Page images
PDF
EPUB

Invenio sylvam, quae faepe cubilia nobis
Praebuit, et multa texit opaca coma.
At non invenio dominum fylvaeque, meumque.
Vile folum locus eft: dos erat ille loci.
Agnovi pressas noti mihi cefpitis herbas;
De noftro curvum pondere gramen erat.
Incubui, tetigique locum qua parte fuifti;
Grata prius lacrymas combibit herba meas.
Quinetiam rami pofitis lugere videntur
Frondibus; et nullae dulce queruntur aves.
Sola virum non ulta pie moestissima mater
Concinit Ifmarium Daulias ales Ityn.
Ales Ityn, Sappho defertos cantat amores:
Hactenus, ut media caetera nocte filent.
Est nitidus, vitroque magis perlucidus omni,
Fons facer; hunc multi numen habere putant.

166

170

175

180

185

Quem fupra ramos expandit aquatica lotos,
Una nemus; tenero cespite terra viret.
Hic ego cum lassos pofuissem fletibus artus,
Conftitit ante oculos Naïas una meos.
Conftitit, et dixit, "Quoniam non ignibus aequis
"Ureris, Ambracias terra petenda tibi.

« Phoebus

t

166

170

That charm'd me more, with native moss o'ergrown,
Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone,
I find the shades that veil'd our joys before;
But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more.
Here the prefs'd herbs with bending tops betray
Where oft entwin'd in am'rous folds we lay;
I kiss that earth which once was press'd by you,
And all with tears the withering herbs bedew.
For thee the fading trees appear to mourn,
And birds defer their fongs till thy return :
Night shades the groves, and all in filence lie, 175
All but the mournful Philomel and I :
With mournful Philomel I join my strain,
Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain.
A spring there is, whose silver waters show,

Clear as a glass, the shining fands below :
A flow'ry Lotos spreads its arms above,
Shades all the banks, and feems itself a grove;

180

Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
Watch'd by the fylvan Genius of the place.
Here as I lay, and swell'd with tears the flood, 185

Before my fight a wat'ry Virgin stood:

She stood and cry'd, "O you that love in vain!
" Fly hence, and feek the fair Leucadian main;
"There stands a rock, from whose impending steep
" Apollo's fane surveys the rolling deep;

190

" There

NOTES.

VER. 188. Leucadian main] Addison, with his usual exquifite humour, has given in the 233d Spectator an account of the perfons, male and female, who leaped from the promontory of Leucate

[blocks in formation]

into

"Phoebus ab excelso, quantum patet, afpicit aequor "Actiacum populi Leucadiumque vocant.

" Hinc se Deucalion Pyrrhae fuccenfus amore

८८

Mifit, et illaefo corpore preffit aquas.

195

"Nec mora: versus Amor tetigit lentissima Pyrrhae
"Pectora; Deucalion igne levatus erat.
"Hanc legem locus ille tenet, pete protinus altam
"Leucada; nec faxo defiluisse time."

Ut monuit, cum voce abiit. Ego frigida furgo: 200
Nec gravidae lacrymas continuere genae.
Ibimus, o Nymphae, monftrataque faxa petemus.
Sit procul infano victus amore timor.
Quicquid erit, melius quam nunc erit: aura, fubito.
Et mea non magnum corpora pondus habent.
Tu quoque, mollis Amor, pennas suppone cadenti:
Ne fim Leucadiae mortua crimen aquae.

NOTES.

into the Ionian sea, in order to cure themselves of the passion of love. Their various characters, and effects of this leap, are described with infinite pleasantry. One hundred and twenty-four males, and one hundred and twenty-fix females, took the leap in the 250th Olympiad; out of them one hundred and twenty were perfectly cured. Sappho, arrayed like a Spartan virgin, and her harp in her hand, threw herself from the rock with such intrepidity, as was never before observed in any who had attempted that very dangerous leap; from whence the never rose again, but was faid to be changed into a swan as she fell, and was seen hovering in the air in that shape. Alcæus arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap on her account; but hearing that her body could not be found, he very generoufly lamented her fall, and is faid to have written his 125th ode on that occafion.

Inde

194

"There injur'd lovers, leaping from above, "Their flames extinguish, and forget to love. "Deucalion once with hopeless fury burn'd, " In vain he lov'd, relentless Pyrrha scorn'd: " But when from hence he plung'd into the main, "Deucalion scorn'd, and Pyrrha lov'd in vain. "Hafte, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw "Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!" She spoke, and vanish'd with the voice-I rife, And filent tears fall trickling from my eyes. I go, ye Nymphs! those rocks and feas to prove; How much I fear, but ah, how much I love! I go, ye Nymphs, where furious love inspires; Let female fears submit to female fires.

200

205

To rocks and feas I fly from Phaon's hate,
And hope from feas and rocks a milder fate.
Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow,
And foftly lay me on the waves below!
And thou, kind Love, my finking limbs fustain,
Spread thy foft wings, and waft me o'er the main,
Nor let a Lover's death the guiltless flood profane!
On Phoebus' fhrine my harp I'll then bestow,
And this Inscription shall be plac'd below, .

212

NOTES.

VER. 207. Te gentle gales] These two lines have been quoted as the most smooth and mellifluous in our language; and they are supposed to derive their sweetness and harmony from the mixture of fo many Iambics. Pope himself preferred the following line to all he had written, with respect to harmony:

Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows

[blocks in formation]

Inde chelyn Phoebo communia munera ponam :
Et fub ea verfus unus et alter erunt.

"Grata lyram pofui tibi, Phoebe, poëtria Sappho : "Convenit illa mihi, convenit illa tibi."

Cur tamen Actiacas miferam me mittis ad oras,
Cum profugum poffis ipfe referre pedem ?
Tu mihi Leucadia potes effe falubrior unda:
Et forma et meritis tu mihi Phoebus eris.
An potes, o scopulis undaque ferocior illa,

Si moriar, titulum mortis habere meae?
At quanto melius jungi mea pectora tecum,
Quam poterant faxis praecipitanda dari !
Haec funt illa, Phaon, quae tu laudare folebas;
Visaque funt toties ingeniosa tibi.

220

225

Nunc vellem facunda forent: dolor artibus obstat; Ingeniumque meis substitit omne malis.

Non mihi refpondent veteres in carmina vires. 230 Plectra dolore tacent: muta dolore lyra eft.

NOTES.

Lesbides

VER. 227.] Little can be added to the character that Addison has so elegantly drawn in the 223d and 229th numbers of the Spectator; in which are inserted the translations which Philips, under Addison's eye, gave of the two only remaining of her exquifite odes; one preserved by Dionyfius Halicarnaffus, and the other by Longinus. To the remarks that Pearce has made on the latter, I cannot forbear fubjoining a remark of Tanaquil Faber on a fecret and almost unobferved beauty of this ode: that in the eight last lines, the article di, in the original, is repeated seven times, to represent the short breathings of a person in the act of fainting away, and pronouncing every fyllable with difficulty. Two beautiful fragments are preferved; the first confifting orly of four lines in Fulvius Urfinus, which Horace has imitated in the twelfth ode of the third book, Tibi qualum, &c.;

and

« EelmineJätka »