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To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to-morrow ne'er should shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimm'd their bloomy light,
Let us the festal hours beguile

With mantling cup and cordial smile ;

καταβρεχειν ὑπηνην. On account of this idea of perfuming the beard, Cornelius de Pauw pronounces the whole ode to be the spurious production of some lascivious monk, who was nursing his beard with unguents. But he should have known that this was an ancient eastern custom, which, if we may believe Savary, still exists: "Vous voyez, Monsieur (says this traveller), que l'usage antique de se parfumer la tête et la barbe, * célébré par le prophète Roi, subsiste encore de nos jours."-Lettre 12. Savary likewise cites this very ode of Anacreon. Angerianus has not thought the idea inconsistent; he has introduced it in the following lines:

Hæc mihi cura, rosis et cingere tempora myrto,
Et curas multo delapidare mero.

Hæc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo
Assyrio et dulces continuare jocos.

This be my care, to twine the rosy wreath,
And drench my sorrows in the ample bowl;
To let my beard th' Assyrian unguent breathe,
And give a loose to levity of soul!

"Sicut unguentum in capite quod descendit in barbam Aaron.-Psaume 133."

And shed from every bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine!
For death may come with brow unpleasant,
May come when least we wish him present,
And beckon to the sable shore,

And grimly bid us—drink no more !

ODE IX.*

I PRAY thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,

And let me sing, in wild delight,
"I will-I will be mad to-night!"

*The poet here is in a frenzy of enjoyment, and it is, indeed, "amabilis insania."

Furor di poesia,

Di lascivia, e di vino,

Triplicato furore,

Bacco, Apollo, et Amore.

This is, as Scaliger expresses it,

Ritratti del Cavalier Marino.

-Insanire dulce

Et sapidum furere furorem.

Alcmæon once, as legends tell,

Was frenzied by the fiends of hell;
Orestes too, with naked tread,

Frantic paced the mountain head;
And why?—a murder'd mother's shade
Before their conscious fancy play'd,
But I can ne'er a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed by me ;
Yet can I rave, in wild delight,
“I will-I will be mad to-night."
The son of Jove, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore,
And brandish'd, with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy :
And Ajax with tremendous. shield,
Infuriate scour'd the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no quiver hold,
No weapon but this flask of gold,
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scatter'd wreath of flowers;
Yet, yet can sing with wild delight,
"I will-I will be mad to-night!"

ODE X.*

TELL me how to punish thee,
For the mischief done to me?
Silly swallow! prating thing,
Shall I clip that wheeling wing?
Or, as Tereus did of old

(So the fabled tale is told),

*This ode is addressed to a swallow. I find from Degen and from Gail's index, that the German poet Weisse has imitated it, Scherz. Lieder. lib. ii. carm. 5; that Ramler also has imitated it, Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 335; and some others. See Gail de Editionibus.

We are referred by Degen to that stupid book, the Epistles of Alciphron, tenth epistle, third book; where Iophon complains to Eraston of being wakened, by the crowing of a cock, from his vision of riches.

Silly swallow! prating thing, etc.] The loquacity of the swallow was proverbialized; thus Nicostratus :

Ει το συνεχώς και πολλα και ταχέως λαλειν
Ην τε φρονειν παράσημον, αι χελιδόνες
Ελεγοντ' αν ήμων σωφρονέτεραι πολυ.

If in prating from morning till night,
A sign of our wisdom there be,
The swallows are wiser by right,

For they prattle much faster than we.

Or, as Tereus did of old, etc.] Modern poetry has confirmed the name of Philomel upon the nightingale; but many very respectable ancients assigned this metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel the swallow, as Anacreon does here.

Shall I tear that tongue away,
Tongue that utter'd such a lay?
How unthinking hast thou been!
Long before the dawn was seen,
When I slumber'd in a dream,
(Love was the delicious theme!)
Just when I was nearly blest,
Ah! thy matin broke my rest!

ODE XI.*

"TELL me, gentle youth, I pray thee,

What in purchase shall I

For this little waxen toy,

pay thee

Image of the Paphian boy?"
Thus I said the other day,

To a youth who pass'd my way:

"Sir," (he answer'd, and the while Answer'd all in Doric style,)

*It is difficult to preserve with any grace the narrative simplicity of this ode, and the humour of the turn with which it concludes. I feel that the translation must appear very vapid, if not ludicrous, to an English reader.

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