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In the poem of Mr Sheridan, Uncouth is this moss-cover'd grotto of stone, there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of Angerianus, in the stanza which begins,

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch mayst preserve.

But for you, my burning mind! etc.] The transition here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned; but the commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a variety of readings and conjectures.

The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we cannot help feeling a degree of coolness and freshness while we read it. Longepierre has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia, the following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode: Έρχες, και κατ' εμαν ίζευ πιτυν, ά το μελιχρον Προς μαλακούς ήχει κεκλιμένα ζεφύρους. Ηνιδι και κρουνισμα μελιςαγές, ενθα μελισσων 'Hou ερημαίαις ύπνον αγω καλάμοις.

Come, sit by the shadowy pine
That covers my sylvan retreat,
And see how the branches incline

The breathing of Zephyr to meet.
See the fountain, that, flowing, diffuses
Around me a glittering spray;
By its brink, as the traveller muses,

I soothe him to sleep with my lay!

Here recline you, gentle maid, etc.] The Vatican MS. reads Exuìlou, which renders the whole poem metaphorical. Some commentator suggests the reading of Ex9o2, which makes a pun upon the name; a grace that Plato himself has condescended to in writing of his boy Asp. See the epigram of this philosopher, which I quote on the twenty-second ode.

There is another epigram by this philosopher, preserved in Laertius, which turns upon the same word:

Αςηρ πριν μεν έλαμπες ένα ζωοισιν έωος

Νυν δε θάνων, λαμπεις έσπερος εν φθιμένοις.

In life thou wert my morning-star,

But now that death has stolen thy light,

Alas thou shinest dim and far,

Like the pale beam that weeps at night.

In the Veneres Blyenburgica, under the head of allusiones, we find a number of such frigid conceits upon names, selected from the poets of the middle ages.

Sweet the little founts that weep,
Lulling bland the mind to sleep;
Hark! they whisper, as they roll,
Calm persuasion to the soul;
Tell me, tell me, is not this

All a silly scene of bliss?
Who, my girl, would pass it by!
Surely neither you nor I!

ODE XX.

1 ONE day the Muses twined the hands

Of baby Love, with flowery bands;
And to celestial Beauty gave

The captive infant as her slave.

Who, my girl, would pass it by?

Surely neither you nor 1!] What a finish he gives to the picture be the simple exclamation of the original! In these delicate turns be is inimitable; and yet, hear what a French translator says on the passage: This conclusion appeared to me too triding after such a description, and I thought proper to add somewhat to the strengh of the original,

By this allegory of the Muses making Cupid the prisoner of Beauty, Anacreon seems to insinuate the softening influence which a cultivation of poetry has over the mind, in making it peculiarių susceptible to the impressions of beauty.

Though in the following epigram, by the philosopher Plato, which is found in the third book of Diogenes Laertius, the Mases are made to disavow all the influence of Love:

Α Κύπρις Μουσχισε, κορασία των Αφρούταν
Τιματ' η τον Ερωτα ύμμιν εφοπλίσομαι.
Αί Μοίσαι ποτε Κύπριν. Αρει τα σωμυλα ταύτα
Ήμιν ου πέταται τούτο το παιδάριον.

Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids;•

Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms—
· Or Love shall Butter in your classic shades,
And make your grove the camp of Papbian arms!•
No, said the virgins of the tuneful bower,

We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art;
Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power,
His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart!»
There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought of which was
suggested by this ode.

Scherzava dentro all' auree chiome Amore
Dell' alma donna della vita nia:

E tanto era il piacer ch' ei ne sentia.
Che non sapea, nè volea uscirne fore.
Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core,
Si, che per forza ancor convien che stia:
Tailacci alta beltate orditi avia

Del crespo crin; per farsi eterno onore.
Onde offre infin dal ciel degna mercede,
A chi scioglie il figliuol la bella dea
Da tanti nodi, in ch ella stretto il vede.
Ma ei vinto a due occhi l'arme cede:
Et t'affatichi indarno, Citerea ;
Che s' altri 'l scioglie, egli a legar si riede.

Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's bair,

Traced every lock with fond delays,

And, doting, linger d there.
And soon he found 't were vain to fly,
His heart was close confined;
And every curlet was a tie,

A chain by Beauty twined.

Now Venus seeks her boy's release,
With ransom from above:
But, Venus! let thy efforts cease,
For Love's the slave of love.

And, should we loose his golden chain,
The prisoner would return again!

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Ηδύμελης Ανακρέων
Ηδύμελης δε Σαπφω
Πινδαρικόν το δε μοι μέλος
Συγκέρασας τις έγχεοι
Τα τρια ταύτα μοι δοκεί
Και Διόνυσος εισελθών

Και Παρτη παραχρούς

Και αυτος Έρως και επιειν.

These lines, which appear to me to have as little sense as metre, are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber.

1 The commentators who have endeavoured to throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this beautiful trifle, require too much

from Anacreontic philosophy. Monsieur Gail very wisely thinks, that the poet uses the epithet azt, because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and accordingly be indulges

us with an experimental disquisition on the subject. See Gail's notes. One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode, in an epitaph on a drunkard.

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus,
Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit.
Sic bibit assidue fontes et flumina Pontus,
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne to igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse;
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manus.
HIPPOLYTUS CAPILUPUS.

While life was mine, the little hour
In drinking still unvaried flew ;

I drank as earth imbibes the shower,
Or as the rainbow drinks the dew.

As ocean quaffs the rivers up,

Or flushing sun inhale the sea;

Silenus trembled at my emp.

And Bacchus was outdone by me!

I cannot omit citing those remarkable lines of Shakspeare, where the thoughts of the ode before us are preserved with such striking similitude:

TIMON, ACT IV.

I'll example you with thievery.

The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea. The moon 's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The mounds into salt tears. The earth's a thief,
That feeds, and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrements.

And then the dewy cordial gives
To every thirsty plant that lives.
The vapours, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy snn appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.
The moon, too, quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre from the solar beam.

Then, hence with all your sober thinking!
Since Nature's holy law is drinking;
I'll make the laws of Nature mine,

And pledge the universe in wine!

ODE XXII.'

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,
Was once a weeping matron's form;
And Progne, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.

1 Ogilvie, in his Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients, in remarking upon the Odes of Anacreon, says, «In some of his pieces there is exuberance and even wildness of imagination; in that particularly which is addressed to a young girl, where he wishes alternately to be transformed to a mirror, a coat, a stream, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes, for the different purposes which he recites; this is mere sport and wantonness.

It is the wantonness, however, of a very graceful muse; ludit amabiliter. The compliment of this ode is exquisitely delicate, and so singular for the period in which Anacreon lived, when the scale of love had not yet been graduated into all its little progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument in the features of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any of those fastidious conjectures upon which some commentators have presumed so far. Degen thinks it spurious, and De Pauw pronounces it to be miserable. Longepierre and Barnes refer us to several imitations of this ode, from which I shall only select an epigram of Dionysius: Είθ' ανεμος γενομην, συ δε γε ςειχουσα παρ' αυγάς, Στεθεά γυμνώσαις, και με πνέοντα λάβοις. Είθε ῥόδον γενομην ὑποπορφυρον, όφρα με χερσιν Δραμένη, κομισαις σέθεσι χιονεοις.

Ειθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχροον, όφρα με χερσιν
Δραμένη, μαλλον της χροτίης κορέσης.

I wish I could like zephyr steal

To wanton o'er thy mazy vest;
And thou wouldst ope thy bosom veil,

And take me panting to thy breast!

I wish I might a rose-bud grow,

And thou wouldst 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:

Αέρας εισαθρείς, αφηρ εμος" είθε γενοίμην
Ουρανος· ὡς πολλοις όμμασιν εις σε βλεπω.

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 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.

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine,
To sparkle with that smile divine;
And, like my heart, I then should be
Reflecting thee, and only thee!

Or were I, love, the robe which flows
O'er every charm that secret glows,
In many a lucid fold to swim,
And cling and grow to every limb!
Oh! could I, as the streamlet's wave,
Thy warmly-mellowing beauties lave,
Or float as perfume on thine hair,
And breathe my soul in fragrance there!
I wish I were the zone that lies
Warm to thy breast, and feels its sighs?
Or like those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow;
Yes, I would be a happy gem,
Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Oh! any thing that touches thee.
Nay, sandals for those airy feet—
Thus to be press'd by thee were sweet!

ODE XXIII. '

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,
This warbler of my soul's desire,

I wish I were the zone that lies

Warm to thy breast, and jeels its sighs!] This Tatty was a riband or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophium, which the women wore for the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial:

Fascia crescentes domina 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 compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fashion of compressing the waist into a very narrow compass, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom. See Dioscorides, lib. v.

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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!»
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!

ODE XXIV.'

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 arm'd the courser's foot of air,
And wing'd with speed the panting hare.
She
gave
the lion fangs of terror,
And, on the ocean's crystal mirror,
Taught the unnumber'd scaly throng
To trace their liquid path along;
While for the umbrage of the grove,
She plumed the warbling world of love.

In all the glow of epic fire,

To Hercules I wake the lyre!] Madame Dacier generally translates Augn into a lute, which I believe, is rather inaccurate. « D'expliquer la lyre des anciens (says Monsieur Sorel) par un lath, c'est ¦ ignorer la différence qu'il y a entre ces deux instrumens de musique.. ¡ -Bibliotheque Française.

But still its fainting sighs repeat,

The tale of Love alone is sweet!] The word ytspwyst, 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. This was a method which Sappho used, as we are told by Hermogenes: « όταν την λύραν έρωτα Σαπφώ, και όταν αυτή αποκρίνηται.. Περι Τέτων.

And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with an idea somewhat like Top. deut. that of the thirteenth line:

He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood,

O Jove quoth she, why was not I a flood?"

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whimsical farrago of = all such reading as was never read, there is a very old translation of this ode, before 1631. Englished by Mr B. Holiday, in his Technog. act i, scene 7.

This ode is first in the series of all the editions, and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an introduction to the rest; it however characterizes the genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it.

cum multo Venerem confundere mero Precepit Lyrici Teia Musa senis.

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The twenty-sixth Ode, au μɛy hɛɛyts To Onens, might, with as much propriety, be the harbinger of his songs.

Bion bas expressed the sentiments of the ode before us with much simplicity in his fourth idyl. I have given it rather paraphrastically; it has been so frequently translated, that I could not otherwise avoid triteness and repetition.

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 formineum possidet arma genus,

Ungulaque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum,
Armata est forma fæmina pulchra sua.

And the same thought occurs in those lines, spoken by Corisen in
Pastor Fido:

Così noi la bellezza

Che è virtù uostra cost 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 assign'd!

An elegant explication of the beauties of this ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm en den Anmerrkk. Veber einige Oden des

Apakr..

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The spark of Heaven-a thinking mind!] In my first attempt to translate this ode, I had interpreted ppovnuz, 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 bas distributed, it is perhaps even refining upon the delicacy of the compliment, to prefer the radiance of female charms to the cold illumination of wisdom and prudence; and to think that women's eyes are

She

-the books, the academies,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

gave thee beauty-shaft of eyes,

That every shaft of war outflies!] Thus Achilles Tatius: xxlλos οξύτερον τιτρώσκει βέλους, και δια των οφθαλμών εις την ψυχήν καταρρεί. Οφθαλμος γαρ όλος ερωτικώ τραυματι. Beauty wounds more swiftly than the arrow, and passes through the eye to the very soul; for the eye is the inlet to the wounds of love.s

Woman! be fair, we must adore thee;

Smile, and a world is weak before thee! 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 2, scene 2. Bacchid.

Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa.

Fortis, id est formosa,' say Servius and Nonius.

This is another ode addressed to the swallow. Alberti has imitated both in one poem, beginning

Perch' io pianga al tuo canto Rondinella importuna, etc.

Alas! unlike the plumed loves,

That linger in this hapless breast,

And never, never change their nest!] Thus Love is represented as

a bird, in an epigram cited by Longepierre from the Anthologia:

Διει μοι δύνει μεν εν ουασιν ήχος έρωτος,
Όμμα δε σιγα ποθοις το γλυκυ δακρυ φέρει.

Ουδ' ή νυξ, ου φεγγος εκοίμισεν, αλλ' ύπο φίλτρων
Ηδε που κραδίη γνωςος ένεςι τυπος.
Ω πτανοί, μη και ποτ' εφιπτασθαι μεν ερωτες
Οιδατ', αποπτηναί δ' ουθ' όσον ισχύετε;

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 learn'd to soar, The wanton babies teem with more. 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 song shall burn,
For other wounds my harp shall mourn.
"T was not the crested warrior's dart,
Which drank the current of

my heart;
Nor naval arms, nor mailed steed,
Have made this vanquish'd bosom bleed;
No-from an eye of liquid blue

A host of quiver'd Cupids flew;
And now my heart all bleeding lies
Beneath this army of the eyes!

ODE XXVII.'

WE read the flying courser's name
Upon his side, in marks of flame;

'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! 't is plain where Love has been ;
For still be leaves a wound behind,
Such as within my heart is seen.

Ob 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!

The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. Compare also Weisse Scherz. Leider. lib, iii, der Soldat. Gail, Degen.

No-from an eye of liquid blue,

A host of quiver'd Cupids flew.] 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 όμμασι κρυπτομενος. Archer Love! though slily 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.

- Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of Ramler Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv, p. 313..

And, by their turban'd brows alone,
The warriors of the East are known.
But in the lover's glowing eyes
The inlet to his bosom lies;

Through them we see the small faint mark, Where Love has dropp'd his burning spark!

ODE XXVIII.'

As in the Lemnian caves of fire,
The mate of her who nursed desire
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm;
While Venus every barb imbues,
With droppings of her honied dews;
And Love (alas! the victim-heart)
Tinges with gall the burning dart;
Once, to this Lemnian cave of flame,
The crested Lord of battles came;

'T was from the ranks of war he rush'd,

His spear with many a life-drop blush'd! 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,

But in the lover's glowing eyes

The inlet to his bosom lies.] • We cannot see into the heart,» says Madame Dacier. But the lover answers

Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte ho scritto.

Monsieur 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.

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 e'en more than they.

This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, who, I believe, was the author of that curious little work called Hexameron Rustique.. He makes use of this, as well as the thirty-fifth, in bis ingenious but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the Nymphs. Journée Quatrième.

And Love (alas! the victim-heart)

Tinges with gall the burning dart.] 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,
The son of Venus dips his darts of flame.

See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the close connexion which subsists between sweets and bitterness. Apes ideo pungun! (says Petronius) quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum invenies.

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 stain'd with blood of hearts.

Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat softened the image by the omission of the epithet cruenta,»

Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas.—Eleg. 1.

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Περί του δειν φιλησαι.

Προς Πέτρον Δανιήλα Πεττον.

Μεγα θαύμα των αριδών
Χαρίτων θαλος Υεττε,
Φιλέωμεν, ο έταιρε.
Φιλεησαν οἱ σοφιςαι.
Φίλεησε σεμνός ανήρ,

Το τέκνον του Σωφρονισμού,
Σοφίης πατηρ άπασης.
Τι δ' ανευ γενοιτ' Έρωτος;
Ακόνη μεν εςι ψυχής. (α)
Πτερύγεσσιν εις Ολύμπου
Κατακειμένους αναιρεί.
Βραδιας τετηγμένοισι
Βελέεσσι εξαγείρει,
Πυρι λαμπάδος φασινῳ
Ρυπαρώτερους καθαίρει.
Φιλέωμεν ουν, ΥΕΤΤΕ,
Φιλέωμεν, ω έταιρε.
Αδίκως δε λοιδορούντι
Άγιους έρωτας ήμων
Κακον εύξομαι το μουνον
'Iva μη δύναιτ' εκείνος
Φιλέειν τε και φιλεῖσθαι.

TO PETER DANIEL HUETT.
Thoa 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 learn'd 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 't is 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;

(a) This line is borrowed from an epigram by Alpheus of Mitylena. -ψυχης εςιν Ερως άκονη.

Menage, I think, says somewhere, that he was the first who produced this epigram to the world.

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