Still every year, and all the year, A flight of loves engender here; And some their infant plumage try, While in the shell, impregn'd with fires, To chase these cupids from my heart? They will for ever nestle here! ODE XXVI.* THY harp may sing of Troy's alarms, A host of quiver'd cupids flew ; "The German poet Uz has imitated this ode. Compare also Weisse Scherz. Lieder. lib. iii. der Soldat," Gail, Degen. No-from an eye of liquid blue, A host of quiver'd cupids flew.] Longepierre has quoted part of an epigram from the seventh book of the Anthologia, which has a fancy something like this: Ου με λεληθας Τοξοτα, Ζηνοφίλας ομμασι κρυπτομένος. Archer Love! though slily creeping, I saw thee through the curtain peeping, The poets abound with conceits on the archery of the eyes, And now my heart all bleeding lies ODE XXVII.* WE read the flying courser's name The inlet to his bosom lies; but few have turned the thought so naturally as Anacreon. Ronsard gives to the eyes of his mistress "un petit camp d'amours." * This ode forms a part of the preceding in the Vatican MS. but I have conformed to the editions in translating them separately. Compare with this (says Degen) the poem of Ramler Wahrzeichen der Liebe, in Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 313." But in the lover's glowing eyes, The inlet to his bosom lies.] "We cannot see into the heart," says Madame Dacier. But the lover answers Il cor ne gli occhi e ne la fronte ho scritto. Monsieur La Fosse has given the following lines, as enlarging on the thought of Anacreon: Through them we see the small faint mark, ODE XXVIII. As in the Lemnian caves of fire, Lorsque je vois un amant, Il cache en vain son tourment, Sa langueur, son embarras, In vain the lover tries to veil The flame which in his bosom lies; His silence speaks e'en more than they. *This ode is referred to by La Mothe le Vayer, who, I believe, was the author of that curious little work, called "Hexameron Rustique." He makes use of this, as well as the thirty-fifth, in his ingenious but indelicate explanation of Homer's Cave of the Nymphs. Journée Quatrième. And Love (alas! the victim-heart) And Love (alas! the victim-heart) Tinges with gall the burning dart.] Thus Claudian- The son of Venus dips his darts of flame. See the ninety-first emblem of Alciatus, on the close connexion which subsists between sweets and bitterness. Apes ideo pungunt (says Petronius) quia ubi dulce, ibi et acidum invenies. The allegorical description of Cupid's employment, in Horace, may vie with this before us in fancy, though not in delicacy: -ferus et Cupido Semper ardentes acuens sagittas Cote cruentâ. And Cupid, sharpening all his fiery darts Upon a whetstone stain'd with blood of hearts. Secundus has borrowed this, but has somewhat softened the image by the omission of the epithet "cruenta.' Fallor an ardentes acuebat cote sagittas? Eleg. 1. |