Hark! they whisper, as they roll,

Calm persuasion to the soul;

Tell

me, tell me, is not this

All a stilly scene of bliss?

Who, my girl, would pass it by?
Surely neither you nor I!

ODE XX.

*ONE day the Muses twined the hands Of baby Love, with flowery bands;

Who, my girl, would pass it by?

Surely neither you nor I!] What a finish he gives to the picture by the simple exclamation of the original! In these delicate turns he is inimitable; and yet, hear what a French translator says on the passage: This conclusion appeared to me too trifling after such a description, and I thought proper to add somewhat to the strength of the original."

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* By this allegory of the Muses making Cupid the prisoner of Beauty, Anacreon seems to insinuate the softening influence which a cultivation of poetry has over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty.

Though in the following epigram, by the philosopher Plato, which is found in the third book of Diogenes Laertius, the Muses are made to disavow all the influence of Love:

Α Κυπρις Μεσαισι, κορασία των Αφροδίταν
Τιματ' η τον Ερωτα ύμμιν εφοπλισομαι.

And to celestial Beauty gave

The captive infant as her slave.

Αι Μοισαι ποτι Κυπριν. Αρει τα σωμυλα ταυτα
Ἡμιν 8 πεταται τέτο το παιδάριον.

"Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids;"
Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms-
"Or Love shall flutter in your classic shades,

"And make your grove the camp of Paphian arms!"

"No," said the virgins of the tuneful bower,

"We scorn thine own and all thy urchin's art;

Though Mars has trembled at the infant's power,
"His shaft is pointless o'er a Muse's heart!"

There is a sonnet by Benedetto Guidi, the thought of which was suggested by this ode.

Scherzava dentro all' auree chiome Amore

Dell' alma donna della vita mia :

E tanta era il piacer ch' ei ne sentia,
Che non sapea, né volea uscirne fore.
Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core,
Sì, che per forza ancor convien che stia :
Tai lacci alta beltate orditi avia

Del crespo crin; per farsi eterno onore.
Onde offre infin dal ciel degna mercede,
A chi scioglie il figliuol la bella dea
Da tanti nodi, in ch' ella stretto il vede.
Ma ei vinto a due occhi l' arme cede:
Et t' affatichi indarno, Citerea ;

Che s' altri 'I scioglie, egli a legar si riede.

Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's hair,

Traced every lock with fond delays,

And, doting, linger'd there.

His mother comes with many a toy,

To ransom her beloved boy;

And soon he found 'twere vain to fly,
His heart was close confined;

And every curlet was a tie,

A chain by Beauty twined.

Now Venus seeks her boy's release,
With ransom from above:
But, Venus ! let thy efforts cease,

For Love's the slave of love.

And, should we loose his golden chain,
The prisoner would return again!

His mother comes, with many a toy,

To ransom her beloved boy; etc.] Venus thus proclaims the reward for her fugitive child in the first idyl of Moschus : Ὁ μάνυτας γερας ἕξει,

Μισθος τοις το φίλαμα το Κύπριδος, ην

αγάγης νιν

Ου γυμνον το φίλαμα, το δ' ω ξενε, και πλεον ἕξεις.
On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show,
A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow;

But he, who can bring me the wanderer here,

Shall have something more rapturous, something more dear. This "something more" is the quidquid post oscula dulce of Secundus.

After this ode, there follow in the Vatican MS. these extraordinary lines:

Ηδύμελης Ανακρέων

Ηδύμελης δε Σαπφω

Πινδαρικον το δε μοι μέλος

Συγκέρασας τις εγχεοι

Τα τρία ταυτα μοι δοκει

Και Διονυσος εισελθών

His mother sues, but all in vain!

He ne'er will leave his chains again.
Nay, should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.

"If this," he cries, " a bondage be,
"Who could wish for liberty?"

ODE XXI.*

OBSERVE when mother earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky;

Και Ραφιν παραχροος

Και αυτος Ερως και επιειν.

These lines, which appear to me to have as little sense as metre, are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber.

*The commentators who have endeavoured to throw the chains of precision over the spirit of this beautiful trifle, require too much from Anacreontic philosophy. Monsieur Gail very wisely thinks that the poet uses the epithet μsday, because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly than any other; and accordingly he indulges us with an experimental disquisition on the subject. See Gail's notes.

One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode, in an epitaph on a drunkard :

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus

Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit.
Sic bibit assiduè fontes et flumina Pontus,

And then the dewy cordial gives
To every thirsty plant that lives.
The vapours, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.

Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne te igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse;
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manus.
Hippolytus Capilupus.

While life was mine, the little hour
In drinking still unvaried flew ;
I drank as earth imbibes the shower,
Or as the rainbow drinks the dew;

As ocean quaffs the rivers up,
Or flushing sun inhales the sea:
Silenus trembled at my cup,

And Bacchus was outdone by me!

I cannot omit citing those remarkable lines of Shakespeare, where the thoughts of the ode before us are preserved with such striking similitude :

TIMON, ACT. IV.

I'll example you with thievery.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea. The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The mounds into salt tears. The earth's a thief,
That feeds, and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrements.