Pindar and Anacreon/Anacreon/Ode 53

by Anacreon

ODE LIII.—ON THE ROSE.^[1]

Thou, my friend, shalt sweep the string,
I, in softest strains will sing,
While its fragrance round us flows,
The queen of flowers—the lovely rose.
Its perfumed breath ascends the skies
On every gentle gale that sighs:
Its sweets descend to earth again,
Alike beloved by gods and men.
When Spring awakes the slumbering flowers,
And music breathes amid the bowers,
Thee, darling gem, the Graces wear
Intwined amid their flowing hair;
And rosy wreaths alone may dress
The queen of love and loveliness.
In every song and fable known^[2]
The Muses claim thee as their own.

Thou bidd'st thy blooming sweetness blow
In thorny paths of pain and wo.
But, oh! what joy, when bless'd we rove
Through rosy bowers, and dream of love;
While bliss on every breeze is borne,
To pluck the rose without the thorn;
With gentlest touch its leaves to press,
And raise it to our soft caress!
Oh! thou art still the poet's theme,
And thee a welcome guest we deem,
To grace our feasts and deck our hair,
When Bacchus bids us banish care.
E'en Nature does thy beauties prize,
She steals thy teints to paint the skies;
For rosy-finger'd is the morn
With which the crimson veil is drawn.
The lovely nymphs we always deck
With rosy arms and rosy neck,

And roseate teints are ever seen
To bloom the cheeks of beauty's queen.
Its power to sooth the pangs of pain^[3]
Physicians try, nor try in vain;
And e'en when life and hope are fled
Its deathless scent embalms the dead:
For, though its withering charms decay,
And, one by one, all fade away,
Its grateful smell the rose retains,
And redolent of youth remains.^[4]
But, lyrist, let it next be sung
From whence this precious treasure sprung—
When first from ocean's dewy spray
Fair Venus rose to upper day;
When, fearful to the powers above,
The armed Pallas sprung from Jove;
'Twas then they say the jealous earth
First gave the lovely stranger birth.
A drop of pure nectareous dew
From heaven the bless'd immortals threw;
A while it trembled on the thorn,
And then the lovely rose was born.
To Bacchus they the flower assign,
And roses still his brows intwine.

1. This ode will be understood by supposing that Anacreon, while celebrating a rose, requests a lyrist to accompany his voice.
2. The editor of an ingenious little edition of this author observes: "Did Anacreon anticipate the beautiful fable of the rose 'Sultana of the Nightingale,' so justly a favourite with later eastern poets?

   "All the country is now full of nightingales, whose amours with roses is an Arabian fable, as well known here as any part of Ovid among us."—Lady Montague's Letters.

   "For well may maids of Helle deem
   That this can be no earthly flower,
   Which mocks the tempest's withering hour,
   And buds unshelter'd by a bower;
   Nor droops, though Spring refuse her shower
   Nor woos the summer beam:
   To it the livelong night there sings
   A bird unseen, but not remote:
   Invisible his airy wings,
   But soft as harp that Houri strings
   His long, entrancing note!
   It were the bulbul; but his throat,
   Though mournful, pours not such a strain:
   For they who listen cannot leave
   The spot, but linger there and grieve
   As if they loved in vain!"—Bride of Abydos.

   The reader will, I trust, pardon the length of this extract, on account of its enchanting beauty.

3. In Anacreon's time roses were frequently used medicinally.

4. "And redolent of joy and youth
   To breathe a second spring."
   

   Gray's Ode to Eton College.