To Neptune's rape a daughter fair, Evadne of the glossy hair, (Dark as the violet's darkest shade,) In solitary sorrow bare. Then to her nurse the infant maid Nor long the months, ere, fierce in pride, He spake not, but, with soul on flame, But she, beneath the greenwood spray, Lucina's self to aid her stood, When ministers of Heaven's decree, Watched o'er his helpless infancy, But, ah, how changed his eye!— His wrath is sunk, and past his pride, "Where is Evadne's babe," he cried, "Child of the deity? "'T was thus the augur god replied, He sought the noble child; From that dark bed of breathing bloom And Iamus, through years to come, Will live in lasting fame; Who, when the blossom of his days, Had ripened on the tree, From forth the brink where Alpheus strays, The hoarse resounding sea; Burst from the horizon free; So, in the visions of his sire, he went Where Cronium's scarred and barren brow Was red with morning's earliest glow Though darkness wrapt the nether element.— There, in a lone and craggy dell, A double spirit on him fell, Th' unlying voice of birds to tell, And, (when Alcmena's son should found The holy games in Elis crowned,) By Jove's high altar evermore to dwell, Prophet and priest!-From him descend The fathers of our valiant friend, Wealthy alike and just and wise, Who trod the plain and open way; And who is he that dare despise With galling taunt the Cronian prize, Or their illustrious toil gainsay, Who now assembled Greece among, Then, minstrel! bid thy chorus rise That strain once more!-The chorus raise 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) 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 May safeliest moored with twofold anchor ride.)sequently of Cadmus. His family had, through Arcadia, Sicily, on either side a long line of ancestors, been remarkable, both in Guard him with prayer; and thou who rulest the Greece and Sicily, for misfortune; and he was deep, Fair Amphitrite's lord! in safety keep NOTES. Note 1, page 28, col. 2. The fourth with that tormented three. 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 "tu,” 99 66 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 atayne, 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 Note 11, page 32, col. 2. To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore, Ernicus was one of the Argonauts, who distin made in moral feeling since the days of Homer.guished himself in the games celebrated at Lem Note 8, page 31, col. 1. Trained in study's formal hour, There are who hate the minstrel's power. nos 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. 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 There is a sort of playfulness in this ode, which his rivals and assailants with at least a sufficient would make us suspect that Pindar had no very portion of disdain as servile adherents to rule, and sincere respect for the character of Psaumis. Permere students without genius. Some of their sar-haps he gave offence by it; for the following poem casms passed however into proverbs. Aos Kopy-to the same champion is in a very different style. Jos," an expression in ridicule of Pindar's perpetual recurrence to mythology and antiquities, is preserved in the Phædon: while his occasional mention of himself and his own necessities, is pa Note 12, page 33, col. 1. Rearing her goodly towers on high. 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 swallowed up by the earth before the attack of Polynices and his allies on Thebes, either because the gods determined to rescue his virtues from the stain of that odious conflict; or according to the sagacious Lydgate, because, being a sorcerer and a pagan "byshoppe," the time of his compact was expired, and the infernal powers laid claim to him. Note 14, page 33, col. 2. 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 "xaλta}uv” scems 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 "max" 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. To Juno queen of deities. 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 actors, in the absurd and impossible manner pretended by the later Grecian writers, (whose ignorance 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 Æneas 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." it long remain? FROM THE SAME. FROM THE SAME. Miscellaneous Poems. From distant Cush they trooped, a warrior train, THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold Mother of armies !-How the emeralds(3) glowed, Such musings held the tribes, till now the west raoh rode! And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before, Whom come ye forth to combat?--warriors, These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train Red from the scourge and recent from the chain? North, south, and west the sandy whirlwinds fly, On earth's last margin throng the weeping train: 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, "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 And female shrieks arose, "They come, they 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; |