Who now assembled Greece among, Then, minstrel! bid thy chorus rise That strain once more!-The chorus raise To Syracusa's wealthy praise, And his the lord whose happy reign To Jove, to Ceres, and that darling maid, And horses silver-white, Note 2, page 29, col. 1. Car-borne Pisa's royal maid. Enomaus, king of Pisa, had promised his daughter, the heiress of his states, in marriage to any warrior who should excel him in the chariot race, on condition however that the candidates should stake their lives on the issue. Thirteen had essayed and perished before Pelops. Note 3, page 29, col. 2. Sleeps beneath the piled ground. Like all other very early tombs, the monument of Pelops was a barrow or earthen mound. I know not whether it may still be traced. The spot is very accurately pointed out, and such works are not easily obliterated. Note 4, page 29, col. 2. God who beholdeth thee and all thy deeds. The solemnity of this prayer contrasted with its object, that Hiero might again succeed in the chariot race, is ridiculous to modern ears, I do not indeed believe that the Olympic and other games had so much importance attached to them Down to his dusky bower the lord of hell conveyed! by the statesmen and warriors of Greece, as is pre Oft hath he heard the muses' string resound Mark with no envious ear a subject praise, (18) Guard him with prayer; and thou who rulest the Fair Amphitrite's lord! in safety keep NOTES. Note 1, page 28, col. 2. The fourth with that tormented three. tended by the sophists of later ages; but where the manners are most simple, public exhibitions, it should be remembered, are always most highly estimated, and religious prejudice combined with the ostentation of wealth to give distinction to the Olympic contests. Note 5, page 30, col. 1. The flower of no ignoble race. Theron was a descendant of Edipus, and con sequently of Cadmus. His family had, through a long line of ancestors, been remarkable, both in Greece and Sicily, for misfortune; and he was himself unpopular with his subjects and engaged in civil war. Allusions to these circumstances often occur in the present ode. Note 6, page 30, col. 2. -He whom none may name. In the original "Ti,” a certain nameless person." The ancients were often scrupulous about pronouncing the names of their gods, particularly those who presided over the region of future hopes and fears; a scruple corresponding with the RabThe three were Sisyphus, Tityus, and Ixion. binical notions of the ineffable word. The picThe author of the Odyssey, or, at least, of that tures which follow present a striking discrepancy passage which describes the punishments of Tan- to the mythology of Homer, and of the general talus, assigns him an eternity of hunger, thirst, and herd of Grecian poets, whose Zeus is as far infedisappointment. Which of these opinions is most rior to the one supreme divinity of Pindar, as the ancient, is neither very easy nor very material to religion of Pindar himself falls short of the cleardecide. The impending rock of Pindar is perhaps ness and majesty of Revelation. The connexion a less appropriate, but surely, a more picturesque of these Eleusinian doctrines with those of Hinmode of punishment, dustan, is in many points sufficiently striking. Southey and Pindar might seem to have drunk at ayne, till the discovery of America peopled the the same source. western ocean with something less illusive. Note 7, page 31, col. 1. Nor Jove has Thetis' prayer denied. I know not why, except for his brutality to the body of Hector, Achilles is admitted with so much difficulty into the islands of the blessed. That this was considered in the time of Pindar as sufficient to exclude him without particular intercession, shows at least that a great advance had been made in moral feeling since the days of Homer. Note 8, page 31, col. 1. Trained in study's formal hour, There are who hate the minstrel's power. Note 11, page 32, col. 2. To Lemnos laughing dames of yore, Ernicus was one of the Argonauts, who distinguished himself in the games celebrated at Lemnos by its hospitable queen Hypsipile, as victor in the foot-race of men clothed in armour. He was prematurely gray-headed, and therefore derided by the Lemnian women before he had given this proof of his vigour. It is not impossible that Psaumis had the same singularity of appearance. There is a sort of playfulness in this ode, which would make us suspect that Pindar had no very sincere respect for the character of Psaumis. Perhaps he gave offence by it; for the following poem to the same champion is in a very different style. Note 12, page 33, col. 1. It was not likely that Pindar's peculiarities should escape criticism, nor was his temper such as to bear it with a very even mind. He treats his rivals and assailants with at least a sufficient portion of disdain as servile adherents to rule, and mere students without genius. Some of their sarcasms passed however into proverbs. As KopySes," an expression in ridicule of Pindar's perpetual recurrence to mythology and antiquities, is preserved in the Phædon: while his occasional Rearing her goodly towers on high. mention of himself and his own necessities, is pa- Camarina had been lately destroyed by fire, and rodied by Aristophanes. I can not but hope, how-rebuilt in a great measure by the liberality of Psauever, that the usual conduct of Pindar himself, mis. was less obtrusive and importunate than that of the Dithyrambic poet who intrudes on the festival of Nephelocoggugia, like the Gælic bard in "Christ's kirk o' the green." Note 9, page 31, col. 2. Whose sapling root from Scythian down Note 13, page 33, col. 2. Such praise as good Adrastus bore The prophet chief is Amphiaraus, who was Agesias had been victor in the Apene or chariot drawn by mules; Phintis was, probably, his cha There seems to have been, in all countries, a disposition to place a region of peculiar happiness and fertility among inaccessible mountains, and at the source of their principal rivers. Perhaps, indeed, the Mount Meru of Hindustan, the blameless Ethiopians at the head of the Nile, and the happy Hyperborean regions at the source of the Ister, are only copies of the garden and river of God in Eden. Some truth is undoubtedly mixed with the tradition here preserved by Pindar. The olive was not indigenous in Greece, and its first rioteer. specimens were planted near Pisa. That they ascribed its introduction to the universal hero, Hercules, and derived its stock from the land of the blessed, need not be wondered at by those who know the importance of such a present. The Hy- I venture in the present instance to translate perborean or Atlantic region, which continually "a" a clasp, because it was undoubtedly used receded in proportion as Europe was explored, still for the stud or buckle to a horse's bit, as "ata}ur" seems to have kept its ground in the fancies of the signifies to run by a horse's side holding the bridle. vulgar, under the names of the island of St. Bran- The "aug" too, appended to the belt of Hercudan, of Flath Innis, or the fortunate land of Cock- les, which he left with his Scythian mistress, should Note 15, page 34, col. 1. ing ruth, restrain? ing grief remain ! seem, from the manner in which Herodotus men- | Why thy strength of tyrant beauty thus, with seemtions it, to have been a clasp or stud, nor can I in the present passage understand why the pregnant Better breathe my last before thee, than in lingerEvadne should encumber herself with a water-pot, or why the water-pot and zone should be mentioned as laid aside at the same time. But the round and cup-like form of an antique clasp may well account for such names being applied to it. Note 16, page 34, col. 2. -Cool Cyllene's height of snow. To yon planet, Fate has given every month to wax and wane; And-thy world of blushing brightness-can it, will it, long remain? Health and youth in balmy moisture on thy cheek their seat maintain; Cyllene was a mountain in Arcadia dedicated But-the dew that steeps the rose-bud—can it, will to Mercury. Note 17, page 35, col. 1. Then, minstrel! bid thy chorus rise To Juno queen of deities. it long remain ? Asuf! why, in mournful numbers, of thine absence thus complain, Chance had joined us, chance has parted!-nought on earth can long remain. the world, may'st thou, beloved! live exempt from grief and pain! long remain? Such passages as this appear to prove, first, that the Odes of Pindar, instead of being danced and chaunted by a chorus of hired musicians and ac- In tors, in the absurd and impossible manner pretended by the later Grecian writers, (whose ignorance On my lips the breath is fleeting, can it, will it respecting their own antiquities, is in many instances apparent,) were recited by the poet himself sitting, (his iron chair was long preserved at Delphos,) and accompanied by one or more musicians, such as the Theban Eneas whom he here compliments. Secondly, what will account at once for the inequalities of his style and the rapidity of his transitions, we may infer that the Dincæan swan was, often at least, an "improvisatore." I know not the origin of the Baotian agnomen of swine. In later times we find their region called "vervecum patria." Note 18, page 35, col. 1. Mark with no envious ear a subject's praise. Either the poet was led by his vanity to ascribe a greater consequence to his verses than they really possessed, when he supposes that the praise of Agesias may move his sovereign to jealousy; or we may infer from this little circumstance that the importance attached to the Olympic prize has not been so greatly overrated by poets and antiquaries, and that it was indeed "a gift more valuable than a hundred trophies." TRANSLATIONS FROM THE HINDOOSTANEE. SONNET BY THE LATE NAWAB OF In those eyes the tears that glisten as in pity for Are they gems, or only dew-drops? can they, will they long remain? FROM THE GULISTAN. "BROTHER! know the world deceiveth! FROM THE SAME. "THE man who leaveth life behind, FROM THE SAME. Miscellaneous Poems. THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. From distant Cush they trooped, a warrior train, 'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold Mother of armies !-How the emeralds(3) glowed, And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before, Whom come ye forth to combat?-warriors, These flocks and herds-this faint and weary Red from the scourge and recent from the chain? On earth's last margin throng the weeping train: Rolled back its misty veil, and kindled into light!'Mid the light spray their snorting camel s stood, Soft fell the eve:-) e:-But, ere the day was done, Tall, waving banners streaked the level sun; And wide and dark along th' horizon red, Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood- "Mark, Israel, mark!"-On that strange sight in- In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet; tent, In breathless terror, every eye was bent; And busy faction's undistinguished hum They come, they come! in scintillating show And the chased surges, inly roaring, show With limbs that falter, and with hearts that Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell seen. Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread; Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night, Stil in their van, along that dreadful road, And every pause between, as Miriam sang, Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of" Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !" God. Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave On the long mirror of the rosy wave: And tenfold darkness broods above their line. storm; With withering splendour blasted all their might, And brake their chariot-wheels, and marred their coursers' flight. LINES SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, ON LORD GREN- Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,) "Fly, Misraim, fly!”—The ravenous floods they Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear see, And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity. Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood The fleece Iberian or the pampered steer;- -On, eloquent and firm!—whose warning high When, like those brethren stars to seamen known, Poured on the winds of heaven her wild sweet har- On in thy glorious course! not yet the wave mony. "Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear? Has ceased to lash the shore, nor storm forgot to rave. Go on! and oh, while adverse factions raise "On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where? To thy pure worth involuntary praise; "Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. While Gambia's swarthy tribes thy mercies bless, "Shout, Israel, for the Lord has triumphed !" And from thy counsels date their happiness; |