Слике страница
PDF
ePub

et which rigid morality must frown. His heart, devoted to indolence, seems to have thought that there is wealth enough in happiness, but seldom happiness in mere wealth. The cheerfulness, indeed, with which he brightens his old age is interesting and endearing: like his own rose, he is fragrant even in decay. But the most peculiar feature of his mind is that love of simplicity which he attributes to himself so feelingly, and which breathes characteristically throughout all that he has sung. In truth, if we omit those few vices in our estimate which religion, at that time, not only connived at, but consecrated, we shall be inclined to say that the disposition of our poet was amiable; that his morality was relaxed, but not abandoned; and that Virtue, with her zone locsened, may be an apt emblem of the character of Anacreon.1

Of his person and physiognomy time has preserved such uncertain memorials, that it were better, perhaps, to leave the pencil to fancy; and few can read the Odes of Anacreon without imagining

to themselves the form of the animated old bard, crowned with roses, and singing cheerfully to his lyre. But the head of Anacreon, prefixed to this work, has been considered so authentic, that we scarcely could be justified in the omission of it; and some have even thought that it is by no means deficient in that benevolent suavity of expression which should characterize the countenance of such a poet.

After the very enthusiastic eulogiums bestowed both by ancients and moderns upon the poems of Anacreon, we need not be difficent in expressing our raptures at their beauty, nor hesitate to pronounce them the most polished remains of antiquity. They are, indeed, all beauty, all enchantHe steals us so insensibly song with him, that we sympathize even in his excesses In his amatory odes there is a delicacy of compliment not to be found in any other ancient poet. Love t that period was rather an unrefined emotion: and the intercourse of the sexes was animated more by

ment.

of Anacreon, pretends to imagine that our bard did not feel right hand, and a dolphin, with the word TIANON inscribed, as he wrote:

Lyæum, Venerem, Cupidinemque

Senex lusit Anacreon poeta.

Sed quo tempore nec capaciores

Rogabat cyathos, nec inquietis
Urebatur amoribus, sed ipsis
Tantum versibus et jocis amabat,
Nullum præ se habitum gerens amantis.

To Love and Bacchus ever young
While sage Anacreon touch'd the lyre,
He neither felt the loves he sung,

Nor fill'd his bowl to Bacchus higher. Those flowery days had faded long, When youth could act the lover's part; And passion trembled in his song,

But never, never, reach'd his heart.

1 Anacreon's character has been variously colored. Barnes lingers on it with enthusiasti: admiration; but he is always extravagant, if not sometimes also a little profane. Baillet runs too much into the opposite extreme, exaggerating also the testimonies which he has consulted; and we cannot surely agree with him when he cites such a compiler as Athenæus, as "un des plus savans critiques de l'antiquité." -Jugement des Sçavans, M. CV.

Barnes could hardly have read the passage to which he refers, when he accuses Le Fevre of having censured our poet's character in a note on Longinus; the note in question being manifest irony, in allusion to some censure passed upon Le Fevre for his Anacreon. It is clear, indeed, that praise rather than censure is intimated. See Johannes Vulpius, (de Utilitate Poëtices,) who vindicates our poet's repu

tation.

2 It is taken from the Bibliotheca of Fulvius Ursinus. Bellori has copied the same head into his Imagines. Johannes Faber, in his description of the coin of Ursinus, mentions another head on a very beautiful cornelian, which he supposes was worn in a ring by some admirer of the poet. In the Iconographia of Canini there is a youthful head of Anacreon from a Grecian medal, with the letters TEIOΣ around it; on the reverse there is a Neptune, holding a spear in his

in the left;"volendoci denotare (says Canini) che quelle cittadini la coniassero in honore del suo compatriota poeta." There is also among the coins of De Wilde one, which though it bears no effigy, was probably struck to the memory of Anacreon. It has the word THION, encircled with an ivy crown. "At quidni respicit hæc corona Anacreontem, nobilem lyricum ?"-De Wilde.

3 Besides those which are extant, he wrote hymns, elegies, epigrams, &c. Some of the epigrams still exist. Horace, in addition to the mention of him, (lib. iv. od. 9,) alludes also to a poem of his upon the rivalry of Circe and Penelope in the affections of Ulysses, lib. i. od. 17; and the scholiast upon Nicander cites a fragment from a poem upon Sleep by Anacreon, and attributes to him likewise a medicinal treatise. Fulgentius mentions a work of his upon the war between Jupiter and the Titans, and the origin of the consecration of the engle.

4 See Horace, Maximus Tyrius, &c. "His style (says Scaliger) is sweeter than the juice of the Indian reed."Poet. lib. i. cap. 44. "From the softness of his verses (says Olaus Borrichius) the ancients bestowed on him the epithets sweet, delicate, graceful, &c."-Dissertationes Academica, de Poetis, diss. 2. Scaliger again praises him thus in a pun; speaking of the peλos, or ode, "Anacreon autem non solum dedit hæc μɛλŋ sed etiam in ipsis mella." See the passage of Rapin, quoted by all the editors. I cannot omit citing also the following very spirited apostrophe of the author of the Commentary prefixed to the Parma edition: "O vos sublimes animæ, vos Apollinis alumni, qui post unum Alcmanem in totâ Hellade lyricam poesim exsuscitastis, coluistis, amplificastis, quæso vos an ullus unquam fuerit vates qui Teio cantori vel naturæ candore vel metri suavitate palmam præripuerit." See likewise Vincenzo Gravini della Rag. Poetic. libro primo, p. 97. Among the Ritratti of Marino, there is one of Anacreon beginning "Cingetemi la fronte," &c. &c.

5 “We may perceive," says Vossius, "that the iteration of his words conduces very much to the sweetness of his style." Henry Stephen remarks the same beauty in a note on the forty-fourth ode. This figure of iteration is his most appropriate grace:-but the modern writers of Juvenilia and Basia have adopted it to an excess which destroys the effect.

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 the pages and, under a semblance of moral zeal, 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 Alcaus 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 they 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 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 of such beauties can but ill justify his admiration

of them.

In the age of Anacreon music and poetry were inseparable. These kindred talents were for a long time associated, and the poet always sung his own compositions to the lyre. It is probable that they were not set to any regular air, but rather a kind of musical recitation, which was varied according to the fancy and feelings of the moment.' The poems of Anacreon were sung at banquets as late as the time of Aulus Gellius, who tells us that he heard one of the odes performed at a birthday entertainment.2

The singular beauty of our poet's style, and the apparent facility, perhaps, of his metre, have attracted, as I have already remarked, a crowd of

Nec si quid olim lusit Anacreon
Delevit ætas.

The zeal by which these bishops professed to be actuated, gave birth more innocently, indeed, to an absurd species of parody, as repugnant to piety as it is to taste, where the poet of voluptuousness was made a preacher of the gospel, and his muse, like the Venus in armor at Lacedæmon, was arrayed in all the severities of priestly instruction. Such was the "Anacreon Recantatus," by Carolus de Aquino, a Jesuit, published 1701, which consisted of a series of palinodes to the several songs of our poet. Such, too, was the Christian Anacreon of Patriganus, another Jesuit, who preposterously transferred to a most sacred subject all that the Grecian poet had dedicated to festivity and love.

His metre has frequently been adopted by the modern Latin poets; and Scaliger, Taubman, Barthius, and others, have shown that it is by no

4 We may perceive by the beginning of the first hymn of Bishop Synesius, that he made Anacreon and Sappho his

1 In the Paris edition there are four of the original odes set to music, by Le Sueur, Gossec, Mehul, and Cherubini. "On chante du Latin, et de l'Italien," says Gail, "quelque-models of composition. fois même sans les entendre; qui empêche que nous ne chantions des odes Grecques ?" The chromatic learning of these composers is very unlike what we are told of the simple melody of the ancients; and they have all, as it appears to me, mistaken the accentuation of the words.

2 The Parma commentator is rather careless in referring to this passage of Aulus Gellius, (lib. xix. cap. 9.) The ode was not sung by the rhetorician Julianus, as he says, but by the minstrels of both sexes, who were introduced at the entertainment.

* See what Colomesius, in his "Literary Treasures," has quoted from Alcyonius de Exilio; it may be found in Baxter. Colomesius, after citing the passage, adds, "Hæc auro contra cara non potui non apponere."

Αγε μοι, λιγεια φόρμιγξ,
Μετα Τηϊαν αοιδαν,
Μετα Λεσβιαν τε μολπαν.

Margunius and Damascenus were likewise authors of pious
Anacreontics.

This, perhaps, is the "Jesuita quidam Græculus" alluded to by Barnes, who has himself composed an Avakρew Xploriavos, as absurd as the rest, but somewhat more skilfully executed.

I have seen somewhere an account of the MSS. of Barthius, written just after his death, which mentions many more Anacreontics of his than I believe have ever been published.

means uncongenial with that language.1 The Anacreontics of Scaliger, however, scarcely deserve the name; as they glitter all over with conceits, and, though often elegant, are always labored. The beautiful fictions of Angerianus preserve more happily than any others the delicate turn of those allegorical fables, which, passing so frequently through the mediums of version and imitation, have generally lost their finest rays in the transmission. Many of the Italian poets have indulged their fancies upon the subjects, and in the manner of Anacreon. Bernardo Tasso first introduced the metre, which was afterwards polished and enriched by Chabriera and others.

To judge by the references of Degen, the German language abounds in Anacreontic imitations; and Hagedorn is one among many who have assumed him as a model. La Farre, Chaulieu, and the other light poets of France, have also professed to cultivate the muse of Téos; but they have attained all her negligence with little of the simple grace that embellishes it. In the delicate bard of Schiras we find the kindred spirit of Anacreon: some of his gazelles, or songs, possess all the character of our poet.

We come now to a retrospect of the editions of Anacreon. To Henry Stephen we are indebted for having first recovered his remains from the obscurity in which, so singularly, they had for many ages reposed. He found the seventh ode, as we are told, on the cover of an old book, and communicated to Victorius, who mentions the circumstance in his "Various Readings." Stephen was then very young; and this discovery was considered by some critics of that day as a literary imposition. In 1554, however, he gave Anacreon to the world,' accompanied

1 Thus too Albertus, a Danish poet:

Fidii tnnister

Gaudebe semper esse,

Gaudebo semper illi

Liare thure mulso;

Gaudebo semper illum

Laudare pumilillis

Anacreonticillis.

See the Danish Poets collected by Rotsgaard.

These pretty littlenesses defy translation. A beautiful Anac. reontic by Hugo Grotius, may be found Lib. i. Farraginis.

2 To Angerianus Prior is indebted for some of his happies! mythological subjects.

3 See Crescimbeni, Historia della Volg. Poes.

4 "L'aimable Hagedorn vaut quelquefois Anacréon."Dorat, Idée de la Poësie Allemande.

5 See Toderini on the learning of the Turks, as translated by de Cournard. Prince Cantemir has made the Russians acquainted with Anacreon. See his Life, prefixed to a translation of his Satires, by the Abbé de Guasco.

• Robortellus, in his work "De Ratione corrigendi," pronounces these verses to be the triflings of some insipid Græcist.

with annotations and a Latin version of the greater part of the odes. The learned still hesitated to receive them as the relics of the Teian bard, and suspected them to be the fabrication of some monks of the sixteenth century. This was an idea from which the classic muse recoiled; and the Vatican manuscript, consulted by Scaliger and Salmasius, confirmed the antiquity of most of the poems. A very inaccurate copy of this MS. was taken by Isaac Vossius, and this is the authority which Barnes has followed in his collation. Accordingly he misrepresents almost as often as he quotes; and the subsequent editors, relying upon his authority, have spoken of the manuscript with not less confidence than ignorance. The literary world, however, bas at length been gratified with this curious memorial s the poet, by the mdustry of the Abbé Spaletti, who published at Rome, in 1781, a fac-simile of those pages of the Vatican manuscript which contained the odes of Anacreon.

A catalogue has been given by Gail of all the different editions and translations of Anacreon. Finding their number to be much greater than I could possibly have had an opportunity of consulting, I shall here content myself with enumerating only those editions and versions which it has been in my power to collect; and which, though very few, are, I believe, the most important.

The edition by Henry Stephen, 1554, at Paristhe Latin version is attributed by Colomesius to John Dorat."

The old French translations, by Ronsard and Belleau—the former published in 1555, the latter in 1556. It appears from a note of Muretus upon one of the sonnets of Ronsard, that Henry Stephen com

[blocks in formation]

This manuscript, which Spaletti thinks as old as the tenth century, was brought from the Palatine into the Vatican library; it is a kind of anthology of Greek epigrams, and in the 676th page of it are found the 'Happßia Evμяociaka of Anacreon.

"Le même (M. Vossius) m'a dit qu'il avoit possédé un Anacreon, où Scaliger avoit marqué de sa main, qu'Henri Etienne n'étoit pas l'auteur de la version Latine des odes de ce poëte, mais Jean Dorat."-Paulus Colomesius, Particu larités.

Colomesius, however, seems to have relied too implicitly on Vossius;-almost all these Particularités begin with "M. Vossius m'a dit."

municated to this poet his manuscript of Anacreon, before he promulgated it to the world.1

The edition by Le Fevre, 1660.

The edition by Madame Dacier, 1681, with a prose translation.2

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 Barnes; 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,3 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.

1 "La fiction de ce sonnet, comme l'auteur même m'a dit, est prise d'une ode d'Anacréon, encore non imprimée, qu'il a depuis traduit, Συ μεν φιλη χελίδων.”

2 The author of Nouvelles de la Répub. des Lett. bestows on this translation much more praise than its merits appear to me to justify.

The notes of Regnier are not inserted in this edition; but they must be interesting, as they were for the most part communicated by the ingenious Menage, who, we may perceive, from a passage in the Menagiana, bestowed some research on the subject. "C'est aussi lui (M. Bigot) qui s'est donné la peine de conférer des manuscrits en Italie dans le tems que je travaillois sur Anacreon.”—Menagiana, seconde partie.

4 I find in Haym's Notizia de' Libri rari, Venice, 1670, an Italian translation by Cappone, mentioned.

This is the most complete of the English translations.

• This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican manuscript, which attributes it to no other poet than Anacreon. They who assert that the manuscript imputes it to Basilius, have been misled by the words Του αυτού βασιλικώς in the margin, which are merely intended as a title to the following ode. Whether it be the production of Anacreon or not, it has all the features of ancient simplicity, and is a beautiful imitation of the poet's happiest manner.

* Sparkled in his eyes of fire,

Through the mist of soft desire.] "How could he know

[ocr errors]

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

ODES OF ANACREON.

ODE 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, whene'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 tender 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.

at the first look (says Baxter) that the poet was pidevros ?" There are surely many tell-tales of this propensity; and the following are the dices, which the physiognomist gives, describing a disposition perhaps not unlike that of Anacreon: Οφθαλμοι κλυζομενοι, κυμαίνοντες εν αύτοις, εις αφροδισια και ευπάθειαν επτοηνται ούτε δε αδικοι, ούτε κακούργοι, ούτε vrews pavλns, ovre aμovoc—Adamantius. "The eyes

that are humid and fluctuating show a propensity to pleasure and love; they bespeak too a mind of integrity and beneficence, a generosity of disposition, and a genius for poetry."

Baptista Porta tells us some strange pinions of the ancient physiognomists on this subject, their reasons for which were curious, and perhaps not altogether fanciful. Vide Physiognom. Johan. Baptist. Porta.

I took the wreath, whose inmost twine

Breathed of him, &c.] Philostratus has the same thought in one of his Eprika, where he speaks of the garland which he had sent to his mistress. Ει δε βούλει τι φιλω χαρίζετα θαι,τα λειψανα αντιπέμψον, μηκετι πνέοντα ῥόδων μόνον αλλα kai σov. "If thou art inclined to gratify thy lover, send him back the remains of the garland, no longer breathing of roses only, but of thee!" Which pretty conceit is borrowed (as the author of the Observer remarks) in a well-known little song of Ben Jonson's:

"But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent it back to me;

Since when it looks and smells, I swear,
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.

ODE II.

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.

ODE III.3

LISTEN to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!

Sketch'd in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;

1 And ah! I feel its magic now :] This idea, as Longepierre remarks, occurs in an epigram of the seventh book of the Anthologia.

Εξοτε μοι πινοντι συνεσταουσα Χαρίκλω
Λαθρη τους ίδιους αμφέβαλε στεφανους,
Πυρ ολοον δαπτει με.

While I unconscious quaff'd my wine,
"Twas then thy fingers slyly stole
Upon my brow that wreath of thine,

Which since has madden'd all my soul.

2 Proclaim the laws of festal rite.] The ancients prescribed certain laws of drinking at their festivals, for an account of which see the commentators. Anacreon here acts the symposiarch, or master of the festival. I have translated according to those who consider κυπελλα θεσμων as an inversion of Θεσμούς κυπελλων.

La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by

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 IV.

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 glitt'ring wain,
Nor yet the weeping sister train.
But let the vine 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.

considerable interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably necessary to the completion of the description. 4 This ode, Aulus Gellius tells us, was performed at an entertainment where he was present.

While many a rose-lipp'd bacchant maid, &c.] I have availed myself here of the additional lines given in the Vatican manuscript, which have not been accurately inserted in any of the ordinary editions:

Ποίησον αμπελους μου
Και βοτρυας κατ' αὐτων
Και μαινάδας τρυγώσας.
Ποιει δε ληνον οίνου,
Ληνοβατας πατούντας,
Τους ατύρους γελωντάς,
Και χρύσους τους έρωτας,
Και Κυθέρην γελωσαν,
Όμου καλω Λυαίω,
Ερωτα κ' 'Αφροδίτην.

« ПретходнаНастави »