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Rose, thou art the sweetest flower

That ever drank the amber shower;
Rose, thou art the fondest child

Of dimpled Spring, the wood-nymph wild.
Even the Gods, who walk the sky,
Are amorous of thy scented sigh.
Cupid, too, in Paphian shades,
His hair with rosy fillet braids,
When with the blushing, sister Graces,
The wanton winding dance he traces.1
Then bring me, showers of roses bring,
And shed them o'er me while I sing,
Or while, great Bacchus, round thy shrine,
Wreathing my brow with rose and vine,
I lead some bright nymph through the dance,2
Commingling soul with every glance.

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The fastidious affectation of some commentators has denounced this ode as spurious. Degen pronounces the four last lines to be the patchwork of some miserable versificator, and Brunck condemns the whole ode. It appears to me, on the contrary, to be elegantly graphical; full of delicate expressions and luxuriant imagery. The abruptness of Ide ws capos pavevros is striking and spirited, and has been imitated rather languidly by Horace :

Vides ut alta stet nive candidum
Soracte

The imperative to is infinitely more impressive;-as in Shakspeare,

But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

But wisely quaff the rosy wave, Which Bacchus loves, which Bacchus And in the goblet, rich and deep, Cradle our crying woes to sleep.

ODE XLVI.4

BEHOLD, the young, the rosy Spring,
Gives to the breeze her scented wing;
While virgin Graces, warm with May,
Fling roses o'er her dewy way."
The murmuring billows of the deep
Have languish'd into sint sleep;
And mark! the flitting sea-birds lave
Their plumes in the reflecting wave;
While cranes from hoary winter fly
To flutter in a kinder sky.
Now the genial star of day
Dissolves the murky clouds away;
And cultured field, and winding stream,
Are freshly glittering in his beam.

Now the earth prolific swells
With leafy buds and flowery bells;
Gemming shoots the olive twine,
Clusters ripe festoon the vine;
All along the branches creeping,
Through the velvet foliage peeping,
Little infant fruits we see,
Nursing into luxury.

There is a simple and poetical description of S Catullus's beautiful farewell to Bithynia. Carm. 44 Barnes conjectures, in his life of our poet, that was written after he had returned from Athens, to his paternal seat at Teos; where, in a little villa distance from the city, commanding a view of the Sea and the islands, he contemplated the beauties o and enjoyed the felicities of retirement. Vide Ba Anac. Vita, xxxv. This supposition, however un ticated, forms a pleasing association, which renders t more interesting.

Chevreau says, that Gregory Nazianzenus has para somewhere this description of Spring; but I cann with it. See Chevreau, Œuvres Mêlées.

"Compare with this ode (says Degen) the verses o dorn, book fourth, der Frühling,' and book fifth, der While virgin Graces, warm with May,

Fling roses o'er her dewy way.] De Pauw reads, foda Bovovoiv, “the roses display their graces." Th uningenious; but we lose by it the beauty of the p cation, to the boldness of which Regnier has rathe lously objected.

6 The murmuring billows of the deep

Have languish'd into silent sleep; &c.] It has bee remarked, that the liquid flow of the line araλuverai is perfectly expressive of the tranquillity which it de And cultured field, and winding stream, &c.] By Epya, "the works of men," (says Baxter,) he means temples, and towns, which are then illaminated beams of the sun.

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This, the preceding ode, and a few more of the same character, are merely chansons à boire ;—the effusions probably of the moment of conviviality, and afterwards sung, we may imagine, with rapture throughout Greece. But that interesting association, by which they always recalled the convivial emotions that produced them, can now be little felt even by the most enthusiastic reader; and much less by a

The only thyrsus e'er F'll ask!] Phornutus assigns as a reason for the consecration of the thyrsus to Bacchus, that inebriety often renders the support of a stick very necessary. ley leaves my brow entwining, &c.] "The ivy was conserrated to Bacchus, (says Montfaucon,) because he formerly phlegmatic grammarian, who sees nothing in them but dia

lay hid under that tree, or, as others will have it, because is leaves resemble those of the vine." Other reasons for

us consecration, and the use of it in garlands at banquets,

may be found in Longepierre, Barnes, &c. &c.

Arm ye, arm ye, men of might,

Hasten to the sanguine fight;] I have adopted the interpretation of Regnier and others:

lects and particles.

6 Who, with the sunshine of the bowl,

Thaws the winter of our soul-&c.] Avatos is the title which he gives to Bacchus in the original. It is a curious circumstance that Plutarch mistook the name of Levi among the Jews for Act, (one of the bacchanal cries,) and accordingly supposed that they worshipped Bacchus.

ODE LI

Wars wine I quaff, before my eyes
Dreams of poetic glory rise;3
And freshen'd by the goblet's dews,
My soul invokes the heavenly Muse.
When wine I drink, all sorrow's o'er;
I think of doubts and fears no more;
But scatter to the railing wind
Each gloomy phantom of the mind.
When I drink wine, th' ethereal boy,
Bacchus himself, partakes my joy;

And while we dance through vernal bowers,'
Whose ev'ry breath comes fresh from flowers,
In wine he makes my senses swim,
Till the gale breathes of naught but him!

Again I drink, and, lo, there seems A calmer light to fill my dreams; The lately ruffled wreath I spread With steadier hand around my head; Then take the lyre, and sing "how blest The life of him who lives at rest!" But then comes witching wine again, With glorious woman in its train; And, while rich perfumes round me rise, That seem the breath of woman's sighs,

1 Faber thinks this ode spurious; but, I believe, he is singular in his opinion. It has all the spirit of our author. Like the wreath which he presented in the dream, “it smells of Anacreon."

The form of the original is remarkable. It is a kind of song of seven quatrain stanzas, each beginning with the line

Οτ' εγώ πιω τον οίνον.

The first stanza alone is incomplete, consisting but of three lines.

"Compare with this poem (says Degen) the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v., der Wein,' where that divine poet has wantoned in the praises of wine."

2 When wine I quaff, before my eyes

Dreams of poetic glory rise;] "Anacreon is not the only one (says Longepierre) whom wine has inspired with poetry. We find an epigram in the first book of the Anthologia, which begins thus:

Οίνος του χαριεντι μέγας πέλει ἵππος αοιδώ,
Υδωρ δε πίνων, καλον ου τέκοις επος.

If with water you fill up your glasses,
You'll never write any thing wise;
For wine's the true horse of Parnassus,
Which carries a bard to the skies!

And while we dance through vernal bowers, &c.] If some of the translators had observed Doctor Trapp's caution, with regard to πολυανθεσιν μ' εν αύραις, “Cave ne calum intelligas," they would not have spoiled the simplicity of Anacreon's fancy, by such extravagant conceptions as the following:

Quand je bois, mon œil s'imagine

Que, dans un tourbillon plein de parfums divers,
Bacchus m'emporte dans les airs,

Rempli de sa liqueur divine.

Bright shapes, of every hue and form,
Upon my kindling fancy swarm,
Till the whole world of beauty seems
To crowd into my dazzled dreams!
When thus I drink, my heart refines,
And rises as the cup declines;
Rises in the genial flow,

That none but social spirits know,
When, with young revellers, round the
The old themselves grow young in sou
Oh, when I drink, true joy is mine,
There's bliss in every drop of wine.
All other blessings I have known,
I scarcely dared to call my own;
But this the Fates can ne'er destroy,
Till death o'ershadows all my joy.

ODE LL.6

FLY not thus my brow of snow,
Lovely wanton! fly not so.
Though the wane of age is mine,
Though youth's brilliant flush be thi
Still I'm doom'd to sigh for thee,
Blest, if thou couldst sigh for me!

Or this:

Indi mi mena
Mentre lieto ebro, deliro,
Baccho in giro

Per la vaga aura serena.

4 When, with young revellers, round the bowl The old themselves grow young in soul!] Gail's edition of Anacreon, we find some curiou the tarot of the ancients, which appeared in Journals. At the opening of the Odéon in Pa agers of that spectacle requested Professor Gail some uncommon name for their fêtes. He word "Thiase," which was adopted; but the li

questioned the propriety of the term, and ad criticisms to Gail through the medium of the p

5 Alberti has imitated this ode; and Capilup lowing epigram, has given a version of it:

Cur, Lalage, mea vita, meos contemnis am
Cur fugis e nostro pulchra puella sinu?
Ne fugias, sint sparsa licet mea tempora c
Inque tuo roseus fulgeat ore color.
Aspice ut intextas deceant quoque flore co
Candida purpureis lilia mista rosis.

Oh! why repel my soul's impassion'd vov

And fly, beloved maid, these longing arn Is it, that wintry time has strew'd my bro While thine are all the summer's roseat See the rich garland cull'd in vernal weat Where the young rosebud with the lily So, in Love's wreath we both may twine 1 And I the lily be, and thou the rose.

See, in yonder flowery braid,

Cull'd for thee, my blushing maid,'
How the rose, of orient glow,
Mingles with the lily's snow;
Mark, how sweet their tints agree,
Just, my girl, like thee and me!

And there's an end-for ah, you know They drink but little wine below!

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Αλλ' έμπας εν τοις στεφάνοις τα πρώτα λέγονται.”
Longepierre, Barnes, &c.

“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 authenficity; 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 xpvons Appodrns here, I understand some beautiful girl, in the same manner that Avatos 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 this passage of Anacreon:

ODE LIII.

WHEN I behold the festive train
Of dancing youth, I'm young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance,
And wings me lightly through the dance
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!
Cull the flower and twine the braid;
Bid the blush of summer's rose
Burn upon my forehead's snows;
And let me, while the wild and young
Trip the mazy dance along,
Fling my heap of years away,
And be as wild, as young, as they.
Hither haste, some cordial soul!
Help to my lips the brimming bowl!
And you shall see this hoary sage
Forget at once his locks and age.
He still can chant the festive hymn,
He still can kiss the goblet's brim;"
As deeply quaff, as largely fill,
And play the fool right nobly still.

E m' insegni con piu rare
Forme accorte d' involare
Ad amabile beltade

Il bel cinto d' onestade.

And there's an end-for ah, you know

They drink but little wine below!] Thus Mainard:-
La Mort nous guette; et quand ses lois
Nous ont enfermés une fois

Au sein d'une fosse profonde,
Adieu bons vins et bon repas;

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 ineptiaran of commentators!

• He still can kiss the goblet's brim, &c.] Wine is pre

ODE LIV.1

METHINKS, the pictured bull we see
Is amorous Jove-it must be he!
How fondly blest he seems to bear
That fairest of Phoenician fair!
How proud he breasts the foamy tide,
And spurns the billowy surge aside!
Could any beast of vulgar vein
Undaunted thus defy the main?
No: he descends from climes above,
He looks the God, he breathes of Jove!"

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 κακως έχων,

Οινον λεγουσι τους γέροντας, ω πατερ,
Πείθειν χορεειν ου θέλοντας.

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 foemina 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:

Κρύψε θεον και τρεψε δεμας και γινετο ταύρος.
The God forgot himself, his heaven, for love,
And a bull's form belied th' almighty Jove.

"All an

3 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 p' tionkas, "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 podov, 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 bow
Whose virgin blush, of chasten'd dye,
Enchants so much our mortal eye.
When pleasure's springtide season glows,
The Graces love to wreath the rose;
And Venus, in its fresh-blown leaves,
An emblem of herself perceives.
Oft hath the poet's magic tongue
The rose's fair luxuriance sung;
And long the Muses, heavenly maids,
Have rear'd it in their tuneful shades.
When, at the early glance of morn,
It sleeps upon the glittering thorn,
"Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence,
To cull the timid flow'ret thence,
And wipe with tender hand 2way
The tear that on its blushes lay!
"Tis sweet to hold the infant stems,
Yet dropping with Aurora's gems,

Again these longing arms infold thee,
Again, my rose, again I hold thee.

This, like most of the terms of endearment in the Latin poets, is taken from Plautus; they were vu colloquial in his time, but are among the eleganci modern Latinists.

Passeratius alludes to the ode before us, in the b of his poem on the Rose:

Carmine digna rosa est; vellem caneretur ut il
Teius argutâ cecinit testudine vates.

Resplendent rose! to thee we'll sing;] I hav over the line συν έταιρει αύξει μέλπην, which is corru original reading, and has been very little improve annotators. I should suppose it to be an interpols were not for a line which occurs afterwards: spe λeywμev.

5 And Venus, in its fresh-blown leaves, &c.] Bel note upon an old French poet, quoting the origi αφροδισίων τ' αθυρμα, translates it, comme les mignardises de Venus."

• Oft hath the poet's magic tongue

The rose's fair luxuriance sung; &c.] The fol a fragment of the Lesbian poetess. It is cited in the of Achilles Tatius, who appears to have resolved the into prose. Ει τοις ανθεσιν ηθελεν ὁ Ζευς επιθείναι β ροδον αν των ανθεων εβασίλευε. γης εστι κόσμος, φυτ ΐσμα, οφθαλμος ανθεών, λειμώνος ερύθημα, καλλος απ Έρωτος πνει, Αφροδίτην προξενεί, ευειδεσι φύλλοις κι νήτοις πετάλοις τρυφά, το περίελον τῷ Ζεφυρῳ γελά

If Jove would give the leafy bowers
A queen for all their world of flowers,
The rose would be the choice of Jove,
And blush, the queen of every grove.
Sweetest child of weeping morning,
Gem, the vest of earth adorning,
Eye of gardens, light of lawns,
Nursling of soft summer dawns;
Love's own earliest sigh it breaths,
Beauty's brow with lustre wreaths,
And, to young Zephyr's warm caresses,
Spreads abroad its verdant tresses,
Till, blushing with the wanton's play,
Its cheek wears e'en a richer ray!

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