Or with gently-moving wings Fann'd the minstrel while he sings: On his harp I sink in slumbers, Dreaming still of dulcet numbers!

This is all-away — away — You have made me waste the day. How I've chatter'd! prating crow Never yet did chatter so.

ODE XVI.1

THOU, whose soft and rosy hues
Mimic form and soul infuse,'
Best of painters, come, portray
The lovely maid that's far away,'
Far away, my soul! thou art,

But I've thy beauties all by heart.
Paint her jetty ringlets playing,
Silky locks, like tendrils straying;*
And, if painting hath the skill
To make the spicy balm distil,5

This ode and the next may be called companion-pictures; they are highly finished, and give us an excellent idea of the taste of the ancients in beauty. Franciscus Junius quotes them in his third book" De Pictura Veterum."

This ode has been imitated by Ronsard, Giuliano Goselini, &c. &c. Scaliger alludes to it thus in his Anacreontica:

Olim lepore blando,

Litis versibus
Candidus Anacreon

Quam pingeret amicus

Descripsit Venerem suam.

The Teian bard of former days,

Attun'd his sweet descriptive lays,

And taught the painter's hand to trace

His fair beloved's every grace.

In the dialogue of Caspar Barlaus, entitled "An formosa șit duonda." the reader will find many curious ideas and descriptions of womanly beauty.

# Thou, whose soft and rosy hues

Mitic form and soul infuse I have followed here the reading of The Vatican MS. poder. Painting is called "the rosy art," either in reference to colouring, or as an indefinite epithet of excellence, from the association of beauty with that flower. Salvini has adopted this rading in his literal translation:

Della rosea arte signore.

* The Lovely maid that's far away. If this portrait of the poet's mistress be not merely ideal, the omission of her name is much to be regretted. Meleager, in an epigram on Anacreon, mentions "the golden Eurypyle" as his mistress.

Βεβληκώς χρυσ την χείρας επ' Ευρυπύλην.

4 Print her jetty ringlets playing,

bik, locks like tendrils straying:] The ancients have been very enthusiastic in their praises of the beauty of hair. Apuleius, in the med book of his Milesiacs, says, that Venus herself, if she were half, though surrounded by the Graces and the Loves, could not be asing even to her husband Vulean.

ste sichorus gave the epithet aλoxapos to the Graces, and Simonides bestowed the same upon the Muses. See Hadrian Junius's Disertation upon Hair.

To this passage of our poet, Selden alluded in a note on the Polyof dan of Drayton, Song the Second, where observing, that the epitet - black-haired" was given by some of the ancients to the cidens Isis, he says, " Nor will I swear, but that Anacreon (a man very judicious in the provoking motives of wanton love), intending

Let every little lock exhale
A sigh of perfume on the gale.
Where her tresses' curly flow
Darkles o'er the brow of snow,
Let her forehead beam to light,
Burnish'd as the ivory bright.
Let her eyebrows smoothly rise
In jetty arches o'er her eyes,
Each, a crescent gently gliding,
Just commingling, just dividing.

But, hast thou any sparkles warm,
The lightning of her eyes to form?
Let them effuse the azure rays
That in Minerva's glances blaze,
Mix'd with the liquid light that lies
In Cytherea's languid eyes."
O'er her nose and cheek be shed
Flushing white and soften'd red;
Mingling tints, as when there glows
In snowy milk the bashful rose."
Then her lip, so rich in blisses,
Sweet petitioner for kisses,

Rosy nest, where lurks Persuasion, Mutely courting Love's invasion.

Quai gli ha Ciprigna l'alma Dea d'Amore.

Tasso has painted in the same manner the eyes of Armida :-
Qual raggio in onda le scintilla un riso
Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo.
Within her humid, melting eyes
A brilliant ray of laughter lies,
Soft as the broken solar beam,
That trembles in the azure stream.

The mingled expression of dignity and tenderness, which Anacreon requires the painter to infuse into the eyes of his mistress, is more amply described in the subsequent ode. Both descriptions are so exquisitely touched, that the artist must have been great indeed, if he did not yield in painting to the poet.

Mingling fints, as when there glows

In snowy milk the bashful rose.] Thus Propertius, eleg. 3. lib. ii.
Utque rosa puro lacte natant folia.

And Davenant, in a little poem called "The Mistress,"
Catch as it falls the Scythian snow,
Bring blushing roses steep'd in milk.

Thus too Taygetus :

Quæ lac atque rosas vincis candore rubenti. These last words may perhaps defend the "flushing white" of the translation.

8 Then her lip, so rich in blisses,

Sweet petitioner for kisses,] The "lip, provoking kisses," in the original, is a strong and beautiful expression. Achilles Tatius speaks of χείλη μαλθακα προς τα φιλήματα, " Lips soft and delicate for kissing." A grave old commentator, Dionysius Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us with the apparent authority of experience, that "Suavius viros osculantur puellæ labiosa, quam quæ

Next, beneath the velvet chin,
Whose dimple hides a Love within,'
Mould her neck with grace descending,
In a heaven of beauty ending;

While countless charms, above, below,
Sport and flutter round its snow.
Now let a floating, lucid veil,
Shadow her form, but not conceal;2
A charm may peep, a hue may beam,
And leave the rest to Fancy's dream.
Enough-'tis she! 'tis all I seek;
It glows, it lives, it soon will speak!

ODE XVII.3

AND now with all thy pencil's truth,
Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth!
Let his hair, in masses bright,
Fall like floating rays of light;"
And there the raven's die confuse
With the golden sunbeam's hues.

sunt brevibus labris." And Æneas Sylvius, in his tedious uninteresting story of the loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he particularises the beauties of the heroine (in a very false and laboured style of latinity), describes her lips thus :-"Os parvum decensque, labia corallini coloris ad morsum aptissima."-Epist. 114. lib. i.

1 Next, beneath the velvet chin,

Whose dimple hides a love within, &c.] Madame Dacier has quoted here two pretty lines of Varro :

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem.

In her chin is a delicate dimple,

By Cupid's own finger imprest:

There Beauty, bewitchingly simple,
Has chosen her innocent nest.

2 Now let a floating, lucid veil, Shadow her form, but not conceal; &c.] This delicate art of description, which leaves imagination to complete the picture, has been seldom adopted in the imitations of this beautiful poem. Ronsard is exceptionably minute; and Politianus, in his charming portrait of a girl, full of rich and exquisite diction, has lifted the veil rather too much. The " questo che tu m' intendi" should be always left to fancy.

3 The reader, who wishes to acquire an accurate idea of the judgment of the ancients in beauty, will be indulged by consulting Junius de Pictura Veterum, lib. iii. c. 9., where he will find a very curious selection of descriptions and epithets of personal perfections. Junius compares this ode with a description of Theodoric, king of the Goths, in the second epistle, first book, of Sidonius Apollinaris.

4 Let his hair, in masses bright,

Fall like floating rays of light; &c.] He here describes the sunny hair, the "flava coma," which the ancients so much admired. The Romans gave this colour artificially to their hair. See Stanisl. Kobienzyck. de Luxu Romanorum.

5 Let no wreath, with artful twine, &c.] If the original here, which is particularly beautiful, can admit of any additional value, that value is conferred by Gray's admiration of it. See his letters to West.

Some annotators have quoted on this passage the description of Photis's hair in Apuleius; but nothing can be more distant from the simplicity of our poet's manner, than that affectation of richness which distinguishes the style of Apuleius.

But flush'd with manhood's early glow,

And guileless as the dews of dawn, &c.] Torrentius, upon the

Let no wreath, with artful twine,
The flowing of his locks confine;
But leave them loose to every breeze,
To take what shape and course they please.
Beneath the forehead, fair as snow,
But flush'd with manhood's early glow,
And guileless as the dews of dawn,"
Let the majestic brows be drawn,
Of ebon hue, enrich'd by gold,
Such as dark, shining snakes unfold.
Mix in his eyes the power alike,
With love to win, with awe to strike;"
Borrow from Mars his look of ire,
From Venus her soft glance of fire;
Blend them in such expression here,
That we by turns may hope and fear!

Now from the sunny apple seek
The velvet down that spreads his cheek;
And there, if art so far can go,

The' ingenuous blush of boyhood show.
While, for his mouth-but no,-in vain
Would worlds its witching charm explain.
Make it the very seat, the throne,

That Eloquence would claim her own ;s

Come esser puo ch' in un medesmo istante
Nascan de voi si nuove forme et tante?
Lieti, mesti, superbi, humil', altieri,
Vi mostrate in un punto, onde di speme,
Et di timor, de empiete, &c. &c.

Oh! tell me, brightly-beaming eye,
Whence in your little orbit lie
So many different traits of fire,
Expressing each a new desire.
Now with pride or scorn you darkle,
Now with love, with gladuess, sparkle,
While we who view the varying mirror,
Feel by turns both hope and terror.

Chevreau, citing the lines of our poet, in his critique on the poems of Malherbe, produces a Latin version of them from a mansscript which he had seen, entitled "Joan. Falconis Anacreontici Lusus."

8 That Eloquence would claim her own;] In the original, as in the preceding ode. Pitho, the goddess of persuasion, or eloquence. It was worthy of the delicate imagination of the Greeks to deify Persuasion, and give her the lips for her throne. We are here reminded of a very interesting fragment of Anacreon, preserved by the scholiast upon Pindar, and supposed to belong to a poem reflecting with some severity on Simonides, who was the first, we are told, that ever made a hireling of his muse :

Ουδ' αργυρη ποτ' έλαμψε Πειβα.
Nor yet had fair Persuasion shone
In silver splendours, not her own.

I see the run-god's portrait there;] The abrupt turn here is spirited, but requires some explanation. While the artist is purwing the portrait of Bathyllus, Anacreon, we must suppose, turns round and sees a picture of Apollo, which was intended for an altar at Samos. He then instantly tells the painter to cease his work; that this picture will serve for Bathyllus; and that, when he goes to Samos, he may make an Apollo of the portrait of the boy which he had begun.

Bathyllus (says Madame Dacier) could not be more elegantly praised, and this one passage does him more honour than the statue, however beautiful it might be, which Polycrates raised to bira."

4 An elegant translation of this ode, says Degen, may be found in Ramier's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. v. p. 403.

› Bring me wine in brimming urns, &c.] Orig www auvor. The amystis was a method of drinking used among the Thracians. Thus Horace, Threicia vincat amystide." Mad. Dacier, Longepierre, &c. sc.

Parrhasius, in his twenty-sixth epistle (Thesaur. Critic. vol. i.), explains the amystis as a draught to be exhausted without drawing breath, “uno haustu." A note in the margin of this epistle of Farrhasius says, “Politianus vestem esse putabat," but adds no reference.

• Give me all those humid flowers, &c.] According to the original reading of this line, the poet says, "Give me the flower of wine "Date fusculos Lyæi, as it is in the version of Elias Andreas; and

as Regnier has it, who supports the reading. The word Arfoc would undoubtedly bear this application, which is somewhat similar to its import in the epigram of Simonides upon Sophocles :

Έσβεσθής γεραια Σοφοκλέος, ανθος αοιδων

and flos in the Latin is frequently applied in the same mannerthus Cethegus is called by Ennius, Flos inlibatus populi, suadæque medulla, "The immaculate flower of the people, and the very marrow of persuasion." See these verses cited by Aulus Gellius, lib. xii., which Cicero praised, and Seneca thought ridiculous. But in the passage before us, if we admit exarar, according to Faber's conjecture, the sense is sufficiently clear, without having recourse to such refinements.

7 Every dewy rose I wear

Sheds its tears, and withers there.] There are some beautiful lines, by Angerianus, upon a garland, which I cannot resist quoting here:

Ante fores madida sic sic pendete corollæ,
Mane orto imponet Cælia vos capiti ;

At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor,
Dicite, non roris sed pluvia hæc lacrimæ.

By Celia's arbour all the night
Hang, humid wreath, the lover's vow ;
And haply, at the morning light,
My love shall twine thee round her brow.
Then, if upon her bosom bright

Some drops of dew shall fall from thee,
Tell her, they are not drops of night,
But tears of sorrow shed by me!

In the poem of Mr. Sheridan's, "Uncouth is this moss-covered grotto of stone," there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of Angerianus:

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may'st preserve
Some lingering drops of the night-fallen dew;
Let them fall on her bosom of snow, and they'll serve
As tears of my sorrow entrusted to you.

8 But to you, my burning heart, &c.] The transition here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned; but the commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a variety of readings and conjectures.

ODE XIX.

HERE recline you, gentle maid,2
Sweet is this embowering shade;
Sweet the young, the modest trees,
Ruffled by the kissing breeze;
Sweet the little founts that weep,
Lulling soft the mind to sleep;
Hark! they whisper as they roll,
Calm persuasion to the soul;
Tell me, tell me, is not this
All a stilly scene of bliss?
Who, my girl, would pass it by?
Surely neither you nor I.3

The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we almost feel a degree of coolness and freshness while we peruse it. Longepierre has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia, the following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode:

Έρχει και κατ' εμαν ίζευ πιτυν, & το μελιχρον
Προς μαλάκους έχει κεκλιμένα ζέφυρους,
Ηνίδι και κρουνισμα μελισταγές, ενθα μελίσδων
Ηδυν ερημαίοις ύπνον αγω καλάμοις.

Come, sit by the shadowy pine

That covers my sylvan retreat;
And see how the branches incline
The breathing of zephyr to meet.
See the fountain that, flowing, diffuses
Around me a glittering spray;
By its brink, as the traveller muses,

I soothe him to sleep with my lay.

2 Here recline you, gentle maid, &c.] The Vatican MS. reads Babulov, which renders the whole poem metaphorical. Some commentator suggests the reading of Sasvor, which makes a pun upon the name; a grace that Plato himself has condescended to in writing of his boy Armp. See the epigram of this philosopher, which I quote on the twenty-second ode.

There is another epigram by this philosopher, preserved in Laertius which turns upon the same word.

Αστηρ πριν μεν έλαμπες ενι ζωοισιν έωος

Νυν δε θανών λάμπεις έσπερος αν φθιμένοις.

In life thou wert my morning star,

But now that death has stol'n thy light,

Alas! thou shinest dim and far,

Like the pale beam that weeps at night.

In the Veneres Blyenburgica, under the head of "Allusiones," we find a number of such frigid conceits upon names, selected from the poets of the middle ages.

3 Who, my girl, would pass it by?

Surely neither you nor I.] The finish given to the picture by this simple exclamation τις αν ουν όρων παρελθοι. is inimitable. Yet a French translator says on the passage, "This conclusion appeared to me too trifling after such a description, and I thought proper to add somewhat to the strength of the original."

4 The poet appears, in this graceful allegory, to describe the softening influence which poetr; holds over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty. In the following epigram, however, by the philosopher Plato, (Diog. Laert. lib. 3.) the Muses are represented as disavowing the influence of Love.

Α Κύπρις Μουσαίσι, κορασία, την Αφροδίταν
Τιματ', ή τον Έρωτα ύμμιν εφοπλίσομαι.

Α ́ Μουσαι ποτε Κύπριν, Αρει τα στωμυλα ταύτα
Ημιν ου παταται τούτο το παιδάριον.

"Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids;
Thus to the Muscs spoke the Queen of Charms -
"Or Love shall flutter through your classic shades,
And make your grove the camp of Paphian arms!"
"No," said the virgins of the tuneful bower,
"We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art;

Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power,
His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart!"*

There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought of which was suggested by this ode.

Scherzava dentro all' auree chiome Amore

Dell' alma donna della vita mia:
E tanta era il piacer ch' ei ne sentia,
Che non sapea, nè volea uscirne fore.
Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core,
Sì, che per forza ancor convien che stia :
Tai lacci alta beltate orditi avia
Del crespo crin, per farsi eterno onore.
Onde offre infin dal ciel degna mercede,
A chi scioglie il figliuol la bella dea
Da tanti nodi, in ch' ella stretto il vede.
Ma ei vinto a due occhi l' arme cede:
Et t' affatichi indarno, Citerea ;
Che s' altri l' scioglie, cgli 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 twin'd.

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!

5 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 :

Ο μανέτας γύρας έξει,

Μισθος του, το φίλαμα το Κυπριδος ην δ' αγαγής των
Ου γυμνον το φίλαμα, το 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 :

Ηδύμελης Ανακρέων
Ηδύμελης δε Σαπφω
Πινδαρικόν το δε μας μέλος
Συγκέρασας τις εγχέας

Τα τρία ταύτα μοι δοκεί
Και Διονυσος εισέλθων
Και Παφνη παράγρσος
Και αυτός Ερως και επισ

ODE XXI.1

OESERVE 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.

The vapours, 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 XXII.

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the storm,
Was once a weeping matron's form;2
And Progne, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.
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!'

2

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 stol'n
From general excrements.

Timon of Athens, act. iv. sc. 3.

-a werping matron's form:] Niobe.-Ogilvie, in his Ey on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients, in remarking upon the Os 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 transfired 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

It is the wantonness, however, of a very graceful Muse: "ludit liter." The compliment of this ode is exquisitely delicate, and singular for the period in which Anacreon lived, when the sraie of love had not yet been graduated into all its little progresfire refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument 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 :

Είθ' ανεμος γενόμην, συ δε γε στείχουσα παρ' αυγάς,
Στηθεί γυμνώσαις, και με πνέοντα λάβοις.
Είθε ῥόδον γενομην υποπορφυρον, αέρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, κομίσαις στεθεσε χιούτοις.

Είθε κρινον γενόμην λευκοχροον, έφρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, μαλλον της χρονιας κορασης.

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!

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

Fascia crescentes domina 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.

S