War too has sullied Nature's charms, For gold provokes the world to arms: And oh the worst of all its arts, It rends asunder loving hearts. ODE XXX. "TWAS in a mocking dream of night- As a young bird's, and flew as fleet; And, strange to say, as swift as thought, I fear she whispers to my breast, Hath hung on many a woman's smile, I soon dissolv'd each passing vow, And ne'er was caught by love till now! Barnes imagines from this allegory, that our poet married very late in life. But I see nothing in the ode which alludes to matrimony, except it be the lead upon the feet of Cupid; and I agree in the opinion of Madame Dacier, in her life of the poet, that he was always too fond of pleasure to marry. ODE XXXI. ARM'D with hyacinthine rod, And try with him the rapid race. The design of this little fiction is to intimate, that much greater pain attends insensibility than can ever result from the tenderest impressions of love. Longepierre has quoted an ancient epigram which bears some similitude to this ode: Lecto compositus, vix prima silentia noctis Tu famulus meus, inquit, ames cum mille puellas, Exilio et pedibus nudis, tunicaque soluta, Nunc propero, nunc ire piget; rursumque redire Ecce tacent voces hominum, strepitusque ferarum, O'er many a torrent, wild and deep, Till my brow dropp'd with chilly dew. When Cupid came and snatch'd me from my bed, "What! (said the god) shall you, whose vows are known, Who love so many nymphs, thus sleep alone?" I rise and follow; all the night I stray, Passion my guide, and madness in my breast, The slave of love, the victim of despair! Till my brow dropp'd with chilly dew.] I have followed those who read τειρεν ίδρως for πειρεν ύδρος ; the former is partly anthorised by the MS. which reads πειρεν ίδρως. And now my soul, exhausted, dying, To my lip was faintly flying; &c.] In the original, he says, his heart flew to his nose; but our manner more naturally transfers it to the lips. Such is the effect that Plato tells us he felt from a kiss, in a distich quoted by Aulus Gellius: And now I thought the spark had fled, 66 Why hast thou been a foe to loving? Την ψυχην, Αγαθωνα φιλων, επι χείλεσιν εσχον. Whene'er thy nectar'd kiss I sip, And drink thy breath, in trance divine, Ready to fly and mix with thine. Aulus Gellius subjoins a paraphrase of this epigram, in which we find a number of those mignardises of expression, which mark the effemination of the Latin language. And fanning light his breezy pinion, Rescued my soul from death's dominion ;] "The facility with which Cupid recovers him, signifies that the sweets of love make us easily forget any solicitudes which he may occasion." La Fosse. - |