But oh, it is the worst of pain, ODE XXX.1 'T was in a mocking dream of night- ODE XXXI.2 ARMED with hyacinthine rod, This shall be my only curse, 1 Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. But I see nothing in the ode which alludes to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. 2 The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram which bears some similitude to this ode: Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis carpebam, et somno lumina victa dabam; cum me sævus Amor prensum, sursumque capillis excitat, et lacerum pervigilare jubet. tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas, solus lo, solus, dure jacere potes? exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta, omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio. nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire pænitet; et pudor est stare via media. ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum, et volucrum cantus, turbaque fida canum. solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque, et sequor imperium, sæve Cupido, tuum. Upon my couch I lay, at night profound, My languid eyes in magic slumber bound, When Cupid came and snatched me from my bed, And forced me many a weary way to tread. "What! (said the god) shall you, whose vows are known, Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?" Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, 3 Till my brow dropt with chilly dew. I have followed those who read τείρεν ιδρώς for πεῖρεν ύδρος; the former is partly authorized by the MS. which reads πειρεν ιδρώς. 4 And now my soul, exhausted, dying, In the original, he says, his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius: τὴν ψυχὴν, ̓Αγαθῶνα φιλῶν, ἐπὶ χείλεσιν ἔσχον. ἦλθε γὰρ ἡ τλήμων ὡς διαβησομένη, Whene'er thy nectared kiss I sip, And drink thy breath, in trance divine, Ready to fly and mix with thine. Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find a number of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language. 1 And fanning light his breezy pinion, Rescued my soul from death's dominion. "The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion." -LA FOSSE. 2 We here have the poet, in his true attributes, reclining upon myrtles, with Cupid for his cup-bearer. Some interpreters have ruined the picture by making Epws the name of his slave. None but Love should fill the goblet of Anacreon. Sappho, in one of her fragments, has assigned this office to Venus. Ελθὲ, Κύπρι, χρυσείαισιν ἐν κυλίκεσσιν ἁβροῖς συμμεμιγμέ τον θαλίαισι νέκταρ οἰνοχοῦσα τούτοισι τοῖς ἑταῖροις ἐμοῖς γε καὶ σοῖς. may Which be thus paraphrased: - Not a soul that is not thine! "Compare with this ode [says the German commentator] the beautiful poem in Ramler's 'Lyr. Blumenlese,' lib. iv. p. 296., Amor als Diener.' 999 Affect the still, cold sense of death? To brighten even death's cold hour. ODE XXXIII.3 'T WAS noon of night, when round the pole The sullen Bear is seen to roll; I heard the baby's tale of woe; I trimmed my lamp and oped the gate. 4 3 M. Bernard, the author of "L'Art d'aimer," has written a ballet called "Les Surprises de l'Amour," in which the subject of the third entrée is Anacreon, and the story of this ode suggests one of the scenes. Euvres de Bernard, Anac. scene 4. The German annotator refers us here to an imitation by Uz, lib. iii., "Amor und sein Bruder; " and a poem of Kleist, "Die Heilung." La Fontaine has translated, or rather imitated, this ode. 4"And who art thou," I waking cry, 'That bid'st my blissful visions fly?" Anacreon appears to have been a voluptuary even in dreaming, by the lively regret which he expresses at being disturbed from his visionary enjoyments. See the Odes x. and xxxvii. 'Twas Love! the little wandering sprite,1 And now the embers' genial ray Had warmed his anxious fears away; "I pray thee,' ," said the wanton child, (My bosom trembled as he smiled,) "I pray thee let me try my bow, For through the rain I've wandered so, That much I fear the midnight shower Has injured its elastic power." The fatal bow the urchin drew; Swift from the string the arrow flew; As swiftly flew as glancing flame, And to my inmost spirit came! "Fare thee well," I heard him say, As laughing wild he winged away; "Fare thee well, for now I know The rain has not relaxt my bow; It still can send a thrilling dart, As thou shalt own with all thy heart!" ODE XXXIV.2 OH thou, of all creation blest, 1 'T was Love! the little wandering sprite, etc. See the beautiful description of Cupid, by Moschus, in his first idyl. 2 In a Latin ode addressed to the grasshopper, Rapin has preserved some of the thoughts of our author: O quæ virenti graminis in toro, seu forte adultis floribus incubas, See what Licetus says about grasshoppers, cap. 93. and 185. And chirp thy song with such a glee,3 'T was he who gave that voice to thee, 'T is he who tunes thy minstrelsy. 1 Unworn by age's dim decline, The fadeless blooms of youth are thine. Melodious insect, child of earth,5 In wisdom mirthful, wise in mirth; Exempt from every weak decay, That withers vulgar frames away; 3 And chirp thy song with such a glee, etc. "Some authors have affirmed [says Madame Dacier], that it is only male grasshoppers which sing, and that the females are silent; and on this circumstance is founded a bon-mot of Xenarchus, the comic poet, who says, eir' eioiv oi τέττιγες οὐκ εὐδαίμονες, ὧν ταῖς γυναιξὶν οὐδ ̓ ὅτι οὖν φωνῆς ἐνί; Gare not the grasshoppers happy in having dumb wives?"" This note is originally Henry Stephen's; but I choose rather to make a lady my authority for it. 4 The Muses love thy shrilly tone; etc. Phile, de Animal. Proprietat. calls this insect Movoais pilos, the darling of the Muses; and Movσwv opviv, the bird of the Muses; and we find Plato compared for his eloquence to the grasshopper, in the following punning lines of Timon, preserved by Diogenes Laertius: τῶν πάντων δ ̓ ἡγεῖτο πλατύστατος, ἀλλ ̓ ἀγορήτης ἡδυέπης τέττιξιν ἰσόγραφος, οἱ θ ̓ ̔Εκαδήμου δένδρει ἐφεζόμενοι όπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι. This last line is borrowed from Homer's Iliad, y, where there occurs the very same simile. 5 Melodious insect, child of earth. Longepierre has quoted the two first lines of an epigram of Antipater, from the first book of the "Anthologia," where he prefers the grasshop. per to the swan: ἀρκεῖ τέττιγας μεθύσαι δροσος, ἀλλὰ πίοντες ἀείδειν κύκνων εἰσὶ γεγωνότεροι. In dew, that drops from morning's wings, And, drunk with dew, his matin sings With not a drop of blood to stain ODE XXXV.1 CUPID once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; 1 Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyl; but is very inferior, I think, to his original, in delicacy of point and naïveté of expression. Spenser, in one of his smaller compositions, has sported more diffusely on the same subject. The poem to which I allude, begins thus: Upon a day, as Love lay sweetly slumbering A gentle bee, with his loud trumpet murmuring, In Almeloveen's collection of epigrams, there is one by Luxorius, correspondent somewhat with the turn of Anacreon, where Love complains to his mother of being wounded by a rose. The ode before us is the very flower of simplicity. The infantine complainings of the little god, and the natural and impressive reflections which they draw from Venus, are beauties of inimitable grace. I may be pardoned, perhaps, for introducing here another of Menage's Anacreontics, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of the same natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved: Ερως ποτ' ἐν χορείαις As dancing o'er the enamelled plain, - Within the leaves a slumbering bee; IF hoarded gold possest the power To waft me to his bleak dominion, "Be not ashamed, my boy," I cried, For I was lingering by his side; "Corinna and thy lovely mother, Believe me, are so like each other, That clearest eyes are oft betrayed, And take thy Venus for the maid." Zitto, in his "Cappriciosi Pensieri," has given a translation of this ode of Anacreon. 2 Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where, on weighing the merits of both these personages, he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet. "The German imitators of this ode are, Lessing, in his poem, 'Gestern Brüder,' etc.; Gleim, in the ode, An den Tod; ' and Schmidt, in ' Der Poet.' Blumenl., Gotting. 1783, p. 7. "DEGEN. 3 That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, To waft me to his bleak dominion, etc. The commentators, who are so fond of disputing de lanâ caprinâ, have been very busy on the authority of the phrase iν ἂν θανεῖν ἐπέλθη. The reading of ἵν ̓ ἂν Θάνατος ἐπέλθῃ, which De Medenbach proposes in his "Amoenitates Literariæ," was already hinted by Le Fèvre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice. Why should we vainly mourn our fate, ODE XXXVII.2 'T WAS night, and many a circling bowl - Some ruddy striplings, who lookt on With cheeks, that like the wine-god's shone, 1 The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose social souls the goblet blends. This communion of friendship, which sweetened the bowl of Anacreon, has not been forgotten by the author of the following scholium, where the blessings of life are enumerated with proverbial simplicity: — υγιαίνειν μὲν ἄριστον ἀνδρὶ θνητῷ. δεύτερον δὲ, καλὸν φυὴν γένεσθαι. τὸ τριτὸν δὲ, πλουτεῖν ἀδολώς. καὶ τὸ τέταρτον συνέβαν μετὰ τῶν φίλων. Of mortal blessing here the first is health, And next those charms by which the eye we move; The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth, And then, sweet intercourse with those we love! 2 "Compare with this ode the beautiful poem 'Der Traum' of Uz."-Degen. Le Fèvre, in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably the cause of the severe reprehension which he appears to have suffered for his Anacreon. "Fuit olim fateor [says he in a note upon Longinus], cum Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima fæmina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone, (Anacreontem dico, si nescis, Lector, noli sperare," etc. He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of: ουδεὶς φιλοπότης ἐστὶν ἄνθρωπος κακός. "No lover of drinking was ever a vicious man Saw me chasing, free and wild, Though none could doubt they envied me. A kiss that Jove himself might sip- Again, sweet sleep, that scene restore, Oh! let me dream it o'er and o'er!" 4 4 "Again, sweet sleep, that scene restore, Oh! let me dream it o'er and o'er!" Doctor Johnson, in his preface to Shakspeare, animadverting upon the commentators of that poet, who pretended, in every little coincidence of thought, to detect an imitation of some ancient poet, alludes in the following words to the line of Anacreon before us: "I have been told that when Caliban, after a pleasing dream, says, 'I cried to sleep again,' the author imitates Anacreon, who had, like any other man, the same wish on the same occasion." 5 "Compare with this beautiful ode to Bacchus the verses of Hagedorn, lib. v., 'Das Gesellschaftliche;' and of Bürger, p. 51, etc. — DEGEN. 6 Him, that the snowy Queen of Charms So oft has fondled in her arms. Robertellus, upon the epithalamium of Catullus, mentions an ingenious derivation of Cythe |