1 The men renown'd as chiefs of human race,And born to lead in counsels or in arms,Have seldom turn'd their feet from glory's chaseTo dwell with books, or court the Muse's charms.Yet, to our eyes if haply time hath broughtSome genuine transcript of their calmer thought,There still we own the wise, the great, or good;And Cæsar there and Xenophon are seen,As clear in spirit and sublime of mien,As on Pharsalian plains, or by the Assyrian flood.
2 Say thou too, Frederic, was not this thy aim?Thy vigils could the student's lamp engage,Except for this, except that future FameMight read thy genius in the faithful page?That if hereafter Envy shall presumeWith words irreverent to inscribe thy tomb,And baser weeds upon thy palms to fling,That hence posterity may try thy reign,Assert thy treaties, and thy wars explain,And view in native lights the hero and the king.
3 O evil foresight and pernicious care!Wilt thou indeed abide by this appeal?Shall we the lessons of thy pen compareWith private honour or with public zeal?Whence, then, at things divine those darts of scorn?Why are the woes, which virtuous men have borneFor sacred truth, a prey to laughter given?What fiend, what foe of Nature urged thy armThe Almighty of his sceptre to disarm,To push this earth adrift and leave it loose from Heaven?
4 Ye godlike shades of legislators old,Ye who made Rome victorious, Athens wise,Ye first of mortals with the bless'd enroll'd,Say, did not horror in your bosoms rise,When thus, by impious vanity impell'd,A magistrate, a monarch, ye beheldAffronting civil order's holiest bands,Those bands which ye so labour'd to improve,Those hopes and fears of justice from above,Which tamed the savage world to your divine commands?
1 Away! away!Tempt me no more, insidious love:Thy soothing swayLong did my youthful bosom prove:At length thy treason is discern'd,At length some dear-bought caution earn'd:Away! nor hope my riper age to move.
2 I know, I seeHer merit. Needs it now be shown,Alas, to me?How often, to myself unknown,The graceful, gentle, virtuous maidHave I admired! How often said,What joy to call a heart like hers one's own!
3 But, flattering god,O squanderer of content and ease,In thy abodeWill care's rude lesson learn to please?O say, deceiver, hast thou wonProud Fortune to attend thy throne,Or placed thy friends above her stern decrees?
1 Meek Honour, female shame,Oh! whither, sweetest offspring of the sky,From Albion dost thou fly,Of Albion's daughters once the favourite fame?O beauty's only friend,Who giv'st her pleasing reverence to inspire;Who selfish, bold desireDost to esteem and dear affection turn;Alas, of thee forlornWhat joy, what praise, what hope can life pretend?
2 Behold, our youths in vainConcerning nuptial happiness inquire:Our maids no more aspireThe arts of bashful Hymen to attain;But with triumphant eyesAnd cheeks impassive, as they move along,Ask homage of the throng.The lover swears that in a harlot's armsAre found the self-same charms,And worthless and deserted lives and dies.
3 Behold, unbless'd at home,The father of the cheerless household mourns:The night in vain returns,For Love and glad Content at distance roam;While she, in whom his mindSeeks refuge from the day's dull task of cares,To meet him she prepares,Through noise and spleen and all the gamester's art,A listless, harass'd heart,Where not one tender thought can welcome find.
4 'Twas thus, along the shoreOf Thames, Britannia's guardian Genius heard,From many a tongue preferr'd,Of strife and grief the fond invective lore:At which the queen divineIndignant, with her adamantine spearLike thunder sounding near,Smote the red cross upon her silver shield,And thus her wrath reveal'd;(I watch'd her awful words, and made them mine.)
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Lycurgus the Lacedemonian lawgiver brought into Greece from Asia Minor the first complete copy of Homer's works. At Plataea was fought the decisive battle between the Persian army and the united militia of Greece under Pausanias and Aristides. Cimon the Athenian erected a trophy in Cyprus for two great victories gained on the same day over the Persians by sea and land. Diodorus Siculus has preserved the inscription which the Athenians affixed to the consecrated spoils, after this great success; in which it is very remarkable that the greatness of the occasion has raised the manner of expression above the usual simplicity and modesty of all other ancient inscriptions. It is this:—
[Greek:EX. OU. G. EUROPAeN. ASIAS. DIChA. PONTOS. ENEIME.KAI. POLEAS. ONAeTON. ThOUROS. ARAeS. EPEChEI.OUDEN. PO. TOIOUTON. EPIChThONION. GENET. ANDRON.ERGON. EN. AePEIROI. KAI. KATA. PONOTON. AMA.OIAE. GAR. EN. KUPROI. MAeDOUS. POLLOUS. OLESANTES.PhOINIKON. EKATON. NAUS. ELON. EN. PELAGEI.ANDRON. PLAeThOUSAS. META. D. ESENEN. ASIS. UP. AUTON.PLAeGEIS. AMPhOTERAIS. ChERSI. KRATEI. POLEMOU.]
The following translation is almost literal:—
Since first the sea from Asia's hostile coastDivided Europe, and the god of warAssail'd imperious cities; never yet,At once among the waves and on the shore,Hath such a labour been achieved by menWho earth inhabit. They, whose arms the MedesIn Cyprus felt pernicious, they, the same,Have won from skilful Tyre an hundred shipsCrowded with warriors. Asia groans, in bothHer hands sore smitten, by the might of war.
Pindar was contemporary with Aristides and Cimon, in whom the glory of ancient Greece was at its height. When Xerxes invaded Greece, Pindar was true to the common interest of his country; though his fellow-citizens, the Thebans, had sold themselves to the Persian king. In one of his odes he expresses the great distress and anxiety of his mind, occasioned by the vast preparations of Xerxes against Greece (Isthm. 8). In another he celebrates the victories of Salamis, Plataea, and Himera (Pyth. 1). It will be necessary to add two or three other particulars of his life, real or fabulous, in order to explain what follows in the text concerning him. First, then, he was thought to be so great a favourite of Apollo, that the priests of that deity allotted him a constant share of their offerings. It was said of him, as of some other illustrious men, that at his birth a swarm of bees lighted on his lips, and fed him with their honey. It was also a tradition concerning him, that Pan was heard to recite his poetry, and seen dancing to one of his hymns on the mountains near Thebes. But a real historical fact in his life is, that the Thebans imposed a large fine upon him on account of the veneration which he expressed in his poems for that heroic spirit shown by the people of Athens in defence of the common liberty, which his own fellow-citizens had shamefully betrayed. And as the argument of this ode implies, that great poetical talents and high sentiments of liberty do reciprocally produce and assist each other, so Pindar is perhaps the most exemplary proof of this connexion which occurs in history. The Thebans were remarkable, in general, for a slavish disposition through all the fortunes of their commonwealth; at the time of its ruin by Philip; and even in its best state, under the administration of Pelopidas and Epaminondas: and every one knows they were no less remarkable for great dulness and want of all genius. That Pindar should have equally distinguished himself from the rest of his fellow-citizens in both these respects seems somewhat extraordinary, and is scarce to be accounted for but by the preceding observation.
Alluding to his defence of the people of England against Salmasins. See particularly the manner in which he himself speaks of that undertaking, in the introduction to his reply to Morus.
Edward the Third; from whom descended Henry Hastings, third Earl ofHuntingdon, by the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother toEdward the Fourth.
At Whittington, a village on the edge of Scarsdale in Derbyshire, the Earls of Devonshire and Danby, with the Lord Delamere, privately concerted the plan of the Revolution. The house in which they met is at present a farmhouse, and the country people distinguish the room where they sat by the name ofthe plotting parlour.
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Mr. Locke died in 1704, when Mr. Hoadly was beginning to distinguish himself in the cause of civil and religious liberty: Lord Godolphin in 1712, when the doctrines of the Jacobite faction were chiefly favoured by those in power: Lord Somers in 1716, amid the practices of the nonjoining clergy against the Protestant establishment; and Lord Stanhope in 1721, during the controversy with the lower house of convocation.
During Mr. Pope's war with Theobald, Concanen, and the rest of their tribe, Mr. Warburton, the present Lord Bishop of Gloucester, did with great zeal cultivate their friendship, having been introduced, forsooth, at the meetings of that respectable confederacy—a favour which he afterwards spoke of in very high terms of complacency and thankfulness. At the same time, in his intercourse with them, he treated Mr. Pope in a most contemptuous manner, and as a writer without genius. Of the truth of these assertions his lordship can have no doubt, if he recollects his own correspondence with Concanen, a part of which is still in being, and will probably be remembered as long as any of this prelate's writings.
In the year 1751 appeared a very splendid edition, in quarto, of 'Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de la Maison de Brandebourg, à Berlin et à la Haye,' with a privilege, signed Frederic, the same being engraved in imitation of handwriting. In this edition, among other extraordinary passages, are the two following, to which the third stanza of this ode more particularly refers:—
'Il se fit une migration' (the author is speaking of what happened at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes), 'dont on n'avoit guère vu d'exemples dans l'histoire: un peuple entier sortit du royaume par l'esprit de parti en haine du pape, et pour reçevoir sous un autre ciel la communion sous les deux espèces: quatre cens mille âmes s'expatrierent ainsi et abandonnerent tous leur biens pour détonner dans d'autres temples les vieux pseaumes de Clément Marot.'—Page 163.
'La crainte donna le jour à la crédulité, et l'amour propre interessa bientôt le ciel au destin des hommes.'—Page 242.
The Nymphs, who preside over springs and rivulets, are addressed at daybreak, in honour of their several functions, and of the relations which they bear to the natural and to the moral world. Their origin is deduced from the first allegorical deities, or powers of nature, according to the doctrine of the old mythological poets, concerning the generation of the gods and the rise of things. They are then successively considered, as giving motion to the air and exciting summer breezes; as nourishing and beautifying the vegetable creation; as contributing to the fulness of navigable rivers, and consequently to the maintenance of commerce; and by that means to the maritime part of military power. Next is represented their favourable influence upon health when assisted by rural exercise, which introduces their connexion with the art of physic, and the happy effects of mineral medicinal springs. Lastly, they are celebrated for the friendship which the Muses bear them, and for the true inspiration which temperance only can receive, in opposition to the enthusiasm of the more licentious poets.
O'er yonder eastern bill the twilight paleWalks forth from darkness; and the God of day,With bright Astraea seated by his side,Waits yet to leave the ocean. Tarry, Nymphs,Ye Nymphs, ye blue-eyed progeny of Thames,Who now the mazes of this rugged heathTrace with your fleeting steps; who all night longRepeat, amid the cool and tranquil air,Your lonely murmurs, tarry, and receiveMy offer'd lay. To pay you homage due, 10I leave the gates of sleep; nor shall my lyreToo far into the splendid hours of mornEngage your audience; my observant handShall close the strain ere any sultry beamApproach you. To your subterranean hauntsYe then may timely steal; to pace with careThe humid sands; to loosen from the soilThe bubbling sources; to direct the rillsTo meet in wider channels; or beneathSome grotto's dripping arch, at height of noon 20To slumber, shelter'd from the burning heaven.
Where shall my song begin, ye Nymphs, or end?Wide is your praise and copious—first of things,First of the lonely powers, ere Time arose,Were Love and Chaos. Love,[A] the sire of Fate; [B]Elder than Chaos. [C] Born of Fate was Time, [D]Who many sons and many comely birthsDevour'd, [E] relentless father; till the childOf Rhea [F] drove him from the upper sky, [G]And quell'd his deadly might. Then social reign'd 30The kindred powers, [H] Tethys, and reverend Ops,And spotless Vesta; while supreme of swayRemain'd the Cloud-Compeller. From the couchOf Tethys sprang the sedgy-crowned race, [I]Who from a thousand urns, o'er every clime,Send tribute to their parent; and from themAre ye, O Naiads: [J] Arethusa fair,And tuneful Aganippe; that sweet name,Bandusia; that soft family which dweltWith Syrian Daphne; [K] and the honour'd tribes 40Beloved of Pæon. [L] Listen to my strain,Daughters of Tethys: listen to your praise.
You, Nymphs, the winged offspring, [M] which of oldAurora to divine Astræus bore,Owns, and your aid beseecheth. When the mightOf Hyperíon, [N] from his noontide throne,Unbends their languid pinions, aid from youThey ask; Pavonius and the mild South-westProm you relief implore. Your sallying streams [O]Fresh vigour to their weary wings impart. 50Again they fly, disporting; from the meadHalf-ripen'd and the tender blades of corn,To sweep the noxious mildew; or dispelContagious steams, which oft the parched earthBreathes on her fainting sons. From noon to eve.Along the river and the pavèd brook,Ascend the cheerful breezes: hail'd of bardsWho, fast by learned Cam, the Æolian lyreSolicit; nor unwelcome to the youthWho on the heights of Tibur, all inclined 60O'er rushing Arno, with a pious handThe reverend scene delineates, broken fanes,Or tombs, or pillar'd aqueducts, the pompOf ancient Time; and haply, while he scansThe ruins, with a silent tear revolvesThe fame and fortune of imperious Rome.
You too, O Nymphs, and your unenvious aidThe rural powers confess, and still prepareFor you their choicest treasures. Pan commands,Oft as the Delian king [P] with Sirius holds 70The central heavens, the father of the groveCommands his Dryads over your abodesTo spread their deepest umbrage. Well the godRemembereth how indulgent ye suppliedYour genial dews to nurse them in their prime.
Pales, the pasture's queen, where'er ye stray,Pursues your steps, delighted; and the pathWith living verdure clothes. Around your hauntsThe laughing Chloris, [Q] with profusest hand,Throws wide her blooms, her odours. Still with you 80Pomona seeks to dwell; and o'er the lawns,And o'er the vale of Richmond, where with ThamesYe love to wander, Amalthea [R] pours,Well-pleased, the wealth of that Ammonian horn,Her dower; unmindful of the fragrant islesNysæan or Atlantic. Nor canst thou(Albeit oft, ungrateful, thou dost mockThe beverage of the sober Naiad's urn,O Bromius, O Lenæan), nor canst thouDisown the powers whose bounty, ill repaid, 90With nectar feeds thy tendrils. Yet from me,Yet, blameless Nymphs, from my delighted lyre,Accept the rites your bounty well may claim,Nor heed the scoffings of the Edonian band. [S]
For better praise awaits you. Thames, your sire,As down the verdant slope your duteous rillsDescend, the tribute stately Thames receives,Delighted; and your piety applauds;And bids his copious tide roll on secure,For faithful are his daughters; and with words 100Auspicious gratulates the bark which, nowHis banks forsaking, her adventurous wingsYields to the breeze, with Albion's happy giftsExtremest isles to bless. And oft at morn,When Hermes, [T] from Olympus bent o'er earthTo bear the words of Jove, on yonder hillStoops lightly sailing; oft intent your springsHe views: and waving o'er some new-born streamHis bless'd pacific wand, 'And yet,' he cries,'Yet,' cries the son of Maia, 'though recluse 110And silent be your stores, from you, fair Nymphs,Flows wealth and kind society to men.By you my function and my honour'd nameDo I possess; while o'er the Boetic rale,Or through the towers of Memphis, or the palmsBy sacred Ganges water'd, I conductThe English merchant; with the buxom fleeceOf fertile Ariconium while I clotheSarmatian kings; or to the household godsOf Syria, from the bleak Cornubian shore, 120Dispense the mineral treasure [U] which of oldSidonian pilots sought, when this fair landWas yet unconscious of those generous arts,Which wise Phoenicia from their native climeTransplanted to a more indulgent heaven.'
Such are the words of Hermes: such the praise,O Naiads, which from tongues celestial waitsYour bounteous deeds. From bounty issueth power:And those who, sedulous in prudent works,Relieve the wants of nature, Jove repays 130With noble wealth, and his own seat on earth,Pit judgments to pronounce, and curb the mightOf wicked men. Your kind unfailing urnsNot vainly to the hospitable artsOf Hermes yield their store. For, O ye Nymphs,Hath he not won [V] the unconquerable queenOf arms to court your friendship You she ownsThe fair associates who extend her swayWide o'er the mighty deep; and grateful thingsOf you she littereth, oft as from the shore 140Of Thames, or Medway's vale, or the green banksOf Vecta, she her thundering navy leadsTo Calpe's [W] foaming channel, or the roughCantabrian surge; her auspices divineImparting to the senate and the princeOf Albion, to dismay barbaric kings,The Iberian, or the Celt. The pride of kingsWas ever scorn'd by Pallas; and of oldRejoiced the virgin, from the brazen prowOf Athens o'er Ægina's gloomy surge, [X] 150To drive her clouds and storms; o'erwhelming allThe Persian's promised glory, when the realmsOf Indus and the soft Ionian clime,When Libya's torrid champaign and the rocksOf cold Imaüs join'd their servile bands,To sweep the sons of Liberty from earth.In vain; Minerva on the bounding prowOf Athens stood, and with the thunder's voiceDenounced her terrors on their impious heads,And shook her burning ægis. Xerxes saw; [Y] 160From Heracléum, on the mountain's heightThroned in his golden car, he knew the signCelestial; felt unrighteous hope forsakeHis faltering heart, and turn'd his face with shame.
Hail, ye who share the stern Minerva's power;Who arm the hand of Liberty for war,And give to the renown'd Britannic nameTo awe contending monarchs: yet benign,Yet mild of nature, to the works of peaceMore prone, and lenient of the many ills 170Which wait on human life. Your gentle aidHygeia well can witness; she who saves,From poisonous dates and cups of pleasing bane,The wretch, devoted to the entangling snaresOf Bacchus and of Comus. Him she leadsTo Cynthia's lonely haunts. To spread the toils,To beat the coverts, with the jovial hornAt dawn of day to summon the loud hounds,She calls the lingering sluggard from his dreams,And where his breast may drink the mountain breeze, 180And where the fervour of the sunny valeMay beat upon his brow, through devious pathsBeckons his rapid courser. Nor when ease,Cool ease and welcome slumbers have becalm'dHis eager bosom, does the queen of healthHer pleasing care withhold. His decent boardShe guards, presiding, and the frugal powersWith joy sedate leads in; and while the brownEnnæan dame with Pan presents her stores,While changing still, and comely in the change, 190Vertumnus and the Hours before him spreadThe garden's banquet, you to crown his feast,To crown his feast, O Naiads, you the fairHygeia calls; and from your shelving seats,And groves of poplar, plenteous cups ye bring,To slake his veins, till soon a purer tideFlows down those loaded channels, washeth offThe dregs of luxury, the lurking seedsOf crude disease, and through the abodes of lifeSends vigour, sends repose. Hail, Naiads, hail! 200Who give to labour, health; to stooping age,The joys which youth had squander'd. Oft your urnsWill I invoke; and frequent in your praise,Abash the frantic thyrsus [Z] with my song.
For not estranged from your benignant artsIs he, the god, to whose mysterious shrineMy youth was sacred, and my votive caresBelong, the learned Pæon. Oft when allHis cordial treasures he hath search'd in vain;When herbs, and potent trees, and drops of balm 210Rich with the genial influence of the sun(To rouse dark fancy from her plaintive dreams,To brace the nerveless arm, with food to winSick appetite, or hush the unquiet breastWhich pines with silent passion), he in vainHath proved; to your deep mansions he descends.Your gates of humid rock, your dim arcades,He entereth; where empurpled veins of oreGleam on the roof; where through the rigid mineYour trickling rills insinuate. There the god 220From your indulgent hands the streaming bowlWafts to his pale-eyed suppliants; wafts the seedsMetallic and the elemental saltsWash'd from the pregnant glebe. They drink, and soonFlies pain; flies inauspicious care; and soonThe social haunt or unfrequented shadeHears Io, Io Pæan, [AA] as of old,When Python fell. And, O propitious Nymphs,Oft as for hapless mortals I imploreYour sultry springs, through every urn, 230Oh, shed your healing treasures! With the firstAnd finest breath, which from the genial strifeOf mineral fermentation springs, like lightO'er the fresh morning's vapours, lustrate thenThe fountain, and inform the rising wave.
My lyre shall pay your bounty. Scorn not yeThat humble tribute. Though a mortal handExcite the strings to utterance, yet for themesNot unregarded of celestial powers,I frame their language; and the Muses deign 240To guide the pious tenor of my lay.The Muses (sacred by their gifts divine)In early days did to my wondering senseTheir secrets oft reveal; oft my raised earIn slumber felt their music; oft at noon,Or hour of sunset, by some lonely stream,In field or shady grove, they taught me wordsOf power from death and envy to preserveThe good man's name. Whence yet with grateful mind,And offerings unprofaned by ruder eye, 250My vows I send, my homage, to the seatsOf rocky Cirrha, [BB] where with you they dwell,Where you their chaste companions they admit,Through all the hallow'd scene; where oft intent,And leaning o'er Castalia's mossy verge,They mark the cadence of your confluent urns,How tuneful, yielding gratefullest reposeTo their consorted measure, till again,With emulation all the sounding choir,And bright Apollo, leader of the song, 260Their voices through the liquid air exalt,And sweep their lofty strings; those powerful stringsThat charm the mind of gods, [CC] that fill the courtsOf wide Olympus with oblivion sweetOf evils, with immortal rest from cares,Assuage the terrors of the throne of Jove,And quench the formidable thunderboltOf unrelenting fire. With slacken'd wings,While now the solemn concert breathes around,Incumbent o'er the sceptre of his lord 270Sleeps the stern eagle, by the number'd notes,Possess'd, and satiate with the melting tone,Sovereign of birds. The furious god of war,His darts forgetting, and the winged wheelsThat bear him vengeful o'er the embattled plain,Relents, and soothes his own fierce heart to ease,Most welcome ease. The sire of gods and menIn that great moment of divine delight,Looks down on all that live; and whatsoe'erHe loves not, o'er the peopled earth and o'er 280The interminated ocean, he beholdsCursed with abhorrence by his doom severe,And troubled at the sound. Ye, Naiads, yeWith ravish'd ears the melody attendWorthy of sacred silence. But the slavesOf Bacchus with tempestuous clamours striveTo drown the heavenly strains, of highest JoveIrreverent, and by mad presumption firedTheir own discordant raptures to advanceWith hostile emulation. Down they rush 290From Nysa's vine-empurpled cliff, the damesOf Thrace, the Satyrs, and the unruly Fauns,With old Silenus, reeling through the crowdWhich gambols round him, in convulsions wildTossing their limbs, and brandishing in airThe ivy-mantled thyrsus, or the torchThrough black smoke flaming, to the Phrygian pipe's [DD]Shrill voice, and to the clashing cymbals, mix'dWith shrieks and frantic uproar. May the godsFrom every unpolluted ear avert 300Their orgies! If within the seats of men,Within the walls, the gates, where Pallas holds [EE]The guardian key, if haply there be foundWho loves to mingle with the revel-bandAnd hearken to their accents, who aspiresFrom such instructors to inform his breastWith verse, let him, fit votarist, imploreTheir inspiration. He perchance the giftsOf young Lyæus, and the dread exploits,May sing in aptest numbers; he the fate 310Of sober Pentheus, [FF] he the Paphian rites,And naked Mars with Cytherea chain'd,And strong Alcides in the spinster's robes,May celebrate, applauded. But with you,O Naiads, far from that unhallow'd rout,Must dwell the man whoe'er to praisèd themesInvokes the immortal Muse. The immortal MuseTo your calm habitations, to the caveCorycian[GG] or the Delphic mount, [HH] will guideHis footsteps, and with your unsullied streams 320His lips will bathe; whether the eternal loreOf Themis, or the majesty of Jove,To mortals he reveal; or teach his lyreThe unenvied guerdon of the patriot's toils,In those unfading islands of the bless'd,Where sacred bards abide. Hail, honour'd Nymphs;Thrice hail! For you the Cyrenaïc shell, [II]Behold, I touch, revering. To my songsBe present ye with favourable feet,And all profaner audience far remove. 330
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[Footnote A: 'Love,…. Elder than Chaos.'—L. 25. Hesiod in his Theogony gives a different account, and makes Chaos the eldest of beings, though he assigns to Love neither father nor superior; which circumstance is particularly mentioned by Phædrus, in Plato's Banquet, as being observable not only in Hesiod, but in all other writers both of verse and prose; and on the same occasion he cites a line from Parmenides, in which Love is expressly styled the eldest of all the gods. Yet Aristophanes, in 'The Birds,' affirms, that 'Chaos, and Night, and Erebus, and Tartarus were first; and that Love was produced from an egg, which the sable-winged Night deposited in the immense bosom of Erebus.' But it must be observed, that the Love designed by this comic poet was always distinguished from the other, from that original and self-existent being the TO ON [Greek] or AGAThON [Greek] of Plato, and meant only the DAeMIOURGOS [Greek] or second person of the old Grecian Trinity; to whom is inscribed a hymn among those which pass under the name of Orpheus, where he is called Protogonos, or the first-begotten, is said to have been born of an egg, and is represented as the principal or origin of all these external appearances of nature. In the fragments of Orpheus, collected by Henry Stephens, he is named Phanes, the discoverer or discloser, who unfolded the ideas of the supreme intelligence, and exposed them to the perception of inferior beings in this visible frame of the world; as Macrobius, and Proclus, and Athenagoras, all agree to interpret the several passages of Orpheus which they have preserved.
But the Love designed in our text is the one self-existent and infinite mind; whom if the generality of ancient mythologists have not introduced or truly described in accounting for the production of the world and its appearances, yet, to a modern poet, it can be no objection that he hath ventured to differ from them in this particular, though in other respects he professeth to imitate their manner and conform to their opinions; for, in these great points of natural theology, they differ no less remarkably among themselves, and are perpetually confounding the philosophical relations of things with the traditionary circumstances of mythic history; upon which very account Callimachus, in his hymn to Jupiter, declareth his dissent from them concerning even an article of the national creed, adding, that the ancient bards were by no means to be depended on. And yet in the exordium of the old Argonautic poem, ascribed to Orpheus, it is said, that 'Love, whom mortals in later times call Phanes, was the father of the eternally-begotten Night;' who is generally represented by these mythological poets as being herself the parent of all things; and who, in the 'Indigitamenta,' or Orphic Hymns, is said to be the same with Cypris, or Love itself. Moreover, in the body of this Argonautic poem, where the personated Orpheus introduceth himself singing to his lyre in reply to Chiron, he celebrateth 'the obscure memory of Chaos, and the natures which it contained within itself in a state of perpetual vicissitude; how the heaven had its boundary determined, the generation of the earth, the depth of the ocean, and also the sapient Love, the most ancient, the self-sufficient, with all the beings which he produced when he separated one thing from another.' Which noble passage is more directly to Aristotle's purpose in the first book of his metaphysics than any of those which he has there quoted, to show that the ancient poets and mythologists agreed with Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and the other more sober philosophers, in that natural anticipation and common notion of mankind concerning the necessity of mind and reason to account for the connexion, motion, and good order of the world. For though neither this poem, nor the hymns which pass under the same name, are, it should seem, the work of the real Orpheus, yet beyond all question they are very ancient. The hymns, more particularly, are allowed to be older than the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, and were probably a set of public and solemn forms of devotion, as appears by a passage in one of them which Demosthenes hath almost literally cited in his first oration against Aristogiton, as the saying of Orpheus, the founder of their most holy mysteries. On this account, they are of higher authority than any other mythological work now extant, the Theogony of Hesiod himself not excepted. The poetry of them is often extremely noble; and the mysterious air which prevails in them, together with its delightful impression upon the mind, cannot be better expressed than in that remarkable description with which they inspired the German editor, Eschenbach, when he accidentally met with them at Leipsic: —'Thesaurum me reperisse credidi,' says he, 'et profecto thesaurum reperi. Incredibile dictu quo me sacro horrore afflaverint indigitamenta ista deorum: nam et tempus ad illorum lectionem eligere cogebar, quod vel solum horrorem incutere animo potest, nocturnum; cum enim totam diem consumserim in contemplando urbis splendore, et in adeundis, quibus scatet urbs illa, viris doctis; sola nox restabat, quam Orpheo consecrare potui. In abyesum quendam mysteriorum venerandæ antiquitatis descendere videbar, quotiescunque silente mundo, solis vigilantibus astris et luna, [Greek: melanaephutous] istos hymnos ad manus sumsi.']
[Footnote B: 'Love, the sire of Fate.'—L. 25. Fate is the universal system of natural causes; the work of the Omnipotent Mind, or of Love: so Minucius Felix:—'Quid enim aliud est fatum, quam quod de unoquoque nostrum deus fatus est.' So also Cicero, in the First Book on Divination:—'Fatum autem id appello, quod Graeci EIMAPMENIIN: id est, ordinem seriemque causarum, cum causa causæ nexa rem ex se gignat—ex quo intelligitur, ut fatum sit non id quod superstitiose, sed id quod physice dicitur causa asterna rerum.' To the same purpose is the doctrine of Hierocles, in that excellent fragment concerning Providence and Destiny. As to the three Fates, or Destinies of the poets, they represented that part of the general system of natural causes which relates to man, and to other mortal beings: for so we are told in the hymn addressed to them among the Orphic Indigitamenta, where they are called the daughters of Night (or Love), and, contrary to the vulgar notion, are distinguished by the epithets of gentle and tender-hearted. According to Hesiod, Theog. ver. 904, they were the daughters of Jupiter and Themis: but in the Orphic hymn to Venus, or Love, that goddess is directly styled the mother of Necessity, and is represented, immediately after, as governing the three Destinies, and conducting the whole system of natural causes.]
[Footnote C: 'Chaos.'—L. 26. The unformed, undigested mass ofMoses and Plato; which Milton calls 'The womb of nature.']
[Footnote D: 'Born of Fate was Time.'—L. 26. Chronos, Saturn, or Time, was, according to Apollodorus, the son of Cælum and Tellus. But the author of the hymns gives it quite undisguised by mythological language, and calls him plainly the offspring of the earth and the starry heaven; that is, of Fate, as explained in the preceding note.]
[Footnote E: 'Who many sons … devour'd.'—L. 27. The known fable of Saturn devouring his children was certainly meant to imply the dissolution of natural bodies, which are produced and destroyed by Time.]
[Footnote F: 'The Child of Rhea.'-L. 29. Jupiter, so called byPindar.]
[Footnote G: 'Drove him from the upper sky.'—L. 29. That Jupiter dethroned his father Saturn is recorded by all the mythologists. Phurnutus, or Cornutus, the author of a little Greek treatise on the nature of the gods, informs us that by Jupiter was meant the vegetable soul of the world, which restrained and prevented those uncertain alterations which Saturn, or Time, used formerly to cause in the mundane system.]
[Footnote H: 'Then social reign'd The kindred powers.'—L. 31. Our mythology here supposeth, that before the establishment of the vital, vegetative, plastic nature (represented by Jupiter), the four elements were in a variable and unsettled condition, but afterwards well-disposed, and at peace among themselves. Tethys was the wife of the Ocean; Ops, or Rhea, the Earth; Vesta, the eldest daughter of Saturn, Fire; and the Cloud-Compeller, or [Greek: Zeus nephelaegeretaes], the Air, though he also represented the plastic principle of nature, as may be seen in the Orphic hymn inscribed to him.]
'The sedgy-crowned race.'—L. 34.
The river-gods, who, according to Hesiod's Theogony, were the sons ofOceanus and Tethys.
'From them are ye, O Naiads.'—L. 37.
The descent of the Naiads is less certain than most points of the Greek mythology. Homer, Odyss. xiii. [Greek: kourai Dios]. Virgil, in the eighth book of the Æneid, speaks as if the Nymphs, or Naiads, were the parents of the rivers: but in this he contradicts the testimony of Hesiod, and evidently departs from the orthodox system, which represented several nymphs as retaining to every single river. On the other hand, Callimachus, who was very learned in all the school-divinity of those times, in his hymn to Delos, maketh Peneus, the great Thessalian river-god, the father of his nymphs: and Ovid, in the fourteenth book of his Metamorphoses, mentions the Naiads of Latium as the immediate daughters of the neighbouring river-gods. Accordingly, the Naiads of particular rivers are occasionally, both by Ovid and Statius, called by patronymic, from the name of the river to which they belong.
'Syrian Daphne.'—L. 40.
The grove of Daphne in Syria, near Antioch, was famous for its delightful fountains.
'The tribes beloved by Pæon.'—L. 40.
Mineral and medicinal springs. Pæon was the physician of the gods.
'The winged offspring.'—L. 43.
The winds; who, according to Hesiod and Apollodorus, were the sons ofAstræus and Aurora.
'Hyperíon.'—L. 46.
A son of Cælum and Tellus, and father of the Sun, who is thence called, by Pindar, Hyperionides. But Hyperion is put by Homer in the same manner as here, for the Sun himself.
'Your sallying streams.'—L. 49.
The state of the atmosphere with respect to rest and motion is, in several ways, affected by rivers and running streams; and that more especially in hot seasons: first, they destroy its equilibrium, by cooling those parts of it with which they are in contact; and secondly, they communicate their own motion: and the air which is thus moved by them, being left heated, is of consequence more elastic than other parts of the atmosphere, and therefore fitter to preserve and to propagate that motion.
'Delian king.'—L. 70.
One of the epithets of Apollo, or the Sun, in the Orphic hymn inscribed to him.
'Chloris.'—L. 79.
The ancient Greek name for Flora.
'Amalthea.'—L. 83.
The mother of the first Bacchus, whose birth and education was written, as Diodorus Siculus informs us, in the old Pelasgic character, by Thymoetes, grandson to Laomedon, and contemporary with Orpheus. Thymoetes had travelled over Libya to the country which borders on the western ocean; there he saw the island of Nysa, and learned from the inhabitants, that 'Ammon, King of Libya, was married in former ages to Rhea, sister of Saturn and the Titans: that he afterwards fell in love with a beautiful virgin whose name was Amalthea; had by her a son, and gave her possession of a neighbouring tract of land, wonderfully fertile; which in shape nearly resembling the horn of an ox, was thence called the Hesperian horn, and afterwards the horn of Amalthea: that fearing the jealousy of Rhea, he concealed the young Bacchus in the island of Nysa;' the beauty of which, Diodorus describes with great dignity and pomp of style. This fable is one of the noblest in all the ancient mythology, and seems to have made a particular impression on the imagination of Milton; the only modern poet (unless perhaps it be necessary to except Spenser) who, in these mysterious traditions of the poetic story, had a heart to feel, and words to express, the simple and solitary genius of antiquity. To raise the idea of his Paradise, he prefers it even to—
'That Nysean isleGirt by the river Triton, where old Cham(Whom Gentiles Ammon call, and Libyan Jove)Hid Amalthea and her florid son,Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye.'
'Edonian band.'—L. 94.
The priestesses and other ministers of Bacchus: so called from Edonus, a mountain of Thrace, where his rites were celebrated.
'When Hermes.'—L. 105.
Hermes, or Mercury, was the patron of commerce; in which benevolent character he is addressed by the author of the Indigitamenta in these beautiful lines:—
[Greek:Ermaeuen panton, kerdempore, lusimerimue,O? cheiresthiu echei? oplun aremphe?]
'Dispense the mineral treasure'.—L. 121.
The merchants of Sidon and Tyre made frequent voyages to the coast ofCornwall, from whence they carried home great quantities of tin.
'Hath he not won'?—L. 136.
Mercury, the patron of commerce, being so greatly dependent on the good offices of the Naiads, in return obtains for them the friendship of Minerva, the goddess of war: for military power, at least the naval part of it, hath constantly followed the establishment of trade; which exemplifies the preceding observation, that 'from bounty issueth power.'
'C'alpe … Cantabrian surge'—L. 143.
Gibraltar and the Bay of Biscay.
'Ægina's gloomy surge'—L. 150.
Near this island, the Athenians obtained the victory of Salamis, over the Persian navy.
'Xerxes saw'—L. 160.
This circumstance is recorded in that passage, perhaps the most splendid among all the remains of ancient history, where Plutarch, in his Life of Themistocles, describes the sea-fights of Artemisium and Salamis.
'Thyrsus'—L. 204.
A staff, or spear, wreathed round with ivy: of constant use in the bacchanalian mysteries.
'Io Pæan.'—L. 227.
An exclamation of victory and triumph, derived from Apollo's encounter with Python.
'Rocky Cirrha'—L. 252.
One of the summits of Parnassus, and sacred to Apollo. Near it were several fountains, said to be frequented by the Muses. Nysa, the other eminence of the same mountain, was dedicated to Bacchus.
'Charm the mind of gods'—L. 263.
This whole passage, concerning the effects of sacred music among the gods, is taken from Pindar's first Pythian ode.
'Phrygian pipe.'—L. 297.
The Phrygian music was fantastic and turbulent, and fit to excite disorderly passions.
'The gates where Pallas holds The guardian key.'—L. 302.
It was the office of Minerva to be the guardian of walled cities; whence she was named IIOAIAS and HOAIOYXOS, and had her statues placed in their gates, being supposed to keep the keys; and on that account styled KAHAOYXOS.
'Fate of sober Pentheus.'—L. 311.
Pentheus was torn in pieces by the bacchanalian priests and women, for despising their mysteries.
'The cave Corycian:—L. 318.
Of this cave Pausanias, in his tenth book, gives the following description:—'Between Delphi and the eminences of Parnassus is a road to the grotto of Corycium, which has its name from the nymph Corycia, and is by far the most remarkable which I have seen. One may walk a great way into it without a torch. 'Tis of a considerable height, and hath several springs within it; and yet a much greater quantity of water distils from the shell and roof, so as to be continually dropping on the ground. The people round Parnassus hold it sacred to the Corycian nymphs and to Pan.'
'Delphic mount.'—L. 319.
Delphi, the seat and oracle of Apollo, had a mountainous and rocky situation, on the skirts of Parnassus.
'Cyrenaïc shell.'—L. 327.
Cyrene was the native country of Callimachus, whose hymns are the most remarkable example of that mythological passion which is assumed in the preceding poem, and have always afforded particular pleasure to the author of it, by reason of the mysterious solemnity with which they affect the mind. On this account he was induced to attempt somewhat in the same manner; solely by way of exercise: the manner itself being now almost entirely abandoned in poetry. And as the mere genealogy, or the personal adventures of heathen gods, could have been but little interesting to a modern reader, it was therefore thought proper to select some convenient part of the history of nature, and to employ these ancient divinities as it is probable they were first employed; to wit, in personifying natural causes, and in representing the mutual agreement or opposition of the corporeal and moral powers of the world: which hath been accounted the very highest office of poetry.