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Στεθεα γυμνωσαις, και με πνεοντα λάβοις. Είθε ροδον γενομην ὑποπορφυρον, οφρα με χερσιν Αραμένη, κομισαις στεθεσι χιονέοις. Είθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχροον, οφρα με χερσιν Αραμένη, μαλλον της χρονιας κορέσης. I wish I could like zephyr steal To wanton o'er thy mazy vest; And thou would'st ope thy bosom veil, And take me panting to thy breast! I wish I might a rosebud grow,

And thou would'st cull me from the bower, And place me on that breast of snow,

Where I should bloom, a wintry flower!

I wish I were the lily's leaf,

To fade upon that bosom warm; There I should wither, pale and brief, The trophy of thy fairer form! Allow me to add, that Plato has expressed as fanciful a wish in a distich preserved by Laertius: Αστερας εισαθρεις, αστηρ εμος" είθε γενοίμην Ουρανος' ὡς πολλοις όμμασιν εις σε βλέτω.

TO STELLA.

Why dost thou gaze upon the sky?
Oh! that I were that spangled sphere,
And every star should be an eye

To wonder on thy beauties here! Apuleius quotes this epigram of the divine philosopher to justify himself for his verses on

ODE XXII.

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,
This warbler of my soul s desire,
Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,
Along the chords my numbers die,
And whisper, with dissolving tone,
'Our sighs are given to Love alone!'
Indignant at the feeble lay,
I tore the panting chords away,
Attuned them to a nobler swell,
And struck again the breathing shell;
In all the glow of epic fire,
To Hercules I wake the lyre!
But still its fainting sighs repeat,
'The tale of Love alone is sweet !'3
Then fare thee well, seductive dream,
That mad'st me follow Glory's theme;
For thou, my lyre, and thou, my heart,
Shall never more in spirit part;
And thou the flame shalt feel as well
As thou the flame shalt sweetly tell!

Critias and Charinus. See his Apology, where he also adduces the example of Anacreon: Fecere tamen et alii talia, et si vos ignoratis, apud Græcos Teius quidam,' etc. etc.

This was a riband, or band, called by the wore for the purpose of restraining the exube Romans fascia and strophium, which the women rance of the bosom.-Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial:

Fascia crescentes dominæ compesce papillas. The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were com of compressing the waist into a very narrow compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fashion pass, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom.-See Dioscorides, lib. v.

2 The sophist Philostratus, in one of his loveletters, has borrowed this thought: Oh lovely feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me!' In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove:

Oh that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might kiss that cheek!

And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with
an idea somewhat like that of the thirteenth line:
He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood,
'Oh Jove!' quoth she, why was not I a flood?

The word arrowret, in the original, may imply that kind of musical dialogue practised by the ancients, in which the lyre was made to respond to the questions proposed by the singer.

ODE XXIV.1

To all that breathe the airs of heaven, Some boon of strength has Nature .given.

When the majestic bull was born, She fenced his brow with wreathed horn.

She armed the courser's foot of air, And winged with speed the panting hare.

She gave the lion fangs of terror,
And, on the ocean's crystal mirror,
Taught the unnumbered scaly throng
To trace their liquid path along;
While for the umbrage of the grove,
She plumed the warbling world of love.
To man she gave the flame refined,
The spark of heaven a thinking
mind !2

And had she no surpassing treasure
For thee, oh woman! child of pleasure?
She gave thee beauty-shaft of eyes,
That every shaft of war outflies!
She gave thee beauty-blush of fire,
That bids the flames of war retire!
Woman! be fair, we must adore thee;
Smile, and a world is weak before
thee !3

Henry Stephens has imitated the idea of this ode in the following lines of one of his poems :Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma, Et sua fœmineum possidet arma genus, Ungulâque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum,

Armata est forma fœmina pulchra suâ. And the same thought occurs in those lines, spoken by Corisca in Pastor Fido:

Così noi la bellezza

Ch' è vertu nostra cosí propria, come
La forza del leone

E l'ingegno de l'huomo.

The lion boasts his savage powers,

And lordly man his strength of mind;
But beauty's charm is solely ours,

Peculiar boon, by Heaven assigned! In my first attempt to translate this ode, I had interpreted pornua, with Baxter and Barnes, as implying courage and military virtue; but I do not think that the gallantry of the idea suffers by the import which I have now given to it. For why need we consider this possession of wisdom as exclusive? and in truth, as the design of Anacreon is to estimate the treasure of beauty, above all the rest which Nature has distributed, it is perhaps even refining upon the delicacy of the compliment, to prefer the radiance of female charms to the cold illumination

ODE XXV.

ONCE in each revolving year,
Gentle bird! we find thee here,
When Nature wears her summer-vest,
Thou comest to weave thy simple nest;
But when the chilling winter lowers,
Again thou seek'st the genial bowers
Of Memphis, or the shores of Nile,
Where sunny hours of verdure smile.
And thus thy wing of freedom roves,
Alas! unlike the plumèd loves,
That linger in this hapless breast,
And never, never change their nest!4
Still every year, and all the year,
A flight of loves engender here;
And some their infant plumage try,
And on a tender winglet fly;
While in the shell, impregn'd with fires,
Cluster a thousand more desires;
Some from their tiny prisons peeping,
And some in formless embryo sleeping.
My bosom, like the vernal groves,
Resounds with little warbling loves;
One urchin imps the other's feather,
Then twin-desires they wing together,
And still as they have learned to

soar,

The wanton babies teem with more.

of wisdom and prudence; and to think that women's eyes are

the books, the academies, From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

Longepierre's remark here is very ingenious: "The Romans,' says he, were so convinced of the power of beauty, that they used a word implying strength in the place of the epithet beautiful. Thus Plautus, Act ii. Scene 2, Bacchid.

Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa. "Fortis, id est formosa," say Servius and Nonius.'

Thus Love is represented as a bird, in an epigram cited by Longepierre from the Anthologia:

'Tis Love that murmurs in my breast,
And makes me shed the secret tear;
Nor day nor night my heart has rest,
For night and day his voice I hear.
A wound within my heart I find,

And oh! 'tis plain where Love has been;
For still he leaves a wound behind,

Such as within my heart is seen.
Oh bird of Love! with song so drear,
Make not my soul the nest of pain;
Oh! let the wing which brought thee here,
In pity waft thee hence again!

But is there then no kindly art,
To chase these Cupids from my heart?
No, no! I fear, alas! I fear
They will for ever nestle here!

ODE XXVI.

THY harp may sing of Troy's alarms,
Or tell the tale of Theban arms;
With other wars my soul shall burn,
For other wounds my harp shall mourn.
'Twas not the crested warrior's dart

Which drank the current of my heart;
Nor naval arms, nor mailèd steed,
Have made this vanquished bosom
bleed ;

No-from an eye of liquid blue
A host of quivered Cupids flew ;1
And now my heart all bleeding lies
Beneath this army of the eyes!

ODE XXVII.2

WE read the flying courser's name
Upon his side, in marks of flame;
And, by their turbaned brows alone,
The warriors of the East are known.

1 Longepierre has quoted part of an epigram from the seventh book of the Anthologia, which has a fancy something like this:

Ου με λέληθας,

Τοξοτα, Ζηνοφίλας ομμασι κρυπτομενος.
Archer Love! though slyly creeping,
Well I know where thou dost lie;
I saw thee through the curtain peeping,
That fringes Zenuphelia's eye.

The poets abound with conceits on the archery
of the eyes, but few have turned the thought so
naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the
eyes of his mistress 'un petit camp d'amours.'
2 This ode forms a part of the preceding in the
Vatican MS., but I have conformed to the editions
in translating them separately.

3 'We cannot see into the heart,' Dacier. But the lover answers:

says Madame

Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte ho scritto. La Fosse has given the following lines, as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon:

Lorsque je vois un amant,

Il cache en vain son tourment,

A le trahir tout conspire,

Sa langueur, son embarras,

Tout ce qu'il peut faire ou dire,
Même ce qu'il ne dit pas.

But in the lover's glowing eyes,
The inlet to his bosom lies;
Through them we see the small faint
mark,

Where Love has dropped his burning
spark!

ODE XXVIII.

As in the Lemnian caves of fire,
The mate of her who nursed desire
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm;
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
With droppings of her honeyed dews;
While Venus every barb imbues
And Love (alas! the victim-heart)
Tinges with gall the burning dart ;1
Once, to this Lemnian cave of flame,
The crested Lord of battles came;
'Twas from the ranks of war he rushed,
His spear with many a life-drop
blushed!

He saw the mystic darts, and smiled
Derision on the archer-child.

'And dost thou smile?' said little
Love;

'Take this dart, and thou mayst prove, That though they pass the breeze's flight,

My bolts are not so feathery light.'

In vain the lover tries to veil

The flame which in his bosom lies;
His cheek's confusion tells the tale,

We read it in his languid eyes:
And though his words the heart betray,
His silence speaks c'en more than they.
Thus Claudian:

Labuntur gemini fontes, hic dulcis, amarus
Alter, et infusis corrumpit mella venenis,
Unde Cupidineas armavit fama sagittas.
In Cyprus' isle two rippling fountains fall,
And one with honey flows, and one with gall;
In these, if we may take the tale from fame,
See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the
The son of Venus dips his darts of flame.
close connection which subsists between sweets
and bitterness. Apes ideo pungunt,' says
Petronius, 'quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum in-
venies.'

The allegorical description of Cupid's employment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in fancy, though not in delicacy:

ferus et Cupido

Semper ardentes acuens sagittas

Cote cruenta.

And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts
Upon a whetstone stained with blood of hearts.

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TO PETER DANIEL HUETT. Thon! of tuneful bards the first, Thou! by all the Graces nursed; Friend! each other friend above, Come with me, and learn to love. Loving is a simple lore,

Graver men have learned before;
Nay, the boast of former ages,
Wisest of the wisest sages,
Sophroniscus prudent son,
Was by Love's illusion won.
Oh! how heavy life would move,
If we knew not how to love!
Love's a whetstone to the mind;
Thus 'tis pointed, thus refined.
When the soul dejected lies,
Love can waft it to the skies;
When in languor sleeps the heart,
Love can wake it with his dart;

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ARMED with hyacinthine rod
(Arms enough for such a god),

When the mind is dull and dark,
Love can light it with his spark!
Come, oh! come then, let us haste
All the bliss of love to taste;
Let us love both night and day,
Let us love our lives away!
And when hearts, from loving free
(If indeed such hearts there be),
Frown upon our gentle flame,
And the sweet delusion blame;
This shall be my only curse,
(Could I, could I wish them worse?)
May they ne'er the rapture prove,
Of the smile from lips we love!

2 Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. I do not perceive anything in the ode which seems to allude to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I must confess that I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to

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Cupid bade me wing my pace,
And try with him the rapid race.
O'er the wild torrent, rude and deep,
By tangled brake and pendent steep,
With weary foot I panting flew,
My brow was chilled with drops of dew.
And now my soul, exhausted, dying,
To my lip was faintly flying;1
And now I thought the spark had fled,
When Cupid hovered o'er my head,
And, fanning light his breezy plume,
Recalled me from my languid gloom; 2
Then said, in accents half reproving,
'Why hast thou been a foe to loving?'

ODE XXXII.3

STREW me a breathing bed of leaves Where lotus with the myrtle weaves; And, while in luxury's dream I sink, Let me the balm of Bacchus drink!

gram (I do not know where he found it), which has some similitude to this ode:

Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis Carpebam, et somno lumina vieta dabam; Cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis

Excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet.

Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas,
Solus Io, solus, dure jacere potes?
Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta,
Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire
Pœnitet; et pudor est stare via media
Ecce tacent Voces hominum, strepitusque
ferarum,

Et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum. Solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque, Et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, tuum.

Upon my couch I lay, at night profound,
My languid eyes in magic slumber bound,
When Cupid came and snatched me from my bed,
And forced me many a weary way to tread.
'What!' said the god, 'shall you, whose vows
are known,

Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?'
I rise and follow, all the night I stray,
Unsheltered, trembling, doubtful of my way;
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interred,
Not warbling birds nor lowing flocks are heard;
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

In this delicious hour of joy
Young Love shall be my goblet-boy;
Folding his little golden vest,
With cinctures, round his snowy breast,
Himself shall hover by my side,
And minister the racy tide!
Swift as the wheels that kindling roll,
Our life is hurrying to the goal:
A scanty dust to feed the wind,
Is all the trace 'twill leave behind.
Why do we shed the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb!
Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
Affect the slumbering chill of death?
No, no; I ask no balm to steep
With fragrant tears my bed of sleep:
But now, while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flow-
ing:

Now let the rose with blush of fire
Upon my brow its scent expire ;
And bring the nymph with floating eye,
Oh! she will teach me how to die!

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 έσχον, Ηλθε γαρ ή τλημων ὡς διαβησομένη.

Whene'er thy nectared kiss I sip,

And drink thy breath, in melting twine,
My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

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 Epws the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho has assigned this office to Venus, in a fragment which may be thus paraphrased:

Hither, Venus! queen of kisses,
This shall be the night of blisses!
This the night to friendship dear,
Thou shalt be our Hebe here.
Fill the golden brimmer high,
Let it sparkle like thine eye!
Bid the rosy current gush,
Let it mantle like thy blush!
Venus! hast thou e'er above
Seen a feast so rich in love?
Not a soul that is not mine!
Not a soul that is not thine!

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