Ode Lii.[1]

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 grassy grave; And there's an end--for ah, you know They drink but little wine below!

"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 manuscript, 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 brimming bowl; And you shall see this hoary sage Forget at once his locks and age. He still can chant the festive hymn, He still can kiss the goblet's brim; As deeply quaff, as largely fill, And play the fool right nobly still.

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."