528 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[Nov. 



5. " Let us drink, gaily laughing.'* 

 Born and Fischer of course cannot agree ; 

 but here comes a new combatant, a lady, 

 Madame Dacier, who unluckily cannot 

 a^ree with herself her translation in her 

 text is, " let us think of nothing but amus- 

 ing ourselves-," and in a note, the sense 

 is, she seems to say, " let us drink and 

 laugh, comme le diable." For all this in- 

 formation, we appear to be indebted to 

 Greene." 



6. 7. " O rose, most excellent flower ! O 

 rose, nursling of spring I" Here again is 

 a grand bustle and confusion among the 

 commentators; and Barnes, and Baxter, 

 and Trapp, and Faber, and Mad. Dacier, 

 Addison, Gail, and Pauw, mingle pell and 

 inell in the fight. The whole squabble 

 resolves itself into TC and w. Of the pa- 

 trons of TO, some will have it the first word 

 of the line, and others the second; and of 

 the advocates of w, some insist upon the 

 exclamative, and some the invocative 

 sense; while Dr. Roche himself, appa- 

 rently declining to take part in the fray, 

 seems impartially to adopt one in his prose 

 translation, and the other in his metre. 

 But then follows, in the same lines, al- 

 most as hot a dispute upon ps\nya, which 

 Dr. Roche, in his prose, calls, as we see, 

 nursling, and in his verse, daughter. 

 Barnes, who was but a dull fellow, most 

 prosaically calls it pupil; while Baxter 

 and Degenius, who have more imagina- 

 tion, if not common-sense, are for terming 

 it darling ; but Fischer, who had a little 

 of both, dexterously avoids altogether a 

 term, and says it was so called, because 

 the spring commands, or causes it to grow 

 and bloom. But let us move on. 



8. " Roses are delightful even to gods." 

 Ex. gr. says Dr. Roche Baccho, Veneri, 

 Musis, Amori , and then recollecting 

 every body might not understand him 

 he offers the benefit of a translation, signed 

 Degen. Thus " The gods meant were 

 Bacchus, Venus, Cupid, and the Muses. 

 (Degen.)" 



9, 10, 11. "The boy of Cytherea, danc- 

 ing with the graces, entwines roses with 

 his beautiful ringlets." Here comes on 

 another skirmish, as sharp as any we have 

 encountered. The point is whether the 

 accusative shall be used for the dative, or 

 the dative for the accusative whether 

 love intwines roses with his ringlets, or 

 his ringlets with roses. The combatants of 

 course wield the weapons of their logoma- 

 chy with various skill none of them trust- 

 ing to MSS., or authorities, which indeed 

 are pretty equal, and Euripides uses both 

 constructions ; but one defends the con- 

 struction he patronizes, because it has, to 

 his ear, more suavity another, because, 

 he presumes to say, his has more accu- 

 racy ; and a third, because it is more com- 

 mon, backing his assertion, at the same 



time, with a quotation from Aristophanes, 

 which has nothing whatever to do with 

 the question. Dr. Roche himself will 

 again have nothing to do with the conflict, 

 but, not to be altogether a cypher, he 

 gravely adds " The graces are here very 

 properly chosen as companions for the 

 god of love, since every qualification, 

 which can adorn a woman, is by the poet 

 ascribed to those divinities" which seems 

 to have been suggested by one of the 

 French editors ' this sweet idea of love 

 dancing with the graces is almost pecu- 

 liar to Anacreon.' Dr. Roche concludes 

 with quoting Moore's translation of these 

 line? : 



Cupid, too, in Paphian shades, 

 His hair with rosy fillet braids, 

 When, with the blushing, naked Graces 

 The wanton winding dance he traces. 



In Anacreon, be it observed, the said 

 Graces are neither naked, nor blushing, 

 nor wanton this is all Master Moore's 

 usual pruriency. 



12. u Crown me, then, and I will strike 

 the lyre." This unlucky verse again 

 swarms with materials for squabbling. 

 First, the word Xi/gjw might it not be 

 Xt/pj^w, or XypiG-<ru>, or xt/fio-w, or even a par- 

 ticiple to agree with a previous one ; 

 shall the verb, again, correspond with 

 another verb, or correspond with none 1 

 Then, once more, might not the copula be 

 left out, to make room for another mood 

 and person of jsifxiu, requiring three syl- 

 lables instead of two ? Dr. Roche, all the 

 while, maintains himself inflexible silence 

 he often shews great modesty at least 

 reserve ; but we may gather from his 

 prose and his verse, that he sticks to the 

 verb, and will not at all events consent to 

 its being transmogrified into a participle. 



13. Near thy shrine, O Bacchus." 

 The word Bacchus gives room for enu- 

 merating the different stories of his origin-, 

 his attributes, and his insignia all which 

 appears to belong to one (A). The same 

 (A) tells us the o-rjxo;, the shrine, was the 

 place where the image of the god stood, 

 and was in the middle of the temple, a 

 little raised, and railed in. This is being 

 very precise, and quite in the style of an 

 eye-witness. The proof is Turn foribus 

 divce Media testudine templi which is 

 rendered in somewhat a novel manner by 

 Dr. Roche himself, we suppose, whose ear 

 is remarkably true "'Midst of the temple, 

 just before the shrine." Fores therefore 

 must mean the railing in of the shrine, or 

 perhaps a little door let into, or forming- 

 part of the railing. It must pass for what 

 it is worth. 



The reader no doubt is tired, and as 

 Gilpin says, so are we. But there is 

 still a long winded note upon the word 

 fic<,$iw\*r?i, of which the least that can be 



