And there's an end-for ah, you know See, in yonder flowery braid, They drink but little wine below! ODE LII.2 AWAY, away, ye men of rules, They'd make me learn, they'd make me think, Fly, and cool my goblet's glow At yonder fountain's gelid flow; I'll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink This soul to slumber as I drink. Soon, too soon, my jocund slave, You'll deck your master's grassy grave; 1 See, in yonder flowery braid, Cull'd for thee, my blusking maid!] "In the same manner that Anacreon pleads for the whiteness of his locks, from the beauty of the color in garlands, a shepherd, in Theocritus, endeavors to recommend his black hair : Και το τον μελαν εστι, και & γραπτα υακινθος, 2 "This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived rhetoricians were not known."-Degen. Though this ode is found in the Vatican manuscript, I am much inclined to agree in this argument against its authenticity; for though the dawnings of the art of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon. Our poet anticipated the ideas of Epicurus, in his aversion to the labors of learning, as well as his devotion to voluptousness. Πασαν παιδείαν μακαριοι φεύγετε, said the philosopher of the garden in a letter to Pythocles Teach me this, and let me twine Some fond responsive heart to mine.] By xpvans Appodrns here, I understand some beautiful girl, in the same manner that Avatus is often used for wine. "Golden" is frequently an epithet of beauty. Thus in Virgil, "Venus aurea;" and in Propertius, "Cynthia aurea." Tibullus, however, calls an old woman "golden." The translation d'Autori Anonimi, as usual, wantons on tais passage of Anacreon: ODE LIII. WHEN I behold the festive train Burn upon my forehead's snows; Em' insegni con piu rare Il bel cinto d' onestade. And there's an end-for ah, you know They drink but little wine below !] Thus Mainard:- Au sein d'une fosse profonde, Ma science ne trouve pas Des cabarets en l'autre monde. From Mainard, Gombauld, and De Cailly, old French poets, some of the best epigrams of the English language have been borrowed. Bid the blush of summer's rose Burn upon my forehead's snows; &c.] Licetus, in his Hieroglyphica, quoting two of our poet's odes, where he calls to his attendants for garlands, remarks, "Constat igitur floreas coronas poetis et potantibus in symposio convenire, non autem sapientibus et philosophiam affectantibus."-" It appears that wreaths of flowers were adapted for poets and revellers at banquets, but by no means became those who had pretensions to wisdom and philosophy." On this principle, in his 152d chapter, he discovers a refinement in Virgil, describing the garland of the poet Silenus, as fallen off; which distinguishes, he thinks, the divine intoxication of Silenus from that of common drunkards, who always wear their crowns while they drink. Such is the "labor ineptiarum" of commentators! • He still can kiss the goblet's brim, &c.] Wine is pre ODE LIV.1 METHINKS, the pictured bull we see ODE LV.3 WHILE we invoke the wreathed spring, Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing scribed by Galen, as an excellent medicine for old men: "Quod frigidos et humoribus expletos calefaciat, &c. ;" but Nature was Anacreon's physician. There is a proverb in Eriphus, as quoted by Athenæus, which says, "that wine makes an old man dance, whether he will or not." Λόγος εστ' αρχαίος, ου κακώς έχων, Οινον λεγουσι τους γεροντας, ω πατερ, 1"This ode is written upon a picture which represented the rape of Europa.”—Madame Dacier. It may probably have been a description of one of those coins, which the Sidonians struck off in honor of Europa, representing a woman carried across the sea by a bull. Thus Natalis Comes, lib. viii. cap. 23. "Sidonii numismata cum fæmina tauri dorso insidente ac mare transfretante cuderunt in ejus honorem." In the little treatise upon the goddess of Syria, attributed very falsely to Lucian, there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedicated by the Sidonians to Astarté, whom some, it appears, confounded with Europa. The poet Moschus has left a very beautiful idyl on the sory of Europa. No: he descends from climes above, He looks the God, he breathes of Jove!] Thus Moschus: "All an Κρυψε Θεον και τρεψε δεμας και γινετο ταύρος. The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love, And a bull's form belied th' almighty Jove. This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. tiquity (says Barnes) has produced nothing more beautiful." From the idea of peculiar excellence, which the ancients attached to this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according to Suidas, poda μ' einkas, "You have spoken roses," a phrase somewhat similar to the "dire des fleurettes" of the French. In the same idea of excellence originated, I doubt not, a very curious application of the word fodov, for which the inquisitive reader may consult Gaulminus upon the epithalamium of our poet, where it is introduced in the romance of Theodorus. Muretus, in one of his elegies, calls his mistress his rose :Jam te igitur rursus teneo, formosula, jam te (Quid trepidas?) teneo; jam, rosa, te teneo. Now I again may clasp thee, dearest, What is there now, on earth, thou fearest ? Eleg. 8. Whose breath perfumes th' Olympian bowers; Again these longing arms infold thee, This, like most of the terms of endearment in the modern Latin poets, is taken from Plautus; they were vulgar and colloquial in his tinc, but are among the elegancies of the modern Latinists. Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the beginning of his poem on the Rose: Carmine digna rosa est; vellem caneretur ut illam 4 Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing; I have passed over the line συν έταιρει αύξει μέλπην, which is corrupt in this original reading, and has been very little improved by the annotators. I should suppose it to be an interpolation, if it were not for a line which occurs afterwards: φερε δη φυσιν Aɛywpεv. And Venus, in its fresh-blown leaves, &c.] Belleau, in a note upon an old French poet, quoting the original here appodioier & a0vppa, translates it, "comme les délices et mignardises de Venus." Oft hath the poet's magic tongue The rose's fair luxuriance sung; &c.] The following is a fragment of the Lesbian poetess. It is cited in the romance of Achilles Tatius, who appears to have resolved the numbers into prose. Ει τοις ανθεσιν ήθελεν ὁ Ζευς επιθείναι βασιλέα, το ῥόδον αν των ανθεων εβασίλευε. γης εστι κυσμός, φυτων αγλα ΐσμα, οφθαλμος ανθεών, λειμώνος ερύθημα, κάλλος αστράπτον. Έρωτος πνει, Αφροδίτην προξένει, επείδεσι φύλλοις κομά ευκι νήτοις πετάλοις τρυφά, το πέταλον τῳ Ζεφυρῳ γελᾶ. If Jove would give the leafy bowers And fresh inhale the spicy sighs That from the weeping buds arise. When revel reigns, when mirth is high, And Bacchus beams in every eye, Our rosy fillets scent exhale, And fill with balm the fainting gale. There's naught in nature bright or gay, Where roses do not shed their ray. When morning paints the orient skies, Her fingers burn with roseate dyes ;' Young nymphs betray the rose's hue, O'er whitest arms it kindles through. In Cytherea's form it glows, And mingles with the living snows. The rose distils a healing balm, The beating pulse of pain to calm; Preserves the cold inurned clay," And mocks the vestige of decay:3 An when, at length, in pale decline, Its florid beauties fade and pine, Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odor even in death!* Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung? Listen,-for thus the tale is sung. When morning paints the orient skies, Her fingers burn with roscate dyes; &c.] In the original here, he enumerates the many epithets of beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by the poets, wapa тwv oopwv. We see that poets were dignified in Greece with the title of sages: even the careless Anacreon, who lived but for love and voluptuousness, was called by Plato the wise Anacreon -"fuit hæc sapientia quondam." Preserves the cold inurned clay, &c.] He here alludes to the use of the rose in embalming; and, perhaps, (as Barnes thinks,) to the rosy unguent with which Venus anointed the corpse of Hector.-Homer's Iliad. It may likewise regard the ancient practice of putting garlands of roses on the dead, as in Statins, Theb. lib. x. 762. -hi sertis, n. veris honore soluto Accumulant artus, patriâque in sede reponunt Where "veris honor," though it mean every kind of flowers, may seem more particularly to refer to the rose, which our poet in another ode calls tapos μɛλnua. We read, in the Hieroglyphics of Pierius, lib. lv., that some of the ancients used to order in their wills, that roses should be annually scattered on their tombs, and Pierius has adduced some sepnlchral inscriptions to this purpose. 3 And mocks the vestige of decay:] When he says that this flower prevails over time itself, he still alludes to its efficacy in einbalmment, (tenerâ poneret ossa rosa. Propert. lib. i. eleg. 17,) or perhaps to the subsequent idea of its fragrance surviving its beauty; for he can scarcely mean to praise for duration the "nimium breves flores" of the rose. Philostratus compares this flower with love, and says, that they both defy the influence of time; Xpovov de ovre Epws, ούτε ροδα οι δεν. Unfortunately the similitude lies not in their duration, but their transience. A Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odor even in death!] Thus Casper Barlæus, in his Ritus Nuptiarum : When, humid, from the silvery stream, The nymph who shakes the martial lance ;- ODE LVI. HE, who instructs the youthful crew To bathe them in the brimmer's dew, Ambrosium late rosa tunc quoque spargit odorem, When all its flushing beauties die; When wither'd by the solar eye. The sweetly orient buds they dyed, &c.] The author of the "Pervigilium Veneris" (a poem attributed to Catullus, the style of which appears to me to have all the labored luxuriance of a much later period) ascribes the tincture of the rose to the blood from the wound of Adonis -rosa Fusa aprino de cruore according to the emendation of Lipsius. In the following epigram this hue is differently accounted for : Illa quidem studiosa suum defendere Adonim, Albaque divino picta cruore rosa est. On whom the jealous war-god rushes; And while the wound with crimson flows, The snowy flow'ret feels her blood, and blushes: 6 "Compare with this elegant ode the verses of Uz, lib. i. 'die Weinlese.'"-Degen. This appears to be one of the hymns which were sung at the anniversary festival of the vintage; one of the criλnviol buroi, as our poet himself terms them in the fifty-ninth ode. We cannot help feeling a sort of reverence for these classic relics of the religion of antiquity. Horace may be supposed to have written the nineteenth ode of his second book, and the twenty fath of the third, for some bacchanalian celebration of this kind. And taste, uncloy'd by rich excesses, Then, when the ripe and vermil wine,- None shall be then cast down or weak, ODE LVII.2 WHOSE was the artist hand that spread 1 Which, sparkling in the cup of mirth, Illuminate the sons of earth!] In the original norov αστονον κομίζων. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet here had the nepenthe of Homer in his mind. Odyssey, lib. iv. This nepenthe was a something of exquisite charm, infused by Helen into the wine of her guests, which had the power of dispelling every anxiety. A French writer, De Mere, conjectures that this spell, which made the bowl so beguiling, was the charm of Helen's conversation. See Bayle, art. Heléne. As aught on earthly wing can fly, In beauty's naked majesty! Oh! he hath given th' enamor'd sight Where, gleaming through the waters clear, Light as the leaf, that on the breeze As some fair lily o'er a bed Beneath their queen's inspiring glance, And all that mystery loves to screen, Fancy, like Faith, adores unseen, &c.] The picture here has all the delicate character of the semi-reducta Venus, and affords a happy specimen of what the poetry of passion ought to be-glowing but through a veil, and stealing upon the heart from concealment. Few of the ancients have attained this modesty of description, which, like the golden cloud that hung over Jupiter and Juno, is impervious to every beam but that of fancy. Her bosom, like the dew-wash'd rose, &c.] "Podewr (says an anonymous annotator) is a whimsical epithet for the bosom." Neither Catullus nor Gray have been of his opinion. The former has the expression, 2 This ode is a very animated description of a picture of Venus on a discus, which represented the goddess in her first emergence from the waves. About two centuries after our poet wrote, the pencil of the artist Apelles embellished this subject, in his famous painting of the Venus Anadyo- And the latter, mené, the model of which, as Pliny informs us, was the beautiful Campaspe, given to him by Alexander; though, according to Natalis Comes, lib. vii. cap. 16, it was Phryne who sat to Apelles for the face and breast of this Venus. There are a few blemishes in the reading of the ode before us, which have influenced Faber, Heyne, Brunck, &c. to denounce the whole poem as spurious. But, non ego paucis offendar maculis." I think it is quite beautiful enough to be authentic. 3 Whose was the artist hand that spread Upon this disk the ocean's bed?] The abruptness of apa τις τόρευσε ποντον is finely expressive of sudden admiration, and is one of those beauties which we cannot but admire in their source, though, by frequent imitation, they are now become familiar and unimpressive. En hic in roseis latet papillis; Lo! where the rosy-bosom'd hours, &c. Crottus, a modern Latinist, might indeed be censured for too vague a use of the epithet "rosy," when he applies it to the eyes" e roseis oculis." 6 -young Desire, &c.] In the original "Iμɛpos, who was the same deity with Jocus among the Romans. Aurelius Augurellus has a poem beginning Invitat olim Bacchus ad cœnam suos Which Parnell has closely imitated :- While, glittering through the silver waves, ODE LVIII. WHEN Gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion, For who could court his direst foe? But scarcely has my heart been taught How little Gold deserves a thought, When, lo! the slave returns once more, And with him wafts delicious store Of racy wine, whose genial art In slumber seals the anxious heart. From love and song, perhaps forever! Away, deceiver! why pursuing Ceaseless thus my heart's undoing? Sweet is the song of amorous fire, Sweet the sighs that thrill the lyre; Oh! sweeter far than all the gold Thy wings can waft, thy mines can hold. Well do I know thy arts, thy wiles They wither'd Love's young wreathed smiles; I thought its soul of song was fled! When my full soul, in Fancy's stream, ODE LIX.5 RIPEN'D by the solar beam, 1 1 I have followed Barnes's arrangement of this ode, which, though deviating somewhat from the Vatican MS., appears to me the more natural order. 2 When Gold, as fleet as zephyr's pinion, Escapes like any faithless minion, &c.] In the original Ο δραπέτης ὁ χρυσος. There is a kind of pun in these words, as Madame Dacier has already remarked; for Chrysos, which signifies gold, was also a frequent name for a slave. In one of Lucian's dialogues, there is, I think, a similar play upon the word, where the followers of Chrysippus are called golden fishes. The puns of the ancients are, in general, even more vapid than our own; some of the best are those recorded of Diogenes. 2 And flies me, (as he flies me ever,) &c.] Aɛi d', aɛi μe devyet. This grace of iteration has already been taken notice of. Though sometimes merely a playful beauty, it is peculiarly expressive of impassioned sentiment, and we may easily believe that it was one of the many sources of that 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 feel its charm in those lines of Catullus, where he complains of the infidelity of his mistress, Lesbia: Cell, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa, Illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam, Si sic omnia dixisset!-but the rest does not bear citation. They dash'd the wine-cup, that, by him, Φιλημάτων δε κείνων, Πυθων κυπελλο κίρνης. Horace has "Desiderique temperare poculum," not figuratively, however, like Anacreon, but importing the lovephiltres of the witches. By "cups of kisses" our poet may allude to a favorite gallantry among the ancients, of drinking when the lips of their mistresses had touched the brim :"Or leave a kiss within the cup, And I'll not ask for wine." As in Ben Jonson's translation from Philostratus; and LuΗ Ίνα και πίνης άμα cian has a conceit upon the same idea, kai piλns," "that you may at once both drink and kiss." The title Envios buvos, which Barnes has given to this ode, is by no means appropriate. We have already had one of those hymns, (ode 56,) but this is a description of the vintage; and the title is ovov, which it bears in the Vatican MS., is more correct than any that have been suggested.. Degen, in the true spirit of literary skepticism, doubts that this ode is genuine, without assigning any reason for such a suspicion;-" non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare." But this is far from being satisfactory criticism. |