No, let the false deserter go, ODE LIX. SABLED by the solar beam, No more by ties of gold confined, Now the fiery clusters teem, I loosen all my clinging cares, In osier baskets, borne along And cast them to the vagrant airs. By all the festal vintage throng Then, then I feel the Muse's spell, Of rosy youths and virgins fair, And wake to life the dulcet shell; Ripe as the melting fruits they bear. The dulcet shell to beauty sings, Now, now they press the pregnant grapes, And love dissolves along the strings ! And now the captive stream escapes, Thus, when my heart is sweetly taught In fervid tide of nectar gushing, How little gold deserves a thought, And for its bondage proudly blushing ! The winged slave returns once more, While, round the vat's impurpled brim, And with him wafts delicious store The choral song, the vintage hymn Of racy wine, whose balmy art Of rosy youths, and virgins fair, In slumber seals the anxious heart! Steals on the cloy'd and panting air. Again he tries my soul to sever Mark, how they drink, with all their eyes, From love and song, perhaps for ever! The orient tide that sparkling flies ; Away, deceiver! why pursuing The infant balm of all their fears, Ceaseless thus my heart's undoing ? The infant Bacchus, born in tears! Sweet is the song of amorous fire; When he, whose verging years decline Sweet are the sighis that thrill the lyre; As deep into the vale as mine, Oh! sweeter far than all the gold When he inhales the vintage-spring, The waftage of thy wings can hold. His heart is fire, his foot 's a wing; I well remember all thy wiles ; And, as he flies, his hoary hair Thy wither'd Cupid's flowery smiles, Plays truant with the wanton air ! And o'er his harp such garbage shed, While the warm youth, whose wishing soul I thought its angel breath was fled ! Has kindled o'er the inspiring bowl, "They tainted all his bowl of blisses, Impassion'd seeks the shadowy grove, His bland desires and hallow'd kisses. Where, in the tempting guise of love, Oh! fly to haunts of sordid men, Reclining sleeps some witching maid, But rove not near the bard again; Whose sunny charms, but half display'd, Thy glitter in the Muse's shade Blush through the bower, that, closely twined, Scares from her bower the tuneful maid; Excludes the kisses of the wind ! And not for worlds would I forego The virgin wakes, the glowing boy That moment of poetic glow, Allures her to the embrace of joy; When my full soul, in Fancy's stream, Swears that the herbage Heaven had spread Pours o'er the lyre its swelling theme. Was saered as the nuptial bed; Away, away! to worldlings hence, That laws should never bind desire, Who feel not this diviner sense, And love was nature's holiest fire! And, with thy gay fallacious blaze, The virgin weeps, the virgin sighs; Dazzle their unrefined gaze. He kiss'd her lips, he kiss'd her eyes ; The sigh was balm, the tear was dew, notice of. Though sometimes merely a playful beauty, it is They only raised his flame anew. peculiarly expressive of impassioned sentiment, and we may And, oh! he stole the sweetest flower easily believe that it was one of the many sources of that That ever bloom'd in any bower! energetic sensibility which breathed through the style of Sappho. See Gyrald. Vet. Poet. Dial. 9. It will not be said that this is a mechanical ornament by any one who can Such is the madness wine imparts, feel its charm in those lines of Catullus, where he complains Whene'er it steals on youthful hearts. of the infidelity of his mistress, Lesbia. Cæli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, 1 The title Ezoamuros uuevos, which Barnes has given to Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, this ode, is by no means appropriate. We have already Plus quam se atque suos amavit omnes, had one of those hymns (ode 56,) but this is a description of Nunc, etc. the vintage; and the title sig oovov, which it bears in the VatiSi sic omnia dixisset! but the rest does not bear citation. can Ms., is more correct than any that have been suggested. Degen, in the true spirit of literary scepticism, doubts that They tainted all his bowl of blisses, this ode is genuine, without assigning any reason for such a His bland desires and hallow'd kisses.] Original : suspicion. "Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;" Φιλη ματων δε κεδνων, but this is far from satisfactory criticism. Ποθων κυπέλλα κιρνης. Swears that the herbage Heaven had spread, Horace has “Desiderique temperare poculum," not figu- Was sacred as the nuptial bed, etc.). The original here ratively, however, like Anacreon, but importing the love has been variously interpreted. Some, in their zeal for our philtres of the witches. By "cups of kisses” our poet may author's purity, have supposed that the youth only persuades allude to a favourite gallantry among the ancients, of drink- her to a premature marriage. Others understand from the ing when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim: words w podOTIV y su sov gevers, that he seduces her to a " Or leave a kiss within the cup, violation of the nuptial vow. The turn which I have given it is somewhat like the sentiment of Heloïsa, “amorem conAnd I'll not ask for wine," jugio, libertatem vinculo præferre." (See her original Letas in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and Lucian ters.) The Italian translations have almost all wantoned has a conceit upon the same idea, "Iva xoo wouns o pece xels upon this description : but that of Marchetti is indeed “niQians " " that you may at once both drink and kiss." mium lubricus aspici." When sure the lay, with sweeter tone, Can tell the darts that wound my own ? Still be Anacreon, still inspire To Phæbus all thy sighs shall swell; The descant of the Teian lyre: And though no glorious prize be thine, Still let the nectar'd numbers float, No Pythian wreath around thee twine, Distilling love in every note! Yet every hour is glory's hour, And when the youth, whose burning soul To him who gathers wisdom's flower! Has felt the Paphian star's control, Then wake thee from thy magic slumbers, When he the liquid lays shall hear, Breathe to the soft and Phrygian numbers, His heart will flutter to his ear, Which, as my trembling lips repeat, And drinking there of song divine, Banquet on intellectual wine! ODE LXI. GOLDEN hues of youth are fled; Hoary locks deform my head. Muse of the Lyre! illume my dream, Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, All the flowers of life decay Still be Anacreon, still inspire The descant of the T'eian lyre. The original is Tor lvre Hallow'd by him, the god of lays, xpsov Te pe o de ou. I have translated it under the suppostion Who modulates the choral maze! that the hymu is by Anacreon; though I fear, from this rery line, that his claim to it can scarce be supported. I sing the love which Daphne twined Tov AvqxpsovTe peopov, " Imitate Anacreon.” Sua is Around the godhead's yielding mind; the lesson given us by the lyrist; and if, in poetry, a sinple I sing the blushing Daphne's flight elegance of sentiment, enriched by the most playful felieties of fancy, be a charm which invites or deserves imitation, From this æthereal youth of light; where shall we find such a guide as Anacreon? In moralit, And how the tender, timid maid too, with some little reserve, I think we might not blush o follow in his footsteps. For if his song be the language if Flew panting to the kindly shade, his heart, though luxurious and relaxed, he was artless and Resign'd a form, too tempting fair, benevolent; and who would not forgive a few irregularities, And grew a verdant laurel there; when atoned for by virtues so rare and so endearing? When we think of the sentiment in those lines : Whose leaves, in sympathetic thrill, Away! I hate the slanderous dart, In terror seem'd to tremble still ! Which steals to wound the unwary heart, The god pursued, with wing'd desire ; how many are there in the world to whom we would wish And when his hopes were all on fire, to say, Τον Ανακρέοντα μιμου ! Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS. whose And when he thought to hear the sigh With which enamour'd virgins die, authority confirms the genuine antiquity of them all, though a few have stolen among the number which we may hesiHe only heard the pensive air tate in attributing to Anacreon. In the little essay prefixed Whispering amid her leafy hair ! to this translation, I observed that Barnes had quoted this manuscript incorrectly, relying upon an imperfect copy of it, But oh, my soul! no moreno more! which Isaac Vossius bad taken; I shall just mention two or Enthusiast, whither do I soar? three instances of this inaccuracy, the first which occur to me. This sweetly maddening dream of soul In the ode of the Dove, on the words Πτεροισι συγκαλυψω, “ Vatican MS.Ovoxos (ww, etiam Presciano in vito," Has hurried me beyond the goal. though the MS. reads ouvxshow, with ourxocow interlined. Why should I sing the mighty darts Degen, too, on the same line, is somewhat in error. In the Which fly to wound celestial hearts, twenty-second ode of this series, line thirteenth, the MS has Teven with so interlined, and Barnes imputes to it the read ing of tevdy. In the fifty-seventh, line twelfth, he professes 1 This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been to have preserved the reading of the MS. Ancayusin f' srl written by Anacreon, and it certainly is rather a sublimer Kutn, while the latter has anchosesvos SPET' XUT*. Almost flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But we all the other annotators have transplanted these errors from ought not to judge from this diversity of style, in a poet of Barnes. whom time has preserved such partial relics. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could less levities of our poet, has always reminded me of the 1 The intrusion of this melancholy ode among the caredwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of ihem. We skeletons which the Egyptians used to hang up in their can perceive in what an altered and imperfect state his banquet-rooms, to inculcate a thought of mortality even works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it were not for the beauty citing an ode from the third book of Anacreon. of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown this ode. Quid habet illius, illius quæ spirabat amores? And how the tender, timid maid To Stobæus we are indebted for it. Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, All the flowers of life decay.) Horace often, with feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human enjoyments I find the word xsvtpov here has a double force, as it also See book ii. ode 11 ; and thus in the second epistle, book ii. signifies that "omnium parentem, quam sanctus Numa," Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes, etc. etc. (See Martial.) 'In order to confirm this import of Eripuere jocos, venerem, convivia, ludum. the word here, those who are curious in new readings may place the stop after Qurews thus: The wing of every passing day Withers some blooming joy away; And wafts from our enamour'd arms The banquet's mirth, the virgin's charme. he says, Withering age begins to trace ODE LXIII. To Love, the soft and blooming child I touch the harp in descant wild; This awakes my hourly sighing; To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers, Dreary is the thought of dying ! The boy, who breathes and blushes flowers ! Pluto's is a dark abode, To Love, for heaven and earth adore him, Sad the journey, sad the road : And gods and mortals bow before him! ODE LXIV.2 Haste thee, nymph, whose winged spear ODE LXI. Wounds the fleeting mountain-deer! Dian, Jove's immortal child, Fill me, boy, as deep a draught Huntress of the savage wild! As e'er was filled, as e'er was quaff'd; Goddess with the sun-bright hair ! But let the water amply flow, Listen to a people's prayer. To cool the grape's intemperate glow; Turn, to Lethe's river turn, Let not the fiery god be single, There thy vanquish'd people mourn! Come to Lethe's wavy shore, Thine their hearts, their altars thine ; Dian! must they-must they pine ? ODE LXV.: LIKE some wanton filly sporting, Maid of Thrace ! thou fly'st my courting. Wanton filly ! tell me why And seem'st to think my doting heart Is novice in the bridling art ? tine French poet, has written some sonnets on the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling repentance. Chau Believe me, girl, it is not so ; lieu, however, supporis more consistently the spirit of the Thou’lt find this skilful hand can throw Epicurean philosopher. See his poem, addressed to the The reins upon that tender form, Marquis La Farre. However wild, however warm! Plus j' approche du terme et moins je le redoute, etc. I shall leave it to the moralist to make his reflections here: 1 "This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alexandrinus, it is impossible to be very anacreontic on such a subject. Strom. lib. vi. and in Arsenius, Collect. Græc."- Barnes. It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in praise And, the gloomy travel o'er, of Love. Ah! we can return no more!] Scaliger, upon Catullus's 2 This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephæstion. There is well-known lines, "Qui nunc it per iter," etc. remarks, that an anecdote of our poet, which has led to some doubt wheAcheron, with the same idea, is called avočodos, by Theo ther he ever wrote any odes of this kind. It is related by critus, and Surexdporos by Nicander. the Scholiast upon Pindar (Isthmionic. od. ii. v. 1. as cited 1 This ode consists of two fragments, which are to be by Barnes.). Anacreon being asked, why he addressed all found in Athenæus, book x. and which Barnes, from the his hymns to women, and none to the deities ? answered, "Because women are my deities.". similarity of their tendency, has combined into one. 1 think this a very justifiable liberty, and have adopted it in which I have done in translating some of the odes; and it I have assumed the same liberty in reporting this anecdote some other fragments of our poet. Degen refers us here to verses of Uz, lib. iv. der Trinker. were to be wished that these little infidelities were always considered pardonable in the interpretation of the ancienis; But let the water amply flow, thus, when nature is forgotten in the original, in the transTo cool the grape's intemperate glow, etc.] It was lation, “ tamen usque recurret." Amphictyon who first taught the Greeks to mix water with Turn, to Lethe's river turn, their wine; in commemoration of which circumstance they There thy vanquish'd people mourn!] Lethe, a river erected altars to Bacchus and the nymphs. On this mytho- of lonia, according to Strabo, falling into the Meander; logical allegory the following epigram is founded: near to it was situated the town Magnesia, in favour of whose inhabitants our poet is supposed to have addressed Ardentem ex utero Semeles lavere Lyæum this supplication to Diana. It was written (as Madame Naiades, extincto fulminis igne sacri; Dacier conjectures) on the occasion of some battle, in which Cum nymphis igitur tractabilis, at sine nymphis the Magnesians had been defeated. Candenti rursus fulmine corripitur. 3 This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian girl, Pierius Valerianus. exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very frequently Which is, non verbum verbo, by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, which runs so obviously throughWhile heavenly fire consumed his Theban dame, out it, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young A Naiad caught young Bacchus from the flame, mare belonging to Polycrates : there is more modestý than And dipp'd him burning in her purest lymph: ingenuity in the lady's conjecture. Still, still he loves the sea-maid's crystal urn, Pierius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, cites this And when his native fires infuriate burn, ode, and informs us, that the horse was the hieroglyphical He bathes him in the fountain of the nymph. emblem of pride. Thou'lt own that I can tame thy force, And turn and wind thee in the course. Though wasting now thy careless hours, Thou sport'st amid the herbs and flowers, Thou soon shalt feel the rein's control, And tremble at the wish'd-for goal! ODE LXVI.1 To thee, the Queen of nymphs divine, To blush like her, and bloom like thee! 1 This ode is introduced in the Romance of Theodorus Prodromus, and is that kind of epithalamium which was sung like a scholium at the nuptial banquet. Among the many works of the impassioned Sappho, of which time and ignorant superstition have deprived us, the loss of her epithalamiums is not one of the least that we deplore. A subject so interesting to an amorous fancy was warmly felt, and must have been warmly described, by such a soul and such an imagination. The following lines are cited as a relic of one of her epithalamiums: Ολβιε γαμβρε. σοι μεν δη γαμος ως αρας, See Scaliger, in his Poetics, on the Epithalamium. To blush like her, and bloom like thee!] Original Kuжριττος δε πεφυκοί σεν EV Xw. Passeratius, upon the words "cum castum amisit florem," in the nuptial song or Catullus, after explaining "flos," in somewhat a similar sense to that which Gaulminus attributes to podov, says, "Hortum quoque vocant in quo flos ille carpitur, et Græcis κήπον εστι το εφηβαιον γυναικών. May I remark, that the author of the Greek version of this charming ode of Catullus has neglected a most striking and anacreontic beauty in those verses, "Ut flos in septis," etc. which is the repetition of the line, "Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ," with the slight alteration of nulli ODE XVII.' GENTLE youth! whose looks assume The friendship which my heart pursues? ODE LXVIII.2 RICH in bliss, I proudly scorn ODE LXIX.3 Now Neptune's sullen mouth appears, and nullæ. Catullus himself, however, has been equally injudicious in his version of the famous ode of Sappho; he has translated yeλwσas sμsposv, but takes no notice of adu wvouras. Horace has caught the spirit of it more faithfully: Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, 1 I have formed this poem of three or four different fragments, which is a liberty that perhaps may be justified by the example of Barnes, who has thus compiled the fiftyseventh of his edition, and the little ode beginning p' udup, sp' ovov, was, which he has subjoined to the epigrams. The fragments combined in this ode, are the sixty-seventh, ninety-sixth, ninety-seventh, and hundredth of Barnes's edition, to which I refer the reader for the names of the authors by whom they are preserved. And boys have loved the prattling sage!] Monsieur Chaulieu has given a very amiable idea of an old man's intercourse with youth: Que cherché par les jeunes gens, En faveur de leurs agrémens. 2 This fragment is preserved in the third book of Strabo. Of the Tartessian prince my own.] He bere alludes to Arganthonius, who lived, according to Lucian, a hundred and fifty years; and reigned; according to Herodotus, eighty. See Barnes. 3 This is composed of two fragments; the seventieth and eighty-first in Barnes. They are both found in Eustathius And while our wreaths of parsley spread ODE LXXIII. ODE LXX'. ODE LXXIV.? ODE LXXI.? ODE LXXV.3 Monarch LOVE! resistless boy, With whom the rosy Queen of Joy, To float my little banquet down, And nymphs, that glance ethereal blue, I take the soft, the amorous lyre, Disporting tread the mountain-dew; And sing of love's delicious fire ! Propitious, oh! receive my sighs, In mirthful measures, warm and free, Which, burning with entreaty, rise ; That thou wilt whisper, to the breast The lesson thou hast taught to me. Ah! if my heart no flattery tell, Thou 'lt own 've learn'd that lesson well ! Disport'st in airy levity. ODE LXXVI.4 SPIRIT of Love! whose tresses shine Along the breeze, in golden twine, 1 This fragment is preserved by the scholiast upon Aristo1 Three fragments form this little ode, all of which are phanes, and is the eighty-seventh in Barnes. preserved in Athenæus. They are the eighty-second, seven- 2 This is to be found in Hephæston, and in the eighty-ninth iy-fifth, and eighty-third, in Barnes. of Barnes's edition. And every guest, to shade his head, I must here apologise for omitting a very considerable Three little breathing chuplets spread.] Longepierre, to fragment imputed to our poet, z avond Eupuzuan pesiso, etc. give an idea of the luxurious estimation in which garlands which is preserved in the twelfth book of Athenæus, and is were held by the ancients, relates an anecdote of a courte- the ninety-first in Barnes. If it was really Anacreon who zan, who, in order to gratify three lovers, without leaving wrote it, nil fuit unquam sic impar sibi. It is in a style of cause for jealousy with any of them, gave a kiss to one, let gross satire, and is full of expressions wbich never could be the other drink after her, and put a garland on the brow of gracefully translated. the tbird ; so that each was satisfied with his favour, and 3 This fragment is preserved by Dion.-Chrysostom, Orat. flattered himself with the preference. ii. de Regno. See Barnes, 93. This circumstance is extremely like the subject of one of 4 This fragment, which is extant in Athenæus (Barnes, the tensons of Savari de Mauléon, a troubadour. See l’His- 101,) is supposed, on the authority of Chamæleon, to have toire Littéraire des Troubadours. The recital is a curious been addressed to Sappho. We have also a stanza attripicture of the puerile gallantries of chivalry. buted to her, which some romancers have supposed to be 2 This poem is compiled by Barnes, from Athenæus, her answer to Anacreon. "Mais par malheur (as Bayle says) Hephaestion, and Arsenius. See Barnes, 80th. Sappho vint au monde environ cent ou six vingts ans avant 3 This I have formed from the eighty-fourth and eighty- Anacreon.” Nouvelles de la Rép. des lett. tom. ii. de Nofifth of Barnes's edition. The two fragments are found in vembre, 1684. The following is her fragment, the compliAthenæus. ment of wbich is very finely imagined ; she supposes that the Muse has dictated the verses of Anacreon: Υμνον, εκ της καλλιγυναικος εσύλας Τηιος χωρας ον αειδε τερπνως " Horned” here, undoubtedly, seems a strange epithet: Πρεσβυς αγαυος. Madame Dacier, however, observes, that Sophocles, Calli- Oh Muse! who sitt'st on golden throne, machus, etc. have all applied it in the very same manner, Full many a hymn of dulcet tone and she seems to agree in the conjecture of the scholiasi The Teian sage is taught by thee; upon Pindar, that perhaps horns are not always peculiar to But, goddess, from thy throne of gold, the males. I think we may with more ease conclude it to The sweetest hymn thou 'st ever told, be a license of the poet,“ jussit habere puellam cornua. He lately learn'd and sang for me. |