The bee awak'd-with anger wild The bee awak'd, and stung the child. To Venus quick he runs, he flies; traces of the same natural simplicity, which it appears to me to have preserved : Ερως ποτ' εν χορείαις Των παρθενων άωτον, Ως παρθενος μεν ουσα. Εγω, δε οἱ παραστας, As dancing o'er the enamell'd plain, And round her neck his arms he threw ; "Oh mother!—I am wounded through.— I die with pain-in sooth I do! Stung by some little angry thing, Saying, with smiles of infant joy, Zitto, in his Cappriciosi Pensieri, has given a translation of this ode of Anacreon. ODE XXXVI. IF hoarded gold possess'd the power And every hour should swell my store; Fontenelle has translated this ode, in his dialogue between Anacreon and Aristotle in the shades, where, on weighing the merits of both these personages, he bestows the prize of wisdom upon the poet. "The German imitators of this ode are, Lessing, in his poem 'Gestern Brüder,' &c.; Gleim, in the ode An den Tod;' and Schmidt in der Poet. Blumenl., Gotting. 1783, p. 7." - Degen. That when Death came, with shadowy pinion, To waft me to his bleak dominion, &c.] The commentators, who are so fond of disputing "de lanâ caprinâ,” have been very busy on the authority of the phrase ἵν' αν θανειν επελθη. The reading of iv αν Θανατος επελθη, which De Medenbach proposes in his Amonitates Literariæ, was already hinted by Le Fevre, who seldom suggests any thing worth notice I might, by bribes, my doom delay, Nor wealth nor grandeur can illume The goblet rich, the board of friends, Whose social 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 αριστον ανδρι θνητω. Δευτερον δε, καλον φυην γενεσθαι. Το τρίτον δε, πλουτειν αδόλως. Και το τεταρτον συνεβαν 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, sweet intercourse with those we love! 66 ODE XXXVII. 'Twas night, and many a circling bowl Compare with this ode the beautiful poem der Traum' of Uz." — Degen. Le Fevre, in a note upon this ode, enters into an elaborate and learned justification of drunkenness; and this is probably the cause of the severe reprehension which he appears to have suffered for his Anacreon. "Fuit olim fateor (says he in a note upon Longinus), cum Sapphonem amabam. Sed ex quo illa me perditissima fœmina pene miserum perdidit cum sceleratissimo suo congerrone, (Anacreontem dico, si nescis, Lector,) noli sperare, &c. &c." He adduces on this ode the authority of Plato, who allowed ebriety, at the Dionysian festivals, to men arrived at their fortieth year. He likewise quotes the following line from Alexis, which he says no one, who is not totally ignorant of the world, can hesitate to confess the truth of: Ουδεις φιλοποτης εστιν ανθρωπος κακος. |