Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy,
Distil the grape in drops of joy,
And while he smiles at every tear,
Let warm-ey'd Venus, dancing near,
With spirits of the genial bed,
The dewy herbage deftly tread.

Let Love be there, without his arms,

In timid nakedness of charms;

And all the Graces, link'd with Love,

Stray, laughing, through the shadowy grove;
While rosy boys disporting round,

In circlets trip the velvet ground.

Let Love be there, without his arms, &c.] Thus Sannazaro in the eclogue of Gallicio nell' Arcadia:

Vegnan li vaghi Amori
Senza fiammelle, ò strali,

Scherzando insieme pargoletti e nudi.

Fluttering on the busy wing,

A train of naked Cupids came,
Sporting around in harmless ring,
Without a dart, without a flame.

And thus in the Pervigilium Veneris :

:

Ite nymphæ, posuit arma, feriatus est amor.

ye nymphs, in safety stray,

Love is disarm'd
Your bosoms now may boast a holiday!

But ah! if there Apollo toys,
I tremble for the rosy boys.

But ah! if there Apollo toys,

I tremble for the rosy boys.] An allusion to the fable, that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth, while playing with him at quoits. "This (says M. La Fosse) is assuredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other."

The Italian translators, to save themselves the trouble of a note, have taken the liberty of making Anacreon himself explain this fable. Thus Salvini, the most literal of any of

them:

Ma con lor non giuochi Apollo;
Che in fiero risco

Col duro disco

A Giacinto fiaccò il collo.

ODE VI.

As late I sought the spangled bowers,
To cull a wreath of matin flowers,
Where many an early rose was weeping,
I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.

This beautiful fiction, which the commentators have attributed to Julian, a royal poet, the Vatican MS. pronounces to be the genuine offspring of Anacreon. It has, indeed, all the

features of the parent:

et facile insciis

Noscitetur ab omnibus.

Where many an early rose was weeping,

I found the urchin Cupid sleeping.] This idea is prettily imitated in the following epigram by Andreas Naugerius: ·

Florentes dum forte vagans mea Hyella per hortos
Texit odoratis lilia cana rosis,

Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem

Et simul annexis floribus implicuit.
Luctatur primo, et contra nitentibus alis
Indomitus tentat solvere vincla puer :
Mox ubi lacteolas et dignas matre papillas
Vidit et ora ipsos nata movere Deos,
Impositosque coma ambrosios ut sentit odores
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs ;

I caught the boy, a goblet's tide
Was richly mantling by my side,
I caught him by his downy wing,
And whelm'd him in the racy spring.
Then drank I down the poison'd bowl.
And Love now nestles in my soul.
Oh yes, my soul is Cupid's nest,

I feel him fluttering in my breast.

“I (dixit) mea, quære novum tibi, mater, Amorem,
Imperio sedes hæc erit apta meo."

As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove,
A wreath of many mingled flow'rets wove,
Within a rose a sleeping Love she found,
And in the twisted wreaths the baby bound.
Awhile he struggled, and impatient tried
To break the rosy bonds the virgin tied;
But when he saw her bosom's radiant swell,
Her features, where the eye of Jove might dwell;
And caught th' ambrosial odours of her hair,
Rich as the breathings of Arabian air;
"Oh! mother Venus," (said the raptur'd child,
By charms, of more than mortal bloom, beguil'd,)

66

66

Go, seek another boy, thou'st lost thine own,

Hyella's arms shall now be Cupid's throne!"

This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodovico Dolce

in a poem, beginning

Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro fiore
Vicina a un rio di chiare et lucid' onde,
Lidia, &c. &c.

ODE VII.

THE Women tell me every day
That all my bloom has past away.
"Behold," the pretty wantons cry,
"Behold this mirror with a sigh;
The locks upon thy brow are few,
And, like the rest, they're withering too!"
Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,

I'm sure I neither know nor care;

Alberti has imitated this ode in a poem, beginning

Nisa mi dice e Clori

Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio.

Whether decline has thinn'd my hair,

I'm sure I neither know nor care;] Henry Stephen very justly remarks the elegant negligence of expression in the original here:

Εγω δε τας κομας μεν,

Ειτ εισιν, ειτ' απήλθον,
Ουκ οίδα.

And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus, what he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of manner :

.

Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit. Longepierre was a good critic; but perhaps the line which