Away, away, ye men of rules, What have I do with schools?
They"d make me learn, they"d make me think, But would they make me love and drink?
Teach me this, and let me swim My soul upon the goblet"s brim; Teach me this, and let me twine Some fond, responsive heart to mine, For, age begins to blanch my brow, I"ve time for naught but pleasure now.
Fly, and cool, my goblet"s glow At yonder fountain"s gelid flow; I"ll quaff, my boy, and calmly sink This soul to slumber as I drink.
Soon, too soon, my jocund slave, You"ll deck your master"s gra.s.sy grave; And there"s an end--for ah, you know They drink but little wine below!
[1] "This is doubtless the work of a more modern poet than Anacreon; for at the period when he lived rhetoricians were not known."--DEGEN.
Though this ode is found in the Vatican ma.n.u.script, I am much inclined to agree in this argument against its authenticity: for though the dawnings of the art of rhetoric might already have appeared, the first who gave it any celebrity was. Corax of Syracuse, and he flourished in the century after Anacreon.
ODE LIII.
When I behold the festive train Of dancing youth, I"m young again!
Memory wakes her magic trance, And wings me lightly through the dance.
Come, Cybeba, smiling maid!
Cull the flower and twine the braid; Bid the blush of summer"s rose Burn upon my forehead"s snows; And let me, while the wild and young Trip the mazy dance along, Fling my heap of years away, And be as wild, as young as they.
Hither haste, some cordial, soul!
Help to my lips the br.i.m.m.i.n.g bowl; And you shall see this h.o.a.ry sage Forget at once his locks and age.
He still can chant the festive hymn, He still can kiss the goblet"s brim;[1]
As deeply quaff, as largely fill, And play the fool right n.o.bly still.
[1] Wine is prescribed by Galen, as an excellent medicine for old men: "_Quod frigidos et humbribus expletos calefaciut_," etc.; but Nature was Anacreon"s physician.
There is a proverb in Eriphus, as quoted by Athenaeus, which says, "that wine makes an old man dance, whether he will or not."
ODE. LIV.[1]
Methinks, the pictured bull we see Is amorous Jove--it must be he!
How fondly blest he seems to bear That fairest of Phoenician fair!
How proud he b.r.e.a.s.t.s the foamy tide, And spurns the billowy surge aside!
Could any beast of vulgar vein, Undaunted thus defy the main?
No: he descends from climes above, He looks the G.o.d, he breathes of Jove!
[1] "This ode is written upon., a picture which represented the rape, of Europa."--MADAME DACIER.
It may probably have been a description of one of those coins, which the Sidonians struck off in honor of Europa, representing a woman carried across the sea by a bull. In the little treatise upon the G.o.ddess of Syria, attributed very" falsely to Lucian, there is mention of this coin, and of a temple dedicated by the Sidonians to Astarte, whom some, it appears, confounded with Europa.
ODE LV.[1]
While we invoke the wreathed spring, Resplendent rose! to thee we"ll sing; Resplendent rose, the flower of flowers, Whose breath perfumes the Olympian bowers; Whose virgin blush, of chastened dye, Enchants so much our mortal eye.
When pleasure"s spring-tide season glows.
The Graces love to wreathe the rose; And Venus, in its fresh-blown leaves, An emblem of herself perceives.
Oft hath the poet"s magic tongue The rose"s fair luxuriance sung; And long the Muses, heavenly maids, Have reared it in their tuneful shades.
When, at the early glance of morn, It sleeps upon the glittering thorn, "Tis sweet to dare the tangled fence To cull the timid floweret thence, And wipe with tender hand away The tear that on its blushes lay!
"Tis sweet to hold the infant stems, Yet dropping with Aurora"s gems, And fresh inhale the spicy sighs That from the weeping buds arise.
When revel reigns, when mirth is high, And Bacchus beams in every eye, Our rosy fillets scent exhale, And fill with balm the fainting gale.
There"s naught in nature bright or gay, Where roses do not shed their ray.
When morning paints the orient skies, Her fingers burn with roseate dyes;[2]
Young nymphs betray; the Rose"s hue, O"er whitest arms it kindles thro".
In Cytherea"s form it glows, And mingles with the living snows.
The rose distils a healing balm, The beating pulse of pain to calm; Preserves the cold inurned clay,[3]
And mocks the vestige of decay: And when, at length, in pale decline, Its florid beauties fade and pine, Sweet as in youth, its balmy breath Diffuses odor even in death!
Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung?
Listen,--for thus the tale is sung.
When, humid, from the silvery stream, Effusing beauty"s warmest beam, Venus appeared, in flushing hues, Mellowed by ocean"s briny dews; When, in the starry courts above, The pregnant brain of mighty Jove Disclosed the nymph of azure glance, The nymph who shakes the martial lance;-- Then, then, in strange eventful hour, The earth produced an infant flower, Which sprung, in blushing glories drest.
And wantoned o"er its parent breast.
The G.o.ds beheld this brilliant birth, And hailed the Rose, the boon of earth!
With nectar drops, a ruby tide, The sweetly orient buds they dyed,[4]
And bade them bloom, the flowers divine Of him who gave the glorious vine; And bade them on the spangled thorn Expand their bosoms to the morn.
[1] This ode is a brilliant panegyric on the rose. "All antiquity [says Barnes] has produced nothing more beautiful."
From the idea of peculiar excellence, which the ancients attached to this flower, arose a pretty proverbial expression, used by Aristophanes, according to Suidas "You have spoken roses."
[2] In the original here, he enumerates the many epithets of beauty, borrowed from roses, which were used by the poets. We see that poets were dignified in Greece with the t.i.tle of sages: even the careless Anacreon, who lived but for love and voluptuousness, was called by Plato the wise Anacreon--_fuit haec sapienta quondam_.
[3] He here alludes to the use of the rose in embalming; and, perhaps (as Barnes thinks), to the rosy unguent with which Venus anointed the corpse of Hector.
[4] The author of the "Pervigilium Veneris" (a poem attributed to Catullus, the style of which appears to me to have all the labored luxuriance of a much later period) ascribes the tincture of the rose to the blood from the wound of Adonis.