That laws should never bind desire, Such is the madness wine imparts, Whene'er it steals on youthful hearts. ODE LX. AWAKE to life, my dulcet shell, To him who gathers wisdom's flower! The god pursued, with wing'd desire; The descant of the Teian lyre: And when the youth, whose burning soul ODE LXI.' GOLDEN hues of youth are fled; Still be Anacreon, still inspire The descant of the Teian lyre.] The original is Toy Avaxpeтα tus. I have translated it under the supposition that the byma is by Anacreon; though I fear, from this very line, that his claim to it can scarcely be supported. Toy Arazpova plupy, Imitate Anacreon. Such is the lesson given us by the lyrist; and if, in poetry, a simple elegance of sentiment, enriched by the most playful felicities of fancy, be a charm which invites or deserves imitation, where shall we find such a guide as Anacreon? In morality, too, with some little reserve, I think we might not blush to follow in his footsteps. For if his song be the language of his heart, though luxurious and relaxed, be was artless and benevolent; and who would not forgive a few irregularities, when atoned for by virtues so rare and so endearing? When we think of the sentiment in those lines: Away! I hate the slanderous dart Which steals to wound the unwary heart, how many are there in the world to whom we would wish to say, Toy Avaxperta ptuou Here ends the last of the odes in the Vatican MS., whose authority confirms the genuine antiquity of them all, though a few have stolen among the number which we may hesitate in attributing to Anacreon. In the little essay prefixed to this translation, I observed that Barnes had quoted this manuscript incorrectly, relying upon an imperfect copy of it which Isaac Vossius had taken; I shall just mention two or three instances of this inaccuracy, the first which occur to me. In the ode of the Dove, on the words ПepotSE This hymn to Apollo is supposed not to have been written by Anacreon, and it certainly is rather a sublimer flight than the Teian wing is accustomed to soar. But we ought not to judge from this diversity of style, in a poet of whom time has preserved such partial relics. If we knew Horace but as a satirist, should we easily believe there could dwell such animation in his lyre? Suidas says that our poet wrote hymns, and this perhaps is one of them. We can per-yako, he says, Vatican MS. Gustav, etiam Prisceive in what an altered and imperfect state his works are at present, when we find a scholiast upon Horace citing an ode from the third ciano invito,. - though the Manuscript reads ouvranufa with 500x250 interlined. Degen, too, on the same line, is somewhat in error. In the twenty-second ode of this series, line thirteenth, the MS. has Taytn with %t interlined, and Barnes imputes to it the reading of rever. In the fifty-seventh, line twelfth, he professes to have preserved the reading of the MS. Aλzmerno en' aty, while the latter has 227,uevos d'en' auta.— Almost all the other commentators have transplanted these errors from Barnes. The intrusion of this melancholy ode among the careless levities of our poet, has always reminded me of the skeletons which the thought of nortality even amidst the dissipations of mirth. If it Egyptians used to hang up in their banquet-rooms, to inculcate a were not for the beauty of its numbers, the Teian Muse should disown this ode. Quid habet illius, illius quæ spirabat amores ? To Stobus we are indebted for it. Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, Sad the journey, sad the road: ODE LXII. FILL me, boy, as deep a draught To cool the grape's intemperate glow; But with the nymphs in union mingle; For, though the bowl's the grave of sadness, Bloomy graces, dalliance gay, All the flowers of life decay.] Horace often, with feeling and elegance, deplores the fugacity of human enjoyments. See book ii, ode 11; and thus in the second epistle, book ii, Singula de nobis anni prædantur euntes, The wing of every passing day And wafts from our enamour'd arms Dreary is the thought of dying, etc.] Regnier, a libertine French poet, has written some sonnets on the approach of death, full of gloomy and trembling repentance. Chaulieu, however, supports more consistently the spirit of the Epicurean philosopher. See his poem, addressed to the Marquis La Farre: Plus j'approche du terme et moins je le redoute, etc. I shall leave it to the moralist to make his reflections here: it is impossible to be very anacreontic on such a subject. And, the gloomy travel o'er, Ah! we can return no more!] Scaliger, upon Catullus's wellknown lines, Qui nunc it per iter, etc. remarks, that Acheron, with the same idea, is called avetodos, by Theocritus, and δυσεκδρομος, by Nicander. This fragment is preserved in Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom. lib. vi, and in Arsenius, Collect. Græc. BARNES. It appears to have been the opening of a hymn in praise of Love. This hymn to Diana is extant in Hephaestion. There is an anecdote of our poet, which has led to some doubt whether he ever wrote This ode consists of two fragments, which are to be found in Athe- (Isthmionic. od. ii, v. 1, as cited by Barnes). Anacreon being asked, any odes of this kind. It is related by the Scholiast upon Pindar næus, book x, and which Barnes, from the similarity of their ten-why he addressed all his hymns to women, and none to the deities? dency, has combined into one. I think this a very justifiable liberty, and have adopted it in some other fragments of our poet. Degen refers us here to verses of Uz, lib. iv, der Trinker. answered, Because women are my deities. I have assumed the same liberty in reporting this anecdote which I have done in translating some of the odes; and it were to be wished that these little infidelities were always considered pardonable in the interpretation of the ancients; thus, when nature is forgotten in the original, in the translation, tamen usque recurret. Turn, to Lethe's river turn, There thy vanquish'd people mourn!] Lethe, a river of Ionia, according to Strabo, falling into the Meander; near to it was situated the town Magnesia, in favour of whose inhabitants our poet is supposed to have addressed this supplication to Diana. It was written (as Madame Dacier conjectures) on the occasion of some battle, in which the Magnesians had been defeated. 3 This ode, which is addressed to some Thracian girl, exists in Heraclides, and has been imitated very frequently by Horace, as all the annotators have remarked. Madame Dacier rejects the allegory, which runs so obviously throughout it, and supposes it to have been addressed to a young mare belonging to Polycrates: there is more modesty than ingenuity in the lady's conjecture.. Pierius, in the fourth book of his Hieroglyphics, cites this ode, and informs us, that the horse was the hieroglyphical emblem of pride. Sappho. We have also a stanza attributed to her, which some ro- Κείνον, ω χρυσοθρόνε Μουσ', ενισπες Πρεσβυς αγαυος. Oh Muse! who sitt'st on golden throne, The Teian sage is taught by thee; He lately learn'd and sang for me. This is formed of the 134th and 119th fragments in Barnes, both of which are to be found in Scaliger's Poetics. De Pauw thinks that those detached lines and couplets, which Scaliger has adduced as examples in his Poetics, are by no means authentic, but of his own fabrication. This is generally inserted among the remains of Alcæus. Some, however, have attributed it to Anacreon. See our poet's twenty-second ode, and the notes. ODE LXXIX. ' WHEN Cupid sees my beard of snow, << Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!» 'CUPID, whose lamp has lent the ray Which lightens our meandering wayCupid, within my bosom stealing, Excites a strange and mingled feeling, Which pleases, though severely teasing, And teases, though divinely pleasing. 3 LET me resign a wretched breath, Since now remains to me No other balm than kindly death, To soothe my misery! 41 KNOW thou lovest a brimming measure, "I FEAR that love disturbs my rest, 6 FROM dread Leucadia's frowning steep I'll plunge into the whitening deep, And there I'll float, to waves resign'd, For love intoxicates my mind! 7 Mix me, child, a cup divine, Crystal water, ruby wine: 'See Barnes, 173d. This fragment, to which I have taken the liberty of adding a turn not to be found in the original, is cited by Lucian in his little essay on the Gallic Hercules. 2 Barnes, 125th. This, ifI remember right, is in Scaliger's Poetics. Gail has omitted it in his collection of fragments. 3 This fragment is extant in Arsenius and Hephaestion. See Barnes (69th), who has arranged the metre of it very elegantly. Barnes, 72d. This fragment, which is quoted by Athenæus, is Odi et amo; quare id faciam fortasse requiris ; I love thee and hate thee, but if I can tell The cause of my love and my hate, may I die! I can feel it, alas! I can feel it too well, That I love thee and hate thee, but cannot tell why. This also is in Hephæstion, and perhaps is a fragment of some poem, in which Anacreon had commemorated the fate of Sappho. It is the 123d of Barnes. 7 This fragment is collected by Barnes from Demetrius Phalareus, and Eustathius, and is subjoined in his edition to the epigrams attributed to our poet. And here is the last of those little scattered flowers which I thought I might venture with any grace to transplant. I wish it could be said of the garland which they form, Το δ' ως Ανακρέοντος. Weave the frontlet, richly flushing, AMONG the Epigrams of the Anthologia, there are some panegyrics on Anacreon, which I had translated, and originally intended as a kind of Coronis to the work: but I found, upon consideration, that they wanted variety; a frequent recurrence of the same thought, within the limits of an epitaph, to which they are confined, would render a collection of them rather uninteresting. I shall take the liberty, however, of subjoining a few, that I may not appear to have totally neglected those elegant tributes to the reputation of Anacreon. The four epigrams which I give are imputed to Antipater Sidonius. They are rendered, perhaps, with too much freedom; but, designing a | translation of all that are on the subject, I imagined it was necessary to enliven their uniformity by sometimes indulging in the liberties of paraphrase. Αντιπάτρου Σιδωνίου, εις Ανακρέοντα. ΘΑΛΛΟΙ τετρακορύμβος, Ανακρέον, αμφι σε κισσος άβρα τε λειμώνων πορφυρέων πεταλα πηγαι δ' αργινόεντος αναθλίβοιντο γαλακτος, ευώδες δ' απο γης που χεοιτο μεθυ, οφρα κε τοι σποδίη τε και ο εκ τέρψιν αρηται, ει δε τις φθιμενοις χρίμπτεται ευφρόσυνα, ω το φίλον σέρξας, φιλε, βαρβιτον, ω συν αοιδα παντα διάπλωσας και συν ερωτι βιον. AROUND the tomb, oh bard divine! Where soft thy hallow'd brow reposes, Long may the deathless ivy twine, And Summer pour her waste of roses! 'Antipater Sidonius, the author of this epigram, lived, according to Vossius, de Poetis Græcis, in the second year of the 169th Olympiad. He appears, from what Cicero and Quintilian have said of him, to have been a kind of improvvisatore. See Institut. Orat. lib. x, cap. 7.-There is nothing more known respecting this poet, except some particulars about his illness and death, which are mentioned as curious by Pliny and others; and there remain of his works but a few epigrams in the Anthologia, among which are these I have selected, upon Anacreon. Those remains have been sometimes imputed to another poet (a) of the same name, of whom Vossius gives us the following account: «Autipater Thessalonicensis vixit tempore Augusti Cæsaris, ut qui saltantem viderit Pyladem, sicut constat ex quodam ejus epigrammate Ανθολογίας, lib. iv, tit. εις Ορχη Spions. At eum ac Bathyllum primos fuisse pantomimos, ac sub Augusto claruisse, satis notum ex Dione, etc. etc. The reader, who thinks it worth observing, may find a strange oversight in Hoffman's quotation of this article from Vossius, Lexic. Univers. By the omission of a sentence he has made Vossius assert that the poet Antipater was one of the first pantomime dancers in Rome. And many a fount shall there distil, And many a rill refresh the flowers; But wine shall gush in every rill, And every fount be milky showers, Thus, shade of him whom Nature taught To tune his lyre and soul to pleasure, Who gave to love his warmest thought, Who gave to love his fondest measure! Thus, after death, if spirits feel, Thou mayst, from odours round thee streaming, A pulse of past enjoyment steal, And live again in blissful dreaming! Του αυτού, εις τον αυτον. ΤΥΜΒΟΣ Ανακρείοντος· ὁ Τηΐος ενθάδε κύκνος HERE sleeps Anacreon, in this ivied shade; This is the famous Simonides, whom Plato styled divine, though Le Fevre, in his Poètes Grecs, supposes that the epigrams under his name are all falsely imputed. The most considerable of his remains is a satirical poem upon women, preserved by Stobæus, Barnes, upon the epigram before us, mentions a version of it by poyos yuvackay. Brodæus, which is not to be found in that commentator; but he more than once confounds Brodeus with another annotator on the Anthologia, Vincentius Obsopeus, who has given a translation of the epi gram. (a) Pleraque tamen Thessalonicensi tribuenda videntur. BRUNCE, Lectiones et Emendat. We may judge from the lines I have just quoted, and the import of the epigram before us, that the works of Anacreon were perfect in the times of Simonides and Antipater. Obsopæus, the commentator, here appears to exult in their destruction, and telling us they were burned by the bishops and patriarchs, he adds, nec sane id necquicquam fecerunt, attributing to this outrage an effect which it could never produce. And still thy songs of soft Bathylla bloom, Του αυτού, εις τον αυτον. ΞΕΙΝΕ, ταφον παρα λιτον Ανακρείοντος αμείβων Ὡς ὁ Διονύσου μεμελημένος ουασε κώμος On stranger! if Anacreon's shell So shall my sleeping ashes thrill Του αυτού, εις τον αυτον. ΕΥΔΕΙΣ εν φθιμένοισιν, Ανακρεον, εσθλα πονήσας, εύδει δ' ἡ γλυκερη νυκτίλαλος κιθάρα, εύδει και Σμέρδις, το Ποθών εαρ, ᾧ συ μελισσών βαρβιτ', ανεκρούου νεκταρ εναρμόνιον. ηίθεου γαρ Έρωτος έφυς σκοπος· ες δε σε μουνον τοξα τε και σκολιας είχεν έκηβολίας. Ar length thy golden hours have wing'd their flight, And drowsy death that eyelid steepeth; 1 The spirit of Anacreon utters these verses from the tomb, some- Thy harp, that whisper'd through each lingering night, what mutatus ab illo, at least in simplicity of expression. -if Anacreon's shell Has ever taught thy heart to swell, etc.] We may guess, from the words εκ βιβλων έμών, that Anacreon was not merely a writer of billets-doux, as some French critics have called him. Amongst these M. Le Fevre, with all his professed admiration, has given our poet a character by no means of an elevated cast: Aussi c'est pour cela que la postérité L'a toujours justement d'âge en age chanté See the verses prefixed to his Poètes Grecs. This is unlike the language of Theocritus, to whom Anacreon is indebted for the following simple eulogium: Εις Ανακρέοντος ανδριαντα. Θάσαι τον ανδριαντα τουτον, ω ξενε, των προσθ' ει τι περισσον οδοποιων. Upon the Statue of Anacreon, The simplicity of this inscription has always delighted me; I have given it, I believe, as literally as a verse translation will allow. And drop thy goblet's richest tear, etc.] Thus Simonides, in another of his epitaphs on our poet: Και μιν αει τεγγοι νότερη δροσος, ὡς ὁ γέραιος Let vines, in clustering beauty wreathed, Now mutely in oblivion sleepeth! |