And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant for her slave.
His mother comes, with many a toy,
To ransom her beloved boy ;'
His mother sues, but all in vain,-
He ne'er will leave his chains again.
Even should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.
"If this," he cries, "a bondage be,
Oh, who could wish for liberty?"

The vapors, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy sun 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 XXI.2

OBSERVE when mother earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky,
And then the dewy cordial gives
To ev'ry thirsty plant that lives.

Ma ci vinto a due occhi l'arme cede:
Et t' affatichi indarno, Citerea;

Che s' altri 'I scioglie, egli a legar si riede.
Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's hair,

Found, at each step, such sweet delays,

That rapt he linger'd there.

And how, indeed, was Love to fly,
Or how his freedom find,

When every ringlet was a tie,

A chain, by Beauty twined.

In vain to seek her boy's release
Comes Venus from above:

Fond mother, let thy efforts cease,

Love's now the slave of Love.

And, should we loose his golden chain,

The prisoner would return again!

1 His mother comes, with many a toy,

To ransom her beloved boy; &c.] In the first idyl of Moschus, Venus thus proclaims the reward for her fugitive child:

μανυτας γέρας έξει,

Μισθος του, το φίλαμα το Κυπριδος ην αγάγης νιν
Ου γυμνον το φίλαμα, τυ δ', ω ξενε, και πλέον έξεις.

On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show,
A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow;

But he, who can bring back the urchin in chains, Shall receive even something more sweet for his pains. Subjoined to this ode, we find in the Vatican MS. the following lines, which appear to me to boast as little sense as metre, and which are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber:

ODE XXII.

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,
Was once a weeping matron's form ;
And Progue, hapless, rantic maid,

Is now a swallow in the shade.

because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and accordingly he 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 assidueè fontes et flumina Pontus,
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne te 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 inhales the sea:
Silenus trembled at my cup,

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:

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.

Timon of Athens, act iv. sc. 3. 3- a weeping matron's form ;] Niobe.-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

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine,
That I might catch that smile divine;
And like my own fond fancy be,
Reflecting thee, and only thee;
Or could I be the robe which holds
That graceful form within its folds;
Or, turn'd into a fountain, lave
Thy beauties in my circling wave.
Would I were perfume for thy hair,
To breathe my soul in fragrance there;
Or, better still, the zone, that lies
Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs!1
Or e'en 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;

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 the following epigram of Dionysius:

Ειθ' ανεμος γενόμην, συ δε γε στείχουσα παρ' αυγας,
Στηθεα γυμνωσαις, και με πνεοντα λάβοις.
Είθε ῥόδον γενομην ὑποπορφυρον, οφρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, κομίσαις στεθεσι χιονέοις.

Είθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχρυον, οφρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, μαλλον της χρονιας 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,

To 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,
Content to wither, pale and brief,

The trophy of thy fairer form!

I may add, that Plato has expressed as fanciful a wish in a distich preserved by Laertius:

Αστερας εισαθρεις, Αστηρ εμος" είθε γενοίμην
Ουρανος, ὡς πολλοις όμμασιν εις σε βλέπω.

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, &c. &c."

1 Or, better still, the zone, that lies

Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs!] This rain was a riband, or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophium,

Nay, sandals for those airy feetE'en to be trod by them were sweet!?

ODE XXIII.3

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,
This warbler of my soul's desire,
Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame, in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,
Along the chords my numbers die,
And whisper, with dissolving tone,
"Our sighs are given to love alone!"
Indignant at the feci le 'ay,

I tore the panting chords away,
Attuned them to a nobler swell,

And struck again the breathing shell;

which the women wore for the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial :

Fascia crescentes dominæ compesce papillas.

The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were 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.

2 Nay, sandals for those airy feetE'en to be trod by them were sweet!] The sophist Philostratus, in one of his love-letters, has borrowed this thought; ω άδετοι πόδες, ως καλλος ελεύθερος, ω τρισευδαιμων εγώ και μακάριος εαν πατήσετε με Oh lovely feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me!" In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove:

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

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

He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood,
"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," we find a translation of this ode made before 1632.-" Englished by Mr. B. Holiday, in his Technog. act i. scene 7."

According to the order in which the odes are usually placed, this (Oew deyɛiv Aтpeidas) forms the first of the series; 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:

In all the glow of epic fire,1

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 all that one has felt so well
The other shall as sweetly tell!

To man she gave, in that proud hour,
The boon of intellectual power.
Then, what, oh woman, what, for thee,
Was left in Nature's treasury?

She gave thee beauty-mightier far
Than all the pomp and power of war.'
Nor steel, nor fire itself hath power
Like woman in her conquering hour.
Be thou but fair, mankind adore thee,
Smile, and a world is weak before thee!"

ODE XXIV.3

To all that breathe the air of heaven,
Some boon of strength has Nature given.
In forming the majestic bull,

She fenced with wreathed horns his skull;
A hoof of strength she lent the steed,
And wing'd the timorous hare with speed.
She gave the lion fangs of terror,
And, o'er 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.

1 In all the glow of epic fire,

To Hercules I wake the lyre.] Madame Dacier generally translates Aupn into a lute, which I believe is inaccurate. "D'expliquer la lyre des anciens (says M. Sorel) par un luth, c'est ignorer la différence qu'il y a entre ces deux instrumens de musique."-Bibliothèque Françoise.

2 But still its fainting sighs repeat, "The tale of love alone is sweet!"] The word avrewvci 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; "brav την λύραν ερωτα Σαπφω, και όταν αυτη αποκρίνηται.”Περι Ιδεων, τομ. δευτ.

3 Henry Stephen has imitated the idea of this ode in the following lines of one of his poems:

Provida dat cunctis Natura animantibus arma,

Et sua fœmineum possidet arma genus,

Ungulàque ut defendit equum, atque ut cornua taurum, Armata est formâ fœmina pulchra suâ.

ODE XXV.7

ONCE in each revolving year,
Gentle bird! we find thee here.
When Nature wears her summer-vest,
Thou com'st to weave thy simple nest;
But when the chilling winter lowers,
Again thou seek'st the genial bowers
Of Memphis, or the shores of Nile,
Where sunny hours forever smile.
And thus thy pinion rests and roves,-
Alas! unlike the swarm of Loves,
That brood within this hapless breast,

And never, never change their nest!s

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

wisdom and prudence; and to think that women's eyes are the books, the academies,

From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

Than all the pomp and power of war.] Thus Achilles Tatius :-καλλος οξύτερον τιτρώσκει βέλους, και δια των οφθαλμων εις την ψυχην καταρρει. Οφθαλμος γαρ οδος ερωτικώ Tрavμari. "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."

Be thou but fair, mankind adore thee,

Smile, and a world is weak before thee !] Longepierre's re

Cosi noi la bellezza

Ch' è vertù nostra cosi 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 Heav'n assign'd.

"An elegant explication of the beauties of this ode (says Degen) may be found in Grimm an den Anmerk. über einige Oden des Anakr."

4 To man she gave, in that proud hour,

The boon of intellectual power.] In my first attempt to

so convinced of the power of beauty, that they used a word implying strength in the place of the epithet beautiful. Thi Plautus, act 2, scene 2. Bacchid.

Sed Bacchis etiam fortis tibi visa.

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

7 We have here another ode addressed to the swallow. Alberti has imitated both in one poem, beginning

Perch' io pianga al tuo canto,
Rondinella importuna, &c.

8 Alas! unlike the swarm of Lores,
That brood within 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 :

Still every year, and all the year,
They fix their fated dwelling here;
And some their infant plumage try,
And on a tender winglet fly;

While in the shell, impregn'd with fires,
Still lurk a thousand more desires;
Some from their tiny prisons peeping,
And some in formless embryo sleeping.
Thus peopled, like the vernal groves,
My breast resounds with warbling Loves;
One urchin imps the other's feather,
Then twin-desires they wing together,
And fast as they thus take their flight,
Still other urchins spring to light.
But is there then no kindly art,

To chase these Cupids from my heart?
Ah, no! I fear, in sadness fear,
They will forever nestle here!

Nor naval arms, nor mailed steed,
Have made this vanquish'd bosorn bleed;
No-'twas from eyes of liquid blue,
A host of quiver'd Cupids flew ;2
And now my heart all bleeding lies
Beneath that army of the eyes!

ODE XXVII.3

WE read the flying courser's name
Upon his side, in marks of flame;
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 XXVI.1

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.
"Twas not the crested warrior's dart,
That drank the current of my heart;

Alei μοι δύνει μεν εν ουασιν ήχος έρωτος,
Ομμα δε σιγα ποθοις το γλυκυ δακρυ φερει.
Ουδ' ή νυξ, ου φεγγος εκοίμισεν, αλλ' ύπο φιλτρων
Ηδη που κραδίη γνωστος ένεστι τύπος.

Ω πτανοί, μη και ποτ' εφιπτασθαι μεν ερωτες
Οιδατ', αποστήναι δ' ουθ' όσον ισχύετε.

'Tis Love that murmurs in my breast,

And makes me shed the secret tear;
Nor day nor night my soul hath rest,
For night and day his voice I hear.

A wound within my heart I find,

And oh! 'tis plain where Love has been;
For still he leaves a wound behind,
Such as within my heart is seen.

Oh, bird of Love! with song so drear,

Make not my soul the nest of pain;
But, let the wing which brought thee here,
In pity waft thee hence again!

1 "The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. Coinpare also Weisse Scherz. Lieder, lib. iii., der Soldat." Gail, Degen. 2 No-'twas from eyes 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,

Τοξότα, Ζηνοφίλας όμμασι κρυπτομένος
Archer Love! though slyly creeping,
Well I know where thou dost lie;

I saw thee through the curtain peeping,
That fringes Zenophelia's eye.

The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes,

ODE XXVIII.5

As, by his Lemnian forge's flame,
The husband of the Paphian dame
Moulded the glowing steel, to form
Arrows for Cupid, thrilling warm;
And Venus, as he plied his art,

Shed honey round each new-made dart,

but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress "un petit camp d'amours."

3 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." 4 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 et ne la fronte ho scritto.

M. 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 that in his bosom lies;
His cheeks' confusion tells the tale,
We read it in his languid eyes:
And while his words the heart betray,
His silence speaks e'en more than they.

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

While Love, at hand, to finish all,
Tipp'd every arrow's point with gall ;'
It chanced the Lord of Battles came
To visit that deep cave of flame.
"Twas from the ranks of war he rush'd
His spear with many a life-drop blush'd;
He saw the fiery darts, and smiled
Contemptuous at the archer-child.

"What!" said the urchin, " dost thou smile? Here, hold this little dart awhile,

And thou wilt find, though swift of flight,
My bolts are not so feathery light."

Mars took the shaft-and, oh, thy look,
Sweet Venus, when the shaft he took!—
Sighing, he felt the urchin's art,
And cried, in agony of heart,
"It is not light-1 sink with pain!
Take-take thy arrow back again."
"No," said the child, "it must not be;
That little dart was made for thee!"

1 While Love, at hand, to finish all,

Tipp'd every arrow's point with gall;] 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 Alciatus, emblem 91, on the close connection which subsists between sweets and bitters. "Apes ideo pungunt, (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

ODE XXIX.

YES-loving is a painful thrill,
And not to love more painful still;2
But oh, it is the worst of pain,
To love and not be loved again!
Affection now has fled from earth,
Nor fire of genius, noble birth,
Nor heavenly virtue, can beguile
From beauty's cheek one favoring smile
Gold is the woman's only theme,
Gold is the woman's only dream.
Oh! never be that wretch forgiven-
Forgive him not, indignant heaven!
Whose grovelling eyes could first adore,
Whose heart could pant for sordid ore.
Since that devoted thirst began,
Man has forgot to feel for man;
The pulse of social life is dead,
And all its fonder feelings fled!
War too has sullied Nature's charms,
For gold provokes the world to arms:
Βραδέας τετηγμένοισι
Βελετσι εξαγείρει.
Πυρι λαμπάδος φαεινώ
Ρυπαρωτέρους καθαίρει.
Φιλέωμεν ουν, Ύεττε,
Φιλέωμεν ω έταιρε.
Αδίκως δε λοιδορούντι

'Αγιους ερωτας ήμων

Κακον εύξομαι το μουνον,
'Iva

μη δύναιτ' εκείνος

Φιλέειν τε και φιλεῖσθαι.

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