Pindar and Anacreon/Anacreon/Ode 32

by Anacreon

ODE XXXII.—ON THE NUMBER OF HIS MISTRESSES.

If thou canst number o'er to me
Every leaf on every tree,
Or count the ceaseless waves that roar
Against the billow-beaten shore,
Thou sufficient skill hast proved;
Thou shalt count the names I've loved.
At Athens first, Minerva's town,
Full five-and-thirty write me down;
But oh! at Corinth, rich and fair,^[1]
What hosts of loved ones had I there!

For beauteous nymphs it bears the sway,
For none so beauteous sure as they.
Next, my lovely Lesbians tell,
Ionians, Carians, those that dwell
At far-famed Rhodes—you may in all
The trifling sum two thousand call.
What! think'st thou that I yet have done?
Resume thy tablets—one by one,^[2]
I'll count thee o'er my Syrian fair,
And Egypt too must claim a share;
And fertile Creta yet remains,^[3]
Where Love his empire still maintains.
The dark-eyed nymphs that shared my flame,
At Spain and Afric, shall I name?
To sultry India's farthest pole,
Whose dusky charms have fired my soul!

1. Corinth, the metropolis of Achaia, was famous for beautiful women.
2. The page to whom Anacreon is here making this extravagant enumeration, may well be supposed to drop his tablets in astonishment, as the original expression is, "add still to the wax." The ancients wrote on tablets made of this material with a pointed instrument called a stylus or style, the upper end of which was flat and blunt, for the purpose of making erasures. Hence arose the term "an author's style," as applied to his peculiar mode of expression.
3. Anacreon, to denote its fertility, calls it Crete abounding in all things. It is mentioned by the ancient poets as having a hundred cities.