Ode Xlii.[1]

Yes, be the glorious revel mine, Where humor sparkles from the wine. Around me, let the youthful choir Respond to my enlivening lyre; And while the red cup foams along, Mingle in soul as well as song. Then, while I sit, with flowerets crowned, To regulate the goblets round. Let but the nymph, our banquet's pride, Be seated smiling by my side, And earth has not a gift or power That I would envy, in that hour. Envy!--oh never let its blight Touch the gay hearts met here tonight. Far hence be slander's sidelong wounds, Nor harsh dispute, nor discord's sounds Disturb a scene, where all should be Attuned to peace and harmony.

Come, let us hear the harp's gay note Upon the breeze inspiring float, While round us, kindling into love, Young maidens through the light dance move. Thus blest with mirth, and love, and peace, Sure such a life should never cease!

The character of Anacreon is here very strikingly depicted. His love of social, harmonized pleasures, is expressed with a warmth, amiable and endearing.

ODE XLIII.

While our rosy fillets shed Freshness o'er each fervid head, With many a cup and many a smile The festal moments we beguile. And while the harp, impassioned flings Tuneful rapture from its strings, Some airy nymph, with graceful bound, Keeps measure to the music's sound; Waving, in her snowy hand, The leafy Bacchanalian wand, Which, as the tripping wanton flies, Trembles all over to her sighs. A youth the while, with loosened hair, Floating on the listless air, Sings, to the wild harp's tender tone, A tale of woe, alas, his own; And oh, the sadness in his sigh. As o'er his lips the accents die! Never sure on earth has been Half so bright, so blest a scene. It seems as Love himself had come To make this spot his chosen home;-- And Venus, too, with all her wiles, And Bacchus, shedding rosy smiles, All, all are here, to hail with me The Genius of Festivity!

Respecting the barbiton a host of authorities may be collected, which, after all, leave us ignorant of the nature of the instrument. There is scarcely any point upon which we are so totally uninformed as the music of the ancients. The authors extant upon the subject are, I imagine, little understood; and certainly if one of their moods was a progression by quarter-tones, which we are told was the nature of the enharmonic scale, simplicity was by no means the characteristic of their melody; for this is a nicety of progression of which modern music is not susceptible. The invention of the barbiton is, by Athenaeus, attributed to Anacreon.

The introduction of these deities to the festival is merely allegorical. Madame Dacier thinks that the poet describes a masquerade, where these deities were personated by the company in masks. The translation will conform with either idea.