram by Andreas Naugerius:

Εγω δε τας κομας μεν
Ειτ' εισιν, ειτ' απήλθον
Ουκ οίδα.

Florentes dum forte vagans mea Hyeha per hortos And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus

Texit odoratis lilia cana rosis,

Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem

Et simul annexis floribus implicuit.
Luctatur primo, et contra nitentibus alis
Indomitus tentat solvere vincla puer,
Mox ubi lacteolas et dignas matre papillas
Vidit et ora ipsos nota movere Deos,
Impositosque coma ambrosios ut sentit odores
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs;
'I (dixit) mea, quære novum tibi mater Amorem,
Imperio sedes hæc erit apta meo.'

As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove
A wreath of many mingled flowerets wove,
Within a rose a sleeping love she found,
And in the twisted wreaths the baby bound.
Awhile he struggled, and impatient tried
To break the rosy bonds the virgin tied;
But when he saw her bosom's milky swell,
Her features, where the eye of Jove might dwell;
And caught the ambrosial odours of her hair,
Rich as the breathings of Arabian air;
'Oh! mother Venus' (said the raptured child
By charms, of more than mortal bloom, beguiled),
'Go, seek another boy, thou'st lost thine own,
Hyella's bosom shall be Cupid's throne!'

This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodo-
vico Dolce, in a poem beginning:

Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro fiore
Viciua a un rio di chiare et lucid' onde,
Lidia, etc. etc.

what he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of manner :

Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit.

Longepierre was a good critic, but perhaps the line which he has selected is a specimen of a carelessness not very elegant; at the same time, I appeared to me so capable of imitating the confess that none of the Latin poets have ever graces of Anacreon as Catullus, if he had not allowed a depraved imagination to hurry him so often into vulgar licentiousness.

Pontanus has a very delicate thought upon the subject of old age:

Quid rides, Matrona? senem quid temnis amantem ?

Quisquis amat nullâ est conditione senex.

Why do you scorn my want of youth,
And with a smile my brow behold?
Lady, dear! believe this truth,

That he who loves cannot be old.

5 The German poet Lessing has imitated this ode. Vol. i. p. 24.'-Degen. Gail de Editionibus.

the occasion of our poet's returning the money Baxter conjectures that this was written upon to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobæus.

6 There is a fragment of Archilochus in Plutarch, De tranquillitate animi,' which our poet has very closely imitated here: it begins,

Alberti has imitated this ode, in a poem be- Oν μоι та TVуew тOV #OÀνXPVσOV μEλei.—Barnes, ginning,

Nisa mi dice e Clori

Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio.

Henry Stephen very justly remarks the elegant negligence of expression in the original here:

In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find the same thought:

Ψυχην εμην ερωτω,
Τι σοι θελεις γενεσθαι ;
Θελεις Γύγεω, τα και τα

I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own.
But oh! be mine the rosy braid,
The fervour of iny brows to shade;
Be mine the odours, richly sighing,
Amidst my hoary tresses flying.1
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to morrow ne'er should shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy
light,

Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling cup and cordial smile;
And shed from every bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine !
For death may come with brow un-
pleasant,

May come when least we wish him
present,

And beckon to the sable shore,
And grimly bid us-drink no more!

ODE IX.2

I PRAY thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,
And let me sing, in wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night!'

Alcmæon once, as legends tell,
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell:
Orestes too, with naked tread,
Frantic paced the mountain-head:
And why?-a murdered mother's shade
Before their conscious fancy played ; ́
But I can ne'er a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed by me;
Yet can I rave, in wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night.
The son of Jove, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore,
And brandished with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy:
And Ajax, with tremendous shield,
Infuriate scoured the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no quiver hold,
No weapon but this flask of gold,
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scattered wreath of flowers;
Yet, yet can sing with wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night!

ODE X.3

TELL me how to punish thee,
For the mischief done to me !
Silly swallow! prating thing,
Shall I clip that wheeling wing?

Triplicato furore,
Bacco, Apollo, et Amore.

4

Ritratti del Cavalier Marino.

Insanire dulce,

Et sapidum furere furorem.

1 On account of this idea of perfuming the
beard, Cornelius de Pauw pronounces the whole
ode to be the spurious production of some lasci-
vious monk, who was nursing his beard with This is, as Scaliger expresses it,
unguents. But he should have known that this
was an ancient Eastern custom, which, if we may
believe Savary, still exists. Vous voyez, Mon-
sieur (says this traveller), que l'usage antique de
le
se parfumer la tête et la barbe, célébré par
prophète Roi, subsiste encore de nos jours.'-
Lettre 12. Savary likewise cites this very ode of
Anacreon. Angerianus has not thought the idea
inconsistent; he has introduced it in the follow-
ing lines:

Hæc mihi cura, rosis et cingere tempora myrto,
Et curas multo dilapidare mero.
Hæc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo
Assyrio et dulces continuere jocos.

This be my care to twine the rosy wreath,

And drench my sorrows in the ample bowl: To let my beard the Assyrian unguent breathe, And give a loose to levity of soul !

* The poet here is in a frenzy of enjoyment, and It is, indeed, amabilis insania.'

Furor di poesia,

Di lascivia, e di vino,

3 This ode is addressed to a swallow. I find from Degen and from Gail's index. that the Ger man poet Weisse has imitated it, Scherz. Lieder, lib. ii. carm. 5; that Ramler also has imitated it, Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 335; and some others. -See Gail de Editionibus.

We are referred by Degen to that stupid book, the Epistles of Alciphron, tenth epistle, thir book, where Iophon complains to Eraston or being wakened, by the crowing of a cock, from his vision of riches.

4 The loquacity of the swallow was proverbialized; thus Nicostratus:

Ει το συνεχώς και πολλα και ταχέως λαλειν
Ην του φρονειν παράσημον, αἱ χελιδονες
Ελεγοντ' αν ήμων σωφρονεστεραι πολυ
If in prating from morning till night,
A sign of our wisdom there be,
The swallows are wiser by right,

For they prattle much faster than we.

My foe's within, and triumphs there.

Assumed the corslet, shield, and spear, | Vain, vain is every outward care,
And, like Pelides, smiled at fear.
Then (hear it, all you Powers above!)
I fought with Love, I fought with
Love!

And now his arrows all were shed-
And I had just in terver fed-
When, heaving an indignant sigh,
To see me thus unwounded fly,
And having now no other dart,
He glanced himself into my heart!1
My heart-alas the luckless day!
Received the god, and died away.
Farewell, farewell, my faithless shield
Thy lord at length was forced to yield.

Thus fighting his godship, I'll ne'er be dismayed
But if Bacchus should ever advance to his aid,
Alas! then, unable to combat the two,
Unfortunate warrior! what should I do?

This idea of the irresistibility of Cupid and Bac-
chus united, is delicately expressed in an Italian
poem, which is so very Anacreontic, that I may
be pardoned for introducing it. Indeed, it is an
imitation of o poet's sixth ode:

Lavossi Amore in quel vicino fiume
Ove giuro (Pastor) che bevend 'io
Bevei le fiamme, anzi l' istesso Dio,
Ch' or con l' humide piume
Lascivetto mi scherza al cor intorno.
Ma che sarei s' io lo bevessi un giorno.
Bacco, nel tuo liquore?

Sarei, piu che non sono ebro d'Amore.
The urchin of the bow and quiver
Was bathing in a neighbouring river,
Where, as I drank on yester-eve
(Shepherd-youth! the tale believe),
'Twas not a cooling crystal draught,
"Twas liquid flame I madly quaffed;
For Love was in the rippling tide,
I felt him to my bosom glide;
And now the wily wanton minion
Plays o'er my heart with restless pinion.
This was a day of fatal star,
But were it not more fatal far,
If, Bacchus, in thy cup of fire,

I found this flattering, young desire ?
Then, then indeed my soul should prove
Much more than ever, drunk with love!
Dryden has parodied this thought in the fol-
Lowing extravagant lines:

ODE XIV.2

COUNT me, on the summer trees,
Every leaf that courts the breeze;3
Count me, on the foamy deep,
Every wave that sinks to sleep;
Theu, when you have numbered these
Billowy tides and leafy trees,
Count me all the flames I prove,
All the gentle nymphs I love.
First, of pure Athenian maids,
Sporting in their olive shades,

Anacreontic, of which the following is a trans
lation:-

Tell the foliage of the woods,
Tell the billows of the floods,
Number midnight's starry store,
And the sands that crowd the shore:
Then, my Bion, thou may'st count
Of my loves the vast amount!
I've been loving, all my days,
Many nymphs, in many ways,
Virgin, widow, maid, and wife-
I've been doting all my life.

Naiads, Nereids, nymphs of fountains,
Goddesses of groves and mountains,
Fair and sable, great and small,
Yes I swear I've loved them all!
Every passion soon was over,
I was but a moment's lover;
Oh! I'm such a roving elf,
That the Queen of Love herself,
Though she practised all her wiles,
Rosy blushes, golden smiles,
All her beauty's proud endeavour
Could not chain my heart for ever!

3 This figure is very frequently made use of in poetry. The amatory writers have exhausted a world of imagery by it, to express the infinity of kisses which they require from the lips of their mistresses in this Catullus led the way.

-quam sidera multa, cum tacet nox,
Furtivos hominum vident amores;

Tam te basia multa basiare,

Vesano satis, et super Catullo est:
Que nec pernumerare curiosi

Possint, nec mala fascinare lingua.-Carm. 7.
As many stellar eyes of light,

As through the silent waste of night,
Gazing upon this world of shade,
Witness some secret youth and maid,
Who, fair as thou, and fond as 1,
In stolen joys enamoured le!
So many kisses, ere I sluraber,
Upon those dew-bright lips I'll number;
So many vermil, honeyed kisses,
Envy can never count our blisses.
No tongue shall tell the sum but mine;
No lips shall fascinate but thine!