Next, beneath the velvet chin,
Whose dimple hides a Love within,'
Mould her neck with grace descending,
In a heaven of beauty ending;
While countless charms, above, below,
Sport and flutter round its snow.
Now let a floating, lucid veil,
Shadow her form, but not conceal ;
A charm may peep, a hue may beam,
And leave the rest to Fancy's dream.
Enough 'tis she! 'tis all I seek;
It glows, it lives, it soon will speak!

ODE XVII.3

AND now with all thy pencil's truth,
Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth!
Let his hair, in masses bright,
Fall like floating rays of light ;*

in the original, is a strong and beautiful expression. Achilles Tatius speaks of xeiàn padðaka zρos тa piλnuara, "Lips soft and delicate for kissing." A grave old commentator, Dionysius Lambinus, in his notes upon Lucretius, tells us with the apparent authority of experience, that "Suavius viros osculantur puellæ labiosæ, quam quæ sunt brevibus labris." And Eneas Sylvius, in his tedious uninteresting story of the loves of Euryalus and Lucretia, where he parCrularizes the beauties of the heroine, (in a very false and labored style of latinity,) describes her lips thus:-" Os parvum decensque, labia corallini coloris ad morsum aptissima." -Epist. 114, lib. i.

1 Next, beneath the velvet chin,

Whose dimple hides a love within, &c.] Madame Dacier has quoted here two pretty lines of Varro :

Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem.

In her chin is a delicate dimple,
By Cupid's own finger impress'd;
There Beauty, bewitchingly simple,
Has chosen her innocent nest.

* Now let a floating, lucid veil,

Shadow her form, but not conceal; &c.] This delicate art of description, which leaves imagination to complete the picture, has been seldom adopted in the imitations of this beautiful poem. Ronsard is exceptionably minute; and Pol tanus, in his charming portrait of a girl, full of rich and exquisite diction, has lifted the veil rather too much. The * questo che tu m' intendi" should be always left to fancy. * The reader who wishes to acquire an accurate idea of headgment of the ancients in beauty, will be indulged by casulting Junius de Pictura Veterum, lib. iii. c. 9, where he

find a very curious selection of descriptions and epithets of personal perfections. Junius compares this ode with a description of Theodoric, king of the Goths, in the second episte, first book, of Sidonius Apollinaris.

'Let his hair, in masses bright,

Fail like floating rays of light; &c.] He here describes the sunny hair, the "flava coma," which the ancients so mach admired. The Romans gave this color artificially to their hair. See Stanisl. Kobienzyck. de Luxu Romanorum.

And there the raven's dye confuse
With the golden sunbeam's hues.
Let no wreath, with artful twine,"
The flowing of his locks confine;
But leave them loose to every breeze,
To take what shape and course they please.
Beneath the forehead, fair as snow,
But flush'd with manhood's early glow,
And guileless as the dews of dawn,"
Let the majestic brows be drawn,
Of ebon hue, enrich'd by gold,
Such as dark, shining snakes unfold.
Mix in his eyes t: power alike,
With love to win, with awe to strike ;7
Borrow from Mars his look of ire,
From Venus her soft glance of fire;
Blend them in such expression here,
That we by turns may hope and fear!

Now from the sunny apple seek The velvet down that spreads his cheek;

5 Let no wreath, with artful twine, &c.] If the original here, which is particularly beautiful, can admit of any additional value, that value is conferred by Gray's admiration of it. See his letters to West.

Some annotators have quoted on this passage the description of Photis's hair in Apuleius; but nothing can be more distant from the simplicity of our poet's manner, than that affectation of richness which distinguishes the style of Apuleius.

But flush'd with manhood's early glow,

And guileless as the dews of dawn, &c.] Torrentius, upon the words "insignem tenui fronte," in Horace, Od. 33, lib. i., is of opinion, incorrectly, I think, that "tenui" here bears the same meaning as the word απαλον.

7 Mix in his eyes the power alike,

With love to win, with awe to strike; &c.] Tasso gives a similar character to the eyes of Clorinda :

Lampeggiar gli occhi, e folgorar gli sguardi
Dolci ne l' ira.

Her eyes were flashing with a heavenly heat,

A fire that, even in anger, still was sweet.

The poetess Veronica Cambara is more diffuse upon this variety of expression :

Occhi lucenti e belli,

Come esser puo ch' in un medesmo istante
Nascan de voi si nuove forme et tante?

Lieti, mesti, superbi, humil', altieri,
Vi mostrate in un punto, onde di speme,
Et di timor, de empiete, &c. &c.

Oh! tell me, brightly-beaming eye,
Whence in your little orbit lie
So many different traits of fire,
Expressing each a new desire.
Now with pride or scorn you darkle,
Now with love, with gladness, sparkle,
While we who view the varying mirror,
Feel by turns both hope and terror.

Chevreau, citing the lines of our poet, in his critique on the poems of Malherbe, produces a Latin version of them from a manuscript which he had seen, entitled "Joan. Falconis Anacreontici Lusus."

And there, if art so far can go,

Th' ingenuous blush of boyhood show.
While, for his mouth-but no,-in vain
Would words its witching charm explain.
Make it the very seat, the throne,

That Eloquence would claim her own ;'
And let the lips, though silent, wear
A life-look, as if words were there.2

Next thou his ivory neck must trace, Moulded with soft but manly grace; Fair as the neck of Paphia's boy, Where Paphia's arms have hung in joy. Give him the winged Hermes' hand,3 With which he waves his snaky wand; Let Bacchus the broad chest supply, And Leda's sons the sinewy thigh; While, through his whole transparent frame, Thou show'st the stirrings of that flame, Which kindles, when the first love-sigh Steals from the heart, unconscious why.

But sure thy pencil, though so bright, Is envious of the eye's delight, Or its enamor'd touch would show The shoulder, fair as sunless snow,

1 That Eloquence would claim her own;] In the original, as in the preceding ode, Pitho, the goddess of persuasion, or eloquence. It was worthy of the delicate imagination of the Greeks to deify Persuasion, and give her the lips for her throne! We are here reminded of a very interesting fragment of Anacreon, preserved by the scholiast upon Pindar, and supposed to belong to a poem reflecting with some severity on Simonides, who was the first, we are told, that ever made a hireling of his muse :—

Ουδ' αργυρέη ποτ' ελαμψε Πειθώ.
Nor yet had fair Persuasion shone
In silver splendors, not her own.

And let the lips, though silent, wear

σιωπή.

A life-look, as words were there.] In the original λadwy The mistress of Petrarch "parla con silenzio," which is perhaps the best method of female eloquence. Give him the winged Hermes' hand, &c.] In Shakspeare's Cymbeline there is a similar method of description :-this is his hand,

His foot mercurial, his martial thigh,
The brawns of Hercules.

We find it likewise in Hamlet. Longepierre thinks that the hands of Mercury are selected by Anacreon, on account of the graceful gestures which were supposed to characterize the god of eloquence; but Mercury was also the patron of thieves, and may perhaps be praised as a light-fingered deity. But hold-forbear

4

I see the sun-god's portrait there;] The abrupt turn here is spirited, but requires some explanation. While the artist is pursuing the portrait of Bathyllus, Anacreon, we must suppose, turns round and sees a picture of Apollo, which was intended for an altar at Samos. He then instantly tells the painter to cease his work; that this picture will serve for Bathyllus; and that, when he goes to Samos, he may make an Apollo of the portrait of the boy which he had begun. |

"Bathyllus (says Madame Dacier) could not be gantly praised, and this one passage does him m than the statue, however beautiful it might be, wh crates raised to him."

An elegant translation of this ode, says Dege found in Ramler's Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. v. p. 403.

Bring me wine in brimming urns, &c.] C apvori. The amystis was a method of drinking us the Thracians. Thus Horace, "Threiciâ vincat a Mad. Dacier, Longepierre, &c. &c.

Parrhasius, in his twenty-sixth epistle, (Thesa vol. i.,) explains the amystis as a draught to be without drawing breath, "uno haustu." A note i gin of this epistle of Parrhasius says, "Politian esse putabat," but adds no reference.

Give me all those humid flowers, &c.] Accord original reading of this line, the poet says, "Gi flower of wine"-Date flosculos Lyæi, as it is in t of Elias Andreas; and

Deh porgetimi del fiore Di quel almo e buon liquore, as Regnier has it, who supports the reading. Avtos would undoubtedly bear this application, somewhat similar to its import in the epigram of upon Sophocles :

Εσβέσθης γεραιε Σοφοκλέες, ανθος αοιδων and flos in the Latin is frequently applied in the s ner-thus Cethegus is called by Ennius, Flos inlil uli, suadæque medulla, "The immaculate flow people, and the very marrow of persuasion." verses cited by Aulus Gellius, lib. xii., which Cice and Seneca thought ridiculous.

But in the passage before us, if we admit EKELVG ing to Faber's conjecture, the sense is sufficiently c out having recourse to such refinements.

1 Every dewy rose I wear

Sheds its tears, and withers there.] There are some beautiful lines, by Angerianus, upon a garland, which I cannot resist quoting here:

Ante fores madidæ sic sic pendete corolla,

Mane orto imponet Cælia vos capiti;

At quum per niveam cervicem influxerit humor,
Dicite, non roris sed pluvia hæc lacrimæ.

By Celia's arbor all the night

Hang, humid wreath, the lover's vow;
And haply, at the morning light,

My love shall twine thee round her brow.

Then, if upon her bosom bright

Some drops of dew shall fall from thee,
Tell her, they are not drops of night,

But tears of sorrow shed by me!

In the poem of Mr. Sheridan's, "Uncouth is this mosscovered grotto of stone," there is an idea very singularly coincident with this of Angerianus:

And thou, stony grot, in thy arch may'st preserve
Some lingering drops of the night-fallen dew;

Let them fall on her bosom of snow, and they'll serve
As tears of my sorrow intrusted to you.

• But to you, my burning heart, &c.] The transition here is peculiarly delicate and impassioned; but the commentators have perplexed the sentiment by a variety of readings and conjectures.

! The description of this bower is so natural and animated, that we almost feel a degree of coolness and freshness while we peruse it. Longepierre has quoted from the first book of the Anthologia, the following epigram, as somewhat resembling this ode:

Έρχες και κατ' εμαν ίζευ πιτυν, & το μελιχρον
Προς μαλακούς ήχει κεκλιμένα ζεφύρους.
Ηνιές και κρουνισμα μελισταγές, ενθα μελίσδων
Η ουν ερημαίοις ύπνον αγω καλαμοις.
Come, sit by the shadowy pine

That covers my sylvan retreat;
And see how the branches incline
The breathing of zephyr to meet.
See the fountain that, flowing, diffuses

Around me a glittering spray;
By its brink, as the traveller muses,

I sooth him to sleep with my lay.

Here recline you, gentle maid, &c.] The Vatican MS. rends Ba9AAoe, which renders the whole poem metaphorical. Some commentator suggests the reading of ẞavλλor, which makes a pun upon the name; a grace that Plato himself has andescended to in writing of his boy Aarno. See the epigram this philosopher, which I quote on the twenty-second ode.

ODE XX.

ONE day the Muses twined the hands Of infant Love with flow'ry bands;

There is another epigram by this philosopher, preserved

in Laertius, which turns upon the same word.

Αστηρ πριν μεν έλαμπες ενι ζωοισιν ἑωος
Νυν δε θανων λαμπεις έσπερος εν φθιμενοις.

In life thou wert my morning star,

But now that death has stolen thy light,
Alas! thou shinest dim and far,

Like the pale beam that weeps at night.

In the Veneres Blyenburgica, under the head of " Allusiones," we find a number of such frigid conceits upon names, selected from the poets of the middle ages.

Who, my girl, would pass it by?

Surely neither you nor I.] The finish given to the picture by this simple exclamation τις αν ουν όρων παρελθοι, is inimitable. Yet 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."

• The poet appears, in this graceful allegory, to describe the softening influence which poetry holds over the mind, in making it peculiarly susceptible to the impressions of beauty. In the following epigram, however, by the philosopher Plato, (Diog. Laert. lib. 3.) the Muses are represented as disavowing the influence of Love.

'Α Κύπρις Μουσαισι, κορασία, την Αφροδιταν Τιματ', η τον Ερωτα ύμμιν εφοπλισομαι. Αἱ Μουσαι ποτι Κύπριν, Άρει τα στωμυλα ταύτα Ήμιν ου πέταται τούτο το παιδάριον. "Yield to my gentle power, Parnassian maids;" Thus to the Muses spoke the Queen of Charms"Or Love shall flutter through 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, nè volea uscirne fore.
Quando ecco ivi annodar si sente il core,
Si, 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.

And to celestial Beauty gave
The captive infant for her slave.
His mother comes, with many a toy,
To ransom her beloved boy;1
His mother sues, but all in vain,—
He ne'er will leave his chains again.
Even should they take his chains away,
The little captive still would stay.
"If this," he cries, " a bondage be,
Oh, who could wish for liberty?"

The vapors, which at evening weep,
Are beverage to the swelling deep;
And when the rosy sun appears,
He drinks the ocean's misty tears.
The moon too quaffs her paly stream
Of lustre, from the solar beam.
Then, hence with all your sober thinki
Since Nature's holy law is drinking;
I'll make the laws of nature mine,
And pledge the universe in wine.

ODE XXI.2

OBSERVE When mother earth is dry,
She drinks the droppings of the sky,
And then the dewy cordial gives
To ev'ry thirsty plant that lives.

Ma ci vinto a due occhi l' arme cede:
Et taffatichi indarno, Citerea;

Che s' altri 'l scioglie, egli a legar si riede.
Love, wandering through the golden maze
Of my beloved's hair,

Found, at each step, such sweet delays,

That rapt he linger'd there.

And how, indeed, was Love to fly,
Or how his freedom find,

When every ringlet was a tie,

A chain, by Beauty twined.

In vain to seek her boy's release
Comes Venus from above:

Fond mother, let thy efforts cease,

Love's now the slave of Love.

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

1 His mother comes, with many a toy,

To ransom her beloved boy; &c.] In the first idyl of Moschus, Venus thus proclaims the reward for her fugitive child:

Ο μανύτας γέρας έξει,

Μισθος του, το φίλαμα το Κυπριδος ην δ' αγάγης νιν
Ου γυμνον το φίλαμα, τυ δ', ω ξενε, και πλεον έξεις.
On him, who the haunts of my Cupid can show,
A kiss of the tenderest stamp I'll bestow;

But he, who can bring back the urchin in chains, Shall receive even something more sweet for his pains. Subjoined to this ode, we find in the Vatican MS. the following lines, which appear to me to boast as little sense as metre, and which are most probably the interpolation of the transcriber:

ODE XXII.

THE Phrygian rock, that braves the sto
Was once a weeping matron's form ;
And Progue, hapless, frantic maid,
Is now a swallow in the shade.

because black earth absorbs moisture more quickly other; and accordingly he indulges us with an exp disquisition on the subject.-See Gail's notes.

One of the Capilupi has imitated this ode, in an e a drunkard :—

Dum vixi sine fine bibi, sic imbrifer arcus
Sic tellus pluvias sole perusta bibit.
Sic bibit assiduè fontes et flumina Pontus,
Sic semper sitiens Sol maris haurit aquas.
Ne te igitur jactes plus me, Silene, bibisse;
Et mihi da victas tu quoque, Bacche, manu
HIPPOLYTUS C

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 Sh where the thoughts of the ode before us are prese such striking similitude:

3

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

Timon of Athens, ac a weeping matron's form;] Niobe.-Ogil Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients, in remar the Odes of Anacreon, says, "In some of his piece exuberance and even wildness of imagination; in ticularly, which is addressed to a young girl, where alternately to be transformed to a mirror, a coat, a bracelet, and a pair of shoes, for the different purpo he recites this is mere sport and wantonness."

It is the wantonness, however, of a very gra ze "ludit amabiliter." The compliment of this ode is e delicate, and so singular for the period in which lived, when the scale of love had not yet been grad

Oh! that a mirror's form were mine,
That I might catch that smile divine;
And like my own fond fancy be,
Reflecting thee, and only thee;
Or could I be the robe which holds
That graceful form within its folds;
Or, turn'd into a fountain, lave
Thy beauties in my circling wave.
Would I were perfume for thy hair,
To breathe my soul in fragrance there;
Or, better still, the zone, that lies
Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs!1
Or e'en those envious pearls that show
So faintly round that neck of snow—
Yes, I would be a happy gem,
Like them to hang, to fade like them.
What more would thy Anacreon be?
Oh, any thing that touches thee;

all its little progressive refinements, that if we were inclined to question the authenticity of the poem, we should find a much more plausible argument in the features of modern gallantry which it bears, than in any of those fastidious conjectures upon which some commentators have presumed so far. Degen thinks it spurious, and De Pauw pronounces it to be miserable. Longepierre and Barnes refer us to several imitations of this ode, from which I shall only select the following epigram of Dionysius:

Είθ' ανεμος γενομην, συ δε γε στείχουσα παρ' αυγάς,
Στηθεα γυμνώσαις, και με πνέοντα λάβοις.
Είθε ῥόδον γενομην ὑποπορφυρον, όφρα με χερσιν
Αραμένη, κομίσαις στεθεσι χιονεοις.

Είθε κρινον γενομην λευκοχροον, όφρα με χερσιν
Αραμενη, μαλλον της χρονιας κορέσης.

I wish I could like zephyr steal
To wanton o'er thy mazy vest;

And thou wouldst ope thy bosom-veil,
And take me panting to thy breast!

I wish I might a rose-bud grow,

And thou wouldst cull me from the bower,

To place me on that breast of snow,
Where I should bloom, a wintry flower.

I wish I were the lily's leaf,

To fade upon that bosom warm,
Content to wither, pale and brief,

The trophy of thy fairer form!

I may add, that Plato has expressed as fanciful a wish in distich preserved by Laertius:

Αστέρας εισαθρεις, Αστηρ εμος· είθε γενοίμην
Ουρανος, ὡς πολλοις ομμασιν εις σε βλέπω.

TO STELLA.

Why dost thou gaze upon the sky?

Oh! that I were that spangled sphere,
And every star should be an eye,

To wonder on thy beauties here! Apuleius quotes this epigram of the divine philosopher, to justify himself for his verses on Critias and Charinus. See his Apology, where he also adduces the example of Anacreoa: Fecere tamen et alii talia, et si vos ignoratis, apud Grecos Teius quidam, &c. &c."

Or, better still, the zone, that lies

Close to thy breast, and feels its sighs!] This raivin was ariband, or band, called by the Romans fascia and strophium,

Nay, sandals for those airy feetE'en to be trod by them were sweet!

ODE XXIII.3

I OFTEN wish this languid lyre,
This warbler of my soul's desire,
Could raise the breath of song sublime,
To men of fame, in former time.
But when the soaring theme I try,
Along the chords my numbers die,
And whisper, with dissolving tone,
"Our sighs are given to love alone!"
Indignant at the feet le 'ay,

I tore the panting chords away,
Attuned them to a nobler swell,

And struck again the breathing shell;

which the women wore for the purpose of restraining the exuberance of the bosom. Vide Polluc. Onomast. Thus Martial :

Fascia crescentes dominæ compesce papillas.

The women of Greece not only wore this zone, but condemned themselves to fasting, and made use of certain drugs and powders for the same purpose. To these expedients they were compelled, in consequence of their inelegant fashion of compressing the waist into a very narrow compass, which necessarily caused an excessive tumidity in the bosom. See Dioscorides, lib. v.

2 Nay, sandals for those airy feet

E'en to be trod by them were sweet!] The sophist Philostratus, in one of his love-letters, has borrowed this thought; ω άδετοι πόδες, ω καλλος ελεύθερος, ω τρισευδαιμων εγώ και μακάριος εαν πατήσετε με." Oh lovely feet! oh excellent beauty! oh! thrice happy and blessed should I be, if you would but tread on me!" In Shakspeare, Romeo desires to be a glove:

Oh! that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might kiss that cheek!

And, in his Passionate Pilgrim, we meet with an idea somewhat like that of the thirteenth line:

He, spying her, bounced in, where as he stood,
"O Jove!" quoth she, "why was not I a flood?"

In Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, that whimsical farrago of "all such reading as was never read," we find a translation of this ode made before 1632.-" Englished by Mr. B. Holiday, in his Technog. act i. scene 7."

3 According to the order in which the odes are usually placed, this (Ocλw deyɛiv Arpeidas) forms the first of the series; and is thought to be peculiarly designed as an introduction to the rest. It however characterizes the genius of the Teian but very inadequately, as wine, the burden of his lays, is not even mentioned in it: