ODE XXXV. CUPID once upon a bed Of roses laid his weary head; 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 All in his mother's lap; 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 hope I shall be pardoned for introducing another Greek Anacreontic of Monsieur Menage, not for its similitude to the subject of this ode, but for some faint traces of this natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved : VOL. VII. Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις 6 Luckless urchin not to see Within the leaves a slumbering bee! Μητης, ερυθριάζει, Ὡς παρθένος μεν ὅσα. Εγω δὲ οι παραςας, Και οι βλέποντες οξυ. As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, The modest virgin blush'd with shame! Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated this ode of Anacreon. The bee awaked-with anger wild To Venus quick he runs, he flies! ; ODE XXXVI.* If hoarded gold possess'd a power That when the Fates would send their minion, To waft me off on shadowy pinion, I might some hours of life obtain, And bribe him back to hell again. *Monsieur Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet. The German imitators of it 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. That when the Fates would send their minion, To waft me off on shadowy pinion, etc.] The commentators, who are so fond of disputing " de lanâ caprinâ,” have been very busy on the authority of the phrase in av lavery επελθη. The reading of iv dν Θανατος επελθη, which De Medenbach proposes in his Amoenitates Litterariæ, was already hinted by Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice. But, since we ne'er can charm away The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose flowing 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 μεν αρίσον ανδρι ανήτω. Δευτερον δε, καλον φυην γενεσθαι. Το τρίτον δε, πλάτειν αδολώς. Και το τέταρτον, συνήβαν μετα των φίλων. Of mortal blessings here, the first is health, And next, those charms by which the eye we move; The third is wealth, unwounding guiltless wealth, And then, an intercourse with those we love! |