1

7

pariter the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed

a be wrote:

which rigid morality must frown. His heart, to themselves the form of the animated old bard,
devoted to indolence, seems to have thought that crowned with roses, and singing cheerfully to his
there is wealth enough in happiness, but seldom lyre. But the head of Anacreon, prefixed to this
happiness in mera wealth. The cheerfulness, in- work, has been considered so authentic, that we
doed, with which he brightens his old age is inter- scarcely could be justified in the omission of it ; and
esting and endearing: like his own rose, he is fra- some have even thought that it is by no means
utant even in decay. But the most peculiar feature deficient in that benevolent suavity of expression
of his mind is that love of simplicity which he which should characterize the countenance of such
attributes to himself so feelingly, and which breathes a poet.
characteristically throughout all that he has sung.
In truth, if we omit those few vices in our estimate both by ancients and moderns upon the poems of
which religion, at that time, not only connived at, Anacreon, we need not be dirtic.ent in expressing
but consecrated, we shall be inclined to say that the our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pro-
disposition of our poet was amiable ; that his morality nounce them the most polished remains of anti-
was relaxed, but not abandoned ; and that Virtue, quity. They are, indeed, all beauty, all enchant-
with bes zone locsened, may be an apt emblem of ment. He steals us so insensibly cong with him,
the character of Anacreon.'

that we sympathize even in his excesses In his Of his person and physiognomy time has pre- amatory odes there is a delicacy of compliment ivot served such uncertain memorials, that it were bet to be found in any other ancient poet. Love at ter, perhaps, to leave the pencil to fancy; and few that period was rather an unrefined emotion : and can read the Odes of Anacreon without imagining the intercourse of the sexes was animated more by of Anacreon, pretends to imagine that our bard did not feel right hand, and a dolphin, with the word TIANSN inscribed,

in the left; “volendoci denotare (says Canini) che quelle

cittadini la coniassero in honore del suo compatriota poeta,"
Ljæum, Venerem, Cupidinemque

There i3 also among the coins of De Wilde one, which
Bebes lusit Anacreon poeta.

though it bears Bo effigy, was probably struck to the memory
quo tempore nec capaciores

of Anacreon. It has the word TUIN, encircled with an ivy Regnbal cyathos, nec inquietis

crown. "At guidni respicit hæc corona Anacreontem, nobiCrebatur amoribus, sed ipsis

lem lyricum ?"— De Wilde. Tantum versibus et jocis amabat,

3 Besides those which are extant, he wrote hymns, elegies, Nullam præ se habitum gerens amantis.

epigrams, &c. Some of the epigrams still exist. Horace, in To Love and Bacchus ever young

addition to the mention of him, (lib. iv. od. 9,) alludes also While sage Anacreon touch'd the lyre,

to a poem of his upon the rivalry of Circe and Penelope in Be neither felt the loves he sung,

the affections of Ulysses, lib. i. od. 17; and the scholiast Nor fill'd his bowl to Bacchus higher.

upon Nicander cites a fragment from a poem upon Sleep by
Those flowery days had faded long,

Anacreon, and attributes to him likewise a inedicinal trea-
When youth could act the lover's part;

tise. Fulgentius mentions a work of his upon the war be-
And passion trembled in his song,

tween Jupiter and the Titans, and the origin of the conse-
Bat never, never, reach'd his heart.

cration of the engle.
4 See Horace, Maximus Tyrius, &c.

“ His style (says
Anacreon's character has been variously colored. Barnes Scaliger) is sweeter than the juice of the Indian reed."-
lingen on it with enthusiasti: admiration; but he is always

Puet. lib. i. cap. 44. ** From the sottness of his verses (snys extravagant, if not sometimes also a little profane. Baillet Olaus Borrichius) the ancients bestowed on him the epithets rans son mueh into the opposite extreme, exaggerating also

sweet, delicate, graceful, &c."-Dissertationes Academicæ, the testimonies which he has consulted; and we cannot

de Poetis. diss. 2. Scaliger again praises him thus in a pun; stirely agree with him when he cites such a compiler as speaking of the medos, or ode, “ Anacreon autem non solum Atheneus

, as “un des plus savans critiques de l'antiquité." dedit hæc uean sed etiam in ipsis mella." See the passage - Jugement des Sçarans, M. CV.

of Rapin, quoted by all the editors. I cannot omit citing Barnes could hardly have read the passage to which he also the following very spirited apostrophe of the author of refers

, when he accuses Le Fevre of having censured out the Commentary prefixed to the Parma edition : "O vos peet's character in a note on Longinus ; the note in question

sublimes animæ, vos Apollinis alumni, qui post unum Alcbeige manifest irony, in allusion to some censure passed

manem in totâ Hellade lyricam poesim exsuscítastis, coluisspen Le Ferre for his Anaereon. It is clear, indeed, that tis, amplificastís, quarso vos an ullus unquam fuerit vates praise rather than censure is intimated. See Johannes Vul qui Teio cantori vel natura candore vel metri suavitate bias , (de Utilitate Poëtices,) who vindicates our poet's repu- palmam præripuerit.” See likewise Vincenzo Gravini della

Rag. Poetic. libro primo, p. 97. Among the Ritratti of Ma* It is taken from the Bibliotheca of Fulvius Ursinus. rino, there is one of Anacreon beginning "Cingetemi la Bellari has copied the same head into his Imagines. Johannes fronte," &c. &c. Faber, in his description of the coin of Ursinus, mentions $ “ We may perceive," says Vossius, “ that the iteration of desther head on a very beautiful cornelian, which he sup

his words conduces very much to the sweetness of his style." pes was worn in a ring by some admirer of the poet. in Henry Stephen reinarks the same beauty in a note on the the leonographia of Canini there is a youthful bead of Anac-forty-fourth ode. This figure of iteration is his most approreca from a Grecian medal, with the letters TEIDE around priate grace:--but the modern writers of Juvenilia and Basia ; on the reverse there is a Neptune, holding a spear in his have adopted it to an excess which destroys the effect.

4

passion than by sentiment. They knew not those imitators. Some of these have succeeded with little tendernesses which form the spiritual part of wonderful felicity, as may be discerned in the few affection ; their expression of feeling was therefore odes which are attributed to writers of a later rude and unvaried, and the poetry of love deprived period. But none of his emulators have been half it of its most captivating graces. Anacreon, how. so dangerous to his fame as those Greek ecclesiever, attained some ideas of this purer gallantry; astics of the early ages, who, being conscious of and the same delicacy of mind which led him to this their own inferiority to their great prototypes, deterrefinement, prevented him also from yielding to the mined on removing all possibility of comparison, freedom of language which has sullied tho pages and, under a semblance of moral zoal, deprived the of all the other poets. His descriptions are warm ; world of some of the most exquisite treasures of but the warmth is in the ideas, not the words. He ancient times. The works of Sappho and Alcæus is sportive without being wanton, and ardent with were among those flowers of Grecian literature out being licentious. His poetic invention is always which thus fell beneath the nde hand of ecclesimost brilliantly displayed in those allegorical fictions astical presumption. It is true thoy pretended that which so many have endeavored to imitate, though this sacrifice of genius was hallowed by the interall have confessed them to be inimitable. Sim ests of religion ; but I have already assigned the plicity is the distinguishing feature of these odes, most probable motive ;" and if Gregorius Nazianand they interest by their innocence, as much as zenus had not written Anacreontics, we might they fascinate by their beauty. They may be said, now perhaps have the works of the Teian unmuindeed, to be the very infants of the Muses, and to tilated, and be empowered to say exultingly with lisp in numbers.

Horace, I shall not be accused of enthusiastic partiality

Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon by those who have read and felt the original ; but, to others, I am conscious, this should not be the language of a translator, whose faint reflection | The zeal by which these bishops professed to be of such beauties can but ill justify his admiration actuated, gave birth more innocently, indeed, to an of them.

absurd species of parody, as repugnant to piety as In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuousness was inseparable. These kindred talents were for a long made a preacher of the gospel, and his muse, like time associated, and the poet always sung his own the Venus in armor at Lacedæmon, was arrayed in compositions to the lyre. It is probable that they all the severities of priestly instruction. Such was were not set to any regular air, but rather a kind the “Anacreon Recantatus,” by Carolus de Aquino, of musical recitation, which was varied according a Jesuit, published 1701, which consisted of a series to the fancy and feelings of the moment. The of palinodes to the several songs of our poet. Such, poems of Anacreon were sung at banquets as late too, was the Christian Anacreon of Patriganus, as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us that he another Jesuit,' who preposterously transferred to a heard one of the odes performed at a birthday enter most sacred subject all that the Grecian poet had tainment.

dedicated to festivity and love. The singular beauty of our poet's style, and the His metre has frequently been adopted by the apparent facility, perhaps, of his metre, have at modern Latin poets ; and Scaliger, Taubman, tractod, as I have already remarked, a crowd of Barthius, and others, have shown that it is by no

Delevit ætas.

i In the Paris edition there are four of the original odes • We may perceive by the beginning of the first hymn of set to music, by Le Sueur, Gossec, Mehul, and Cherubini. Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon and Sappho his "On chante du Latin, et de l'Italien," says Gail, “quelque- models of composition. fois même sans les entendre ; qui empêche que nous ne

Αγε μοι, λιγεια φορμιγξ, chantions des odes Grecques ?" The chromatic learning of

Μετα Τηϊαν αοιδαν, , these composers is very unlike what we are told the

Μετα Λεσβιαν τε μολπαν. . simple melody of the ancients; and they have all, as it appears to me, mistaken the accentuation of the words. Margunius and Damascenus were likewise authors of pions

The Parma commentator is rather careless in referring Anacreontics. to this passage of Aulus Gellius, (lib. xix. cap. 9.) The ode 6 This, perhaps, is the “ Jesuita quidam Græculus" alwas not sung by the rhetorician Julianus, as he says, but by luded to by Barnes, who has himself composed an Avarpcwy the minstrels of both sexes, who were introduced at the Xplotiavos, as absurd as the rest, but somewhat more skilentertainment.

fully executed. 3 See what Colomesius, in his “Literary Treasures," has 6 I have seen somewhere an account of the MSS. of Barquoted from Alcyonius de Exilio; it may be found in Bax- thius, written just after his death, which mentions many ter. Colomesius, after citing the passage, adds, "Hæc auro inore Anacreontics of his than I believe have ever been contra cara non potui non apponere."

published.

means uncongenial with that language.? The with annotations and a Latin version of the greater
Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, scarcely deserve part of the odes. The learned still hesitated to re-
the name ; as they glitter all over with conceits, and, ceive them as the relics of the Teian bard, and sus-
though often elegant, are always labored. The pected them to be the fabrication of some monks
beautiful fictions of Angerianuse preserve more hap- of the sixteenth century. This was an idea from
pily than any others the delicate turn of those alle- which the classic muse recoiled; and the Vatican
gorical fables, which, passing so frequently through manuscript, consulted by Scaliger and Salmasius,
the mediums of version and imitation, have gener confirmed the antiquity of most of the poems. A
ally lost their finest rays in the transmission. Many of very inaccurate copy of this MS. was taken by
the Italian poets have indulged their fancies upon the Isaac Vossius, and this is the authority which Barnes
subjects, and in the manner of Anacreon. Bernardo has followed in his collation. Accordingly he mis-
Tasso first introduced the metre, which was after represents almost as often as he quotes; and 1.10
wards polished and enriched by Chabriera and others. subsequent editors, relying upon his authority, have

To judge by the references of Degen, the Ger- spoken of the manuscript with not less confidence
man language abounds in Anacreontic imitations; than ignorance. The literary world, however, has
and Hagedorn' is one among many who have as at length been gratified with this curious memorial is
sumed him as a model. La Farre, Chaulieu, and the poet, by the nudustry of the Abbe Spaletti, who
the other light poets of France, have also professed published at Rome, in 1781, a fac-simile of those
to cultivate the muse of Téos; but they have at- pages of the Vatican manuscript which contained
tained all her negligence with little of the simple the odes of Anacreon.”
grace that embellishes it. In the delicate bard of A catalogue has bepal given by Gail of all the
Schiras' we find the kindred spirit of Anacreon: different editions and translations of Anacreon.
sotne of his gazelles, or songs, possess all the char- Finding their number to be much greater than I

could possibly save had an opportunity of consult-
We come now to a retrospect of the editions of ing, I shall nero content myself with enumerating
Anacreon. To Henry Stephen we are indebted for only those editions and versions which it has been
having first recovered his remains from the obscurity in my power to collect; and which, though very
in which, so singularly, they had for many ages re-

fev, are, I believe, the most important.
posed. He found the seventh ode, as we are told, The edition by Henry Stephen, 1554, at Paris
on the cover of an old book, and communicated ii the Latin version is attributed by Colomesius to John
to Victorius, who mentions the circumstance in his Dorat.
* Various Readings.” Stephen was then very young ;

The old French translations, by Ronsard and
and this discovery was considered by some critics of Belleau-the former published in 1555, the latter in
that day as a literary imposition. In 1554, how- 1556. It appears from a note of Muretus upon one
ever, he gave Anacreon to the world,' accompanied of the sonnets of Ronsard, that Henry Stephen com-

acter of our poet.

1 Thus too Albertus, a Danish poet:

7 Ronsard commemorates this event :-
Fidiit:' ninister

Je vay boire å Henrie Etienne
Gaudebe semper esse,

Qui des enfers nous a rendu,
Gaudebo semper illi

Du vieil Anacreon perda,
Liare thure mulso;

La douce lyre Teïenne. Ode sy book 5.
Gaudebo semper illum
Laudare pumilillis

I fill the bowl to Stephen's name,

Who rescued from the gloom of night
Anacreonticillis.
See the Danish Poets collected by Rotsgaard.

The Teian bard of festive fame,

And brought his living lyre to light.
These pretty littlenesses defy translation. A beautiful Anac.
remtie by Hugo Grotius, may be found Lib. I. Farraginis. * This manuscript, which Spaletti thinks as old as the
To Angerianus Prior is indebted for some of his happiest tenth century, was brought from the Palatine into the Vati-
nythological subjects.

can library; it is a kind of anthology of Greek epigrams, and
Sue Crescimbeni, Historia della Volg. Poes.

in the 676th page of it are found the 'Hapipßia EvuhoolDKA
** L'aimable Hagedorn vaut quelquefois Anacréon." of Anacreon.
Derat, Idée de la Poësie Allemande.

"Le même (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avoit possédé un
See Toderini on the learning of the Turks, as translated | Anacréon, où Scaliger avoit marqué de sa main, qu'Henri
by de Courpard. Prince Cantemir has made the Russians Etienne n'étoit pas l'auteur de la version Latine des odes de
kegzainted with Anacreon, See his Life, prefixed to a trans ce poëte, mais Jean Dorat."-Paulus Colomesius, Particu-
lation of his Satires, by the Abbé de Guasco.

larités. Robortellus, in his work “De Ratione corrigendi," pro Colomesius, however, seems to have relied too implicity toances these verses to be the triflings of some insipid on Vossius ;--almost all these Particularités begin with

"M. Vossius m'a dit."

Græcist.

The edition by Gail, at Paris, 1799, with a prose translation.

ODES OF ANACREON.

municated to this poet his manuscript of Anacreon, before he promulgated it to the world.'

The edition by Lo Fevre, 1660.

The edition by Madame Dacier, 1681, with a prose translation.?

The edition by Longepierre, 1684, with a translation in verse.

The edition by Baxter; London, 1695.
A French translation by la Fosse, 1704.

“L'Histoire des Odes d'Anacreon," by Gaçon; Rotterdam, 1712.

A translation in English verse, by several hands, 1713, in which the odes by Cowley are inserted.

The edition by Bames; London, 1721.

The edition by Dr. Trapp, 1733, with a Latin version in elegiac metre.

A translation in English verse, by John Addison, 1735.

A collection of Italian translations of Anacreon, published at Venice, 1736, consisting of those by Corsini, Regnier, Salvini, Marchetti, and one by several anonymous authors.

A translation in English verse, by Fawkes and Doctor Broome, 1760.

Another, anonymous, 1768.

The edition by Spaletti, at Rome, 1781 ; with the fac-simile of the Vatican MS.

The edition by Degen, 1786, who published also a German translation of Anacreon, esteemed the best.

A translation in English verse, by Urquhart, 1787.

JDE I.
I saw the smilag bard of pleasure,
The minstrel of the Teian measure ;
'Twas in a vision of the night,
He beam'd upon my wondering sight.
I heard his voice, and warmly press'd,
The dear enthusiast to my breast.
His tresses wore a silvery dye,
But beauty sparkled in his eye;
Sparkled in his eyes of fire,
Through the mist of soft desire."
His lip exhaled, wheno'er he sigh’d,
The fragrance of the racy tide ;
And, as with weak and reeling feet
He came my cordial kiss to meet,
An infant, of the Cyprian band,
Guided him on with tênder hand.
Quick from his glowing brows he drew
His braid, of many a wanton hue;
I took the wreath, whose inmost twine
Breathed of him and blush'd with wine.

1 "La fiction de ce sonnet, comme l'auteur même m'a dit, at the first look (says Baxter) that the poet was imevros ?" est prise d'une ode d'Anacreon, encore non imprimée, qu'il There are surely many tell-tales of this propensity; and the a depuis traduit, Συ μεν φιλη χελιδων.”

following are the mdices, which the physiognomist gives, The author of Nouvelles de la Répub. des Lett. bestows describing a disposition berhaps not unlike that of Anacreon: on this translation much more praise than its merits appear | Οφθαλμοι κλυζομενοι, κυμαινοντες εν αυτοις, εις αφροδισια και to me to justify:

ευπαθειαν επτοηνται: ουτε δε αδικοι, ουτε κακουργοι, ουτε 3 The notes of Regnier are not inserted in this edition; ØVoews Savans, outë ajovou, - Adamantius.

“The eyes but they must be interesting, as they were for the most part that are humid and fluctuating show a propensity to pleasure communicated by the ingenious Menage, who, we may per and love; they bespeak too a mind of integrity and beneficeive, from a passage in the Menagiapa, bestowed some re cence, a generosity of disposition, and a genius for poetry." search on the subject. "C'est anssi lui (M. Bigot) qui s'est Baptista l'orta tells us some strange opinions of the andonné la peine de conférer des manuscrits en Italie dans le cient physiognomists on this subject, their reasons for which tems que je travaillois sur Anacreon."- Menagiana, sccondo were curious, and perhaps not altogether fanciful. Vide partie.

Physiognom. Johan. Baptist. Portæ. 4 I find in Haym's Notizia de' Libri rari, Venice, 1670, an

• I took the wreath, whose inmost trine Italian translation by Cappone, mentioned.

Breathed of him, &c.] Philostratus has the same thonght 5 This is the most complete of the English translations.

in one of his Epwrika, where he speaks of the garland which he had sent to his mistress. Ει δε βουλει τι φιλω χαριζεσ

θαι,τα λειψανα αντιπεμψον, μηκέτι πνεoντα ροδων μονον αλλα 6 This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican manu

Kui dov. “If thou art inclined to gratify thy lover, send him script, which attributes it to no other poet than Anacreon.

back the remains of the garland, no longer breathing of roses They who assert that the manuscript imputes it to Basilius, have been misled by the words Tov avtov Baollikws in the

only, but of thee!" Which pretty conceit is borrowed (as

the author of the Observer remarks) in a well-known little margin, which are merely intended as a title to the follow

song of Ben Jonson's :ing ode. Whether it be the production of Anacreon or not, it has all the features of ancient simplicity, and is a beauti

“But thou thereon didst only breathe ful imitation of the poet's happiest manner.

And sent it back to me; 9 Sparkled in his eyes of fire,

Since when it looks and smells, I swear, Through the mist of soft desire.] “How could he know

Not of itself, but thee !"

I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow
And ah! I feel its magic now:
I feel that even his garland's touch
Can make the bosom love too much.

Many a city, revelling free,
Full of loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain ;
Piping, as they roam along,
Roundelay or shepherd-song.
Paint me next, if painting may
Such a theme as this portray,
All the earthly heaven of love
These delighted mortals prove.

ODE II.

ODE IV.

Give me the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrill'd along ;
But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing.
Proclaim the laws of festal rite,"
I'm monarch of the board to-night;
And all around shall brim as high,
And quaff the tide as deep as I.
And when the cluster's mellowing dews
Their warm enchanting balm infuse,
Our feet shall catch th' elastic bound,
And reel us through the dance's round.
Great Bacchus! we shall sing to thee,
In wild but sweet ebriety;
Flashing around such sparks of thought,
As Bacchus could alone have taught.

Then, give the harp of epic song, Which Homer's finger thrill'd along; But tear away the sanguine string, For war is not the theme I sing.

Vulcan! hear your glorious task ;
I do not from your labors ask
In gorgeous panoply to shine,
For war was ne'er a sport of mine.
No-let me have a silver bowl,
Where I may cradle all my soul;
But mind that, o'er its simple frame
No mimic constellations flame;
Nor grave upon the swelling side,
Orion, scowling o'er the tide.
I care not for the glittring wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But let the yine luxuriant roll
Its blushing tendrils round the bowl,
While many a rose-lipp'd bacchant maid
Is culling clusters in their shade.
Let sylvan gods, in antic shapes,
Wildly press the gushing grapes,
And flights of Loves, in wanton play,
Wing through the air their winding way;
While Venus from her harbor green,
Looks laughing at the joyous scene,
And young Lyæus by her side
Sits, worthy of so bright a bride.

ODE III.S

Luten to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!
Sketch'd in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray ;

Anthologia.

1 And ak! I fed its magic now :) This idea, as Longepierre considerable interpolations of his own, which he thinks are Ferrarks, occurs in an epigram of the seventh book of the indispensably necessary to the completion of the description.

4 This ode, Aulus Gellius tells us, was perforined at an

entertainment where he was present.
Εξοτε μοι πινoντι συνεσταουσα Χαρικλω
Λαθρη τους ιδιους αμφιβαλε στεφανους, ,

6 While many a rose-lipp'd bacchant maid, &c.) I have Πυρ ολοον οαπτει με.

availed nyself here of the additional lines given in the

Vatican manuscript, which have not been accurately inWhile I unconscious quafr'd my wine,

serted in any of the ordinary editions :-
'Twas then thy fingers slyly stole

Ποιησον αμπελους μου
Upon my brow that wreath of thine,

Και βοτρυας κατ' αυτων
Which since has madden'd all my soul.

Και μαιναδας τρυγωσας. .

Ποιει δε ληνον οινου, * Preclaim the laws of festal rite.) The ancients prescribed

, certain laws of drinking at their festivals, for an account of

Ληνοβατας πατουντας, which see the commentators. Anacreon here acts the sym

Τουςσ ατυρους γελωντας, , peniarch, or master of the festival. I have translated accord

Και χρυσους τους ερωτας, , της to those who consider κυπελλα θεσμων as an Inversion of

Και Κυθερην γελωσαν, , θεσμούς κυπελλων. .

'Opov kalw Avaiw, la Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by

Ερωτα κ' 'Αφροδιτην.