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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
She weeping gave, and bade convey
To high Phersana's hall away:
Where woman-grown, and doomed to prove
In turn a god's disastrous love,
Her charms allured the lord of day.

Nor long the months, ere, fierce in pride,
The painful tokens of disgrace
Her foster-father sternly eyed,
Fruit of the furtive god's embrace.—

He spake not, but, with soul on flame,
He sought th' unknown offender's name,
At Phœbus' Pythian dwelling place.-

But she, beneath the greenwood spray,
Her zone of purple silk untied;
And flung the silver clasp away
That rudely pressed her heaving side;(15)
While, in the solitary wood,

Lucina's self to aid her stood,
And fate a secret force supplied.-
But, who the mother's pang can tell
As sad and slowly she withdrew,
And bade her babe a long farewell,
Laid on a bed of violets blue?

When ministers of Heaven's decree,
(Dire nurses they and strange to see,)
Two scaly snakes of azure hue

Watched o'er his helpless infancy,
And, rifled from the mountain bee,
Bare on their forky tongues a harmless honey dew.-
Swift roll the wheels! from Delphos home
Arcadia's car-borne chief is come;

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,
"Nor strove his noble seed to hide;
"And to his favoured boy, beside,
"The gift of prophecy,
"And power beyond the sons of men
"The secret things of fate to ken,
"His blessing will supply."—
But, vainly, from his liegemen round,

He sought the noble child;
Who, naked on the grassy ground,
And nurtured in the wild,
Was moistened with the sparkling dew
Beneath his hawthorn bower;
Where morn her wat'ry radiance threw,
Now golden bright, now deeply blue,
Upon the violet flower.-

From that dark bed of breathing bloom
His mother gave his name;

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,
Invoked the god whose sceptre sways

The hoarse resounding sea;
And, whom the Delian isle obeys,
The archer deity.-
Alone amid the nightly shade,
Beneath the naked heaven he prayed,
And sire and grandsire called to aid;
When lo, a voice that loud and dread

Burst from the horizon free;
"Hither!" it spake, "to Pisa's shore!
"My voice, oh son, shall go before,
"Beloved, follow me!"-

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,

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Who now assembled Greece among,
To car-borne chiefs and warriors strong,
Have wove the many-coloured song.—

Then, minstrel! bid thy chorus rise
To Juno, queen of deities,(17)
Parthenian lady of the skies!
For, live there yet who dare defame
With sordid mirth our country's name;
Who tax with scorn our ancient line,
And call the brave Baotians swine;-
Yet, Æneas, sure thy numbers high
May charm their brutish enmity;
Dear herald of the holy muse,
And teeming with Parnassian dews,
Cup of untasted harmony!-

That strain once more!-The chorus raise
To Syracusa's wealthy praise,

And his the lord whose happy reign
Controls Trincria's ample plain,
Hiero, the just, the wise,
Whose steamy offerings rise

To Jove, to Ceres, and that darling maid,
Whom, rapt in chariot bright,

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
His honoured name; and may his latter days,
With wealth and worth, and minstrel garlands
crowned,

Mark with no envious ear a subject praise,(18)
Who now from fair Arcadia's forest wide
To Syracusa, homeward, from his home
Returns, a common care, a common pride,-
(And, whoso darkling braves the ocean foam,

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
His tossing keel,—and evermore to me
No meaner theme assign of poesy!

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

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Note 11, page 32, col. 2.

To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore,
Such was the proof Ernicus bore.

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
And Ister's fount Alcides bare.

Note 13, page 33, col. 2.

Such praise as good Adrastus bore
To him the prophet chief.-

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.
Then yoke the mules of winged pace,
And Phintis climb the car with me.

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.
And flung the silver clasp away
That rudely prest her heaving side.

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.

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."

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FROM THE SAME.
"THE man who leaveth life behind,
May well and boldly speak his mind;
Where flight is none from battle field,
We blithely snatch the sword and shield;
Where hope is past, and hate is strong,
The wretch's tongue is sharp and long;
Myself have seen, in wild despair,
The feeble cat the mastiff tear."

FROM THE SAME.
"WHO the silent man can prize,
If a fool he be or wise?
Yet, though lonely seem the wood,
Therein may lurk the beast of blood,
Often bashful looks conceal
Tongue of fire and heart of steel,
And deem not thou in forest gray,
Every dappled skin thy prey;
Lest thou rouse, with luckless spear,
The tiger for the fallow-deer!"

Miscellaneous Poems.

From distant Cush they trooped, a warrior train,
Siwah's(1) green isle and Sennaar's marly plain:
On either wing their fiery coursers check
The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek :
While close behind, inured to feast on blood,
Decked in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla(2)
strode.

THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
WITH heat o'erlaboured and the length of way,
On Ethan's beach the bands of Israel lay.
'T was silence all, the sparkling sands along,
Save where the locust trilled her feeble song,
Or blended soft in drowsy cadence fell
The wave's low whisper or the camel's bell.-
'T was silence all!-the flocks for shelter fly
Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie;
Or where, from far, the flattering vapours make
The noon-tide semblance of a misty lake:
While the mute swain, in careless safety spread,
With arms enfolded, and dejected head,
Dreams o'er his wondrous call, his lineage high,
And, late revealed, his children's destiny.
For, not in vain, in thraldom's darkest hour,
Had sped from Amram's sons the word of power;
Nor failed the dreadful wand, whose god-like sway
Could lure the locust from her airy way;
With reptile war assail their proud abodes,
And mar the giant pomp of Egypt's gods.
Oh helpless gods! who nought availed to shield
From fiery rain your Zoan's favoured field!-
Oh helpless gods! who saw the curdled blood
Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood,
And fourfold-night the wondering earth enchain,
While Memnon's orient harp was heard in vain!-Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!—

'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold
Saw ye how swift the scythed chariot rolled?
Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,
Old Thebes had poured through all her hundred
gates,

Mother of armies !-How the emeralds(3) glowed,
Where, flushed with power and vengeance, Pha-

Such musings held the tribes, till now the west
With milder influence on their temples prest;
And that portentous cloud which, all the day,
Hung its dark curtain o'er their weary way,
(A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night,)
Rolled back its misty veil, and kindled into light!—
Soft fell the eve:-But, ere the day was done,
Tall, waving banners streaked the level sun;
And wide and dark along th' horizon red,
In sandy surge the rising desert spread.-

raoh rode!

And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And still responsive to the trumpet's cry
The priestly sistrum murmured-Victory?—
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's
gloom?

Whom come ye forth to combat?--warriors,
whom?-

These flocks and herds-this faint and weary

train

Red from the scourge and recent from the chain?
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!

North, south, and west the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train:
Their cloudy guide moves on:-" And must we
swim the main ?"

'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood-
He comes-their leader comes !--the man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads-The circling waves retreat

"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
come !"

They come, they come! in scintillating show
O'er the dark mass the brazen lances glow;
And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine,
As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line;
And fancy's keener glance e'en now may trace
The threatening aspects of each mingled race;
For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,
The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were
there.

And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that
swell,

Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roofed haunt, are

seen.

Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head:
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

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