Cupid bade me wing my pace,
And try with him the rapid race.
O'er the wild torrent, rude and deep,
By tangled brake and pendent steep,

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 Io, solus, dure jacere potes?

Exilio et pedibus nudis, tanicaque soluta,
Omne iter impedio, nullum iter expedio.
Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire
Poenitet; 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 snatch'd 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?"

I rise and follow; all the night I stray,

Unshelter'd, trembling, doubtful of my way.
Tracing with naked foot the painful track,
Loth to proceed, yet fearful to go back.
Yes, at that hour, when Nature seems interr'd,
Nor warbling birds, nor lowing flocks are heard;
I, I alone, a fugitive from rest,

Passion my guide, and madness in my breast,
Wander the world around, unknowing where,
The slave of love, the victim of despair!

With weary foot I panting flew,

My brow was chill with drops of dew.
And now my soul, exhausted, dying,
To my lip was faintly flying;

And now I thought the spark had fled
When Cupid hover'd o'er my head,
And, fanning light his breezy plume,
Recall'd me from my languid gloom;

My brow was chill with drops of dew.] I have followed those who read Tiger idpws for welpev udpos; the former is partly authorized by the Ms. which reads πειρεν ίδρως.

And now my soul, exhausted, dying,

To my lip was faintly flying; etc.] 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 :

Την ψυχην Αγαθωνα φίλων, επι χείλεσιν εσχον.
Ηλθε γαρ ή τλημων ὡς διαβησομένη.

Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip,

And drink thy breath, in melting twine,

My soul then flutters to my lip,

Ready to fly and mix with thine.

Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find many of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language.

"The facility with

And, fanning light his breezy plume, Recall'd me from my languid gloom.] which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion." La Fosse.

Then said, in accents half-reproving,

Why hast thou been a foe to loving?"

ODE XXXII.*

STREW me a breathing bed of leaves,
Where lotus with the myrtle weaves;

*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 has assigned this office to Venus. in a fragment. Ελθε, Κυπρι, χρυσείαισιν εν κυλίκεσσιν άβροις συμμεμιγ μενον θαλίαισι νεκταρ οινοχουσα τέτοισι τοις έταιροις

εμοίς γε και σοις.

Which

66

may be thus paraphrased :

Hither, Venus! queen of kisses,
This shall be the night of blisses!
This the night, to friendship dear,
Thou shalt be our Hebe here.
Fill the golden brimmer high,
Let it sparkle like thine eye!
Bid the rosy current gush,
Let it mantle like thy blush!
Venus! hast thou e'er above
Seen a feast so rich in love?
Not a soul that is not mine!

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."

And while in luxury's dream I sink,
Let me the balm of Bacchus drink!
In this delicious hour of joy

Young Love shall be my goblet-boy;
Folding his little golden vest,

With cinctures, round his snowy breast,
Himself shall hover by my side,

And minister the racy tide!

Swift as the wheels that kindling roll,
Our life is hurrying to the goal:
A scanty dust to feed the wind,
Is all the trace 'twill leave behind.
Why do we shed the rose's bloom
Upon the cold, insensate tomb!

Can flowery breeze, or odour's breath,
Affect the slumbering chill of death?
No, no;
I ask no balm to steep

With fragrant tears my bed of sleep :
But now, while every pulse is glowing,
Now let me breathe the balsam flowing;

Now let the rose with blush of fire,

Upon my brow its scent expire ;

And bring the nymph with floating eye,

Oh! she will teach me how to die!

Yes, Cupid! ere my soul retire,
To join the blest Elysian choir,

With wine, and love, and blisses dear,
I'll make my own Elysium here!

115

ODE XXXIII.*

'Twas noon of night, when round the pole
The sullen Bear is seen to roll;

And mortals, wearied with the day,
Are slumbering all their cares away :
An infant, at that dreary hour,
Came weeping to my silent bower,
And waked me with a piteous prayer,
To save him from the midnight air!

* Monsieur 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 OEuvres de Bernard, this ode suggests one of the scenes.

Anac. scene 4th.

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.