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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,
About him flew by hap, etc. etc.

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
Των παρθένων αυτον
Την μοι φιλην Κορίνναν
Ὡς είδεν, ὡς προς αυτην
Προσέδραμε τραχηλο
Διδύμας τε χειρας απτών
Φιλεί με, μητες, είπε.
Καλεμένη Κορίννα,

6

Luckless urchin not to see

Within the leaves a slumbering bee!

Μητης, ερυθριάζει,

Ὡς παρθένος μεν ὅσα.
Κ' αυτος δε δυσχεραίνων,
Ως ομμασι πλανηθείς,
Έρως ερυθριάζει.

Εγω δὲ οι παραςας,
Μη δυσχεραινε, φημί.
Κυπριν τε και Κορίνναν
Διαγνώσαι 8κ έχεσι

Και οι βλέποντες οξυ.

As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain,
The flow'ret of the virgin train,
My soul's Corinna, lightly play'd,
Young Cupid saw the graceful maid;
He saw, and in a moment flew,
And round her neck his arms he threw;
And said, with smiles of infant joy,
"Oh! kiss me, mother, kiss thy boy!"
Unconscious of a mother's name,

The modest virgin blush'd with shame!
And angry Cupid, scarce believing
That vision could be so deceiving,
Thus to mistake his Cyprian dame,
The little infant blush'd with shame.
"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 betray'd,
And take thy Venus for the maid."

Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has translated this ode of Anacreon.

The bee awaked-with anger wild
The bee awaked and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;

To Venus quick he runs, he flies!
"Oh mother!-I am wounded through-
"I die with pain-in sooth I do!
"Stung by some little angry thing,
"Some serpent on a tiny wing-
"A bee it was-for once, I know,
"I heard a rustic call it so."
Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile
Then said, "My infant, if so much
"Thou feel the little wild bee's touch,
"How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,
"The hapless heart that's stung by thee!"

;

ODE XXXVI.*

If hoarded gold possess'd a power
To lengthen life's too fleeting hour,
And purchase from the hand of death
A little span, a moment's breath,
How I would love the precious ore!
And every day should swell my store;

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.

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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 mandate of that awful day,
Why do we vainly weep at fate,
And sigh for life's uncertain date?
The light of gold can ne'er illume
The dreary midnight of the tomb!
And why should I then pant for treasures?
Mine be the brilliant round of pleasures;
The goblet rich, the board of friends,
Whose flowing souls the goblet blends!
Mine be the nymph whose form 1eposes
Seductive on that bed of roses;
And oh! be mine the soul's excess,
Expiring in her warm caress !

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!

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