Raphael, Parnassus (1511), from Wikimedia Commons.
I was recently introduced to the Anacreontic fragment 505d (in the Loeb edition) through the brilliant Tyrtarion video, Ite igitur Camenae,1 which, in the group’s usual style, presents classics of Latin and Ancient Greek poetry in beautiful song. The fragment, which is considered dubious by Campbell, the editor of the Loeb edition, is quoted in Clement of Alexandria’s Stromateis. Here is that fragment:
[Τὸν]2 Ἔρωτα γὰρ τὸν ἁβρὸν
μέλομαι βρύοντα μίτραις
πολυανθέμοις ἀείδειν·
ὅδε καὶ θεῶν δυνάστης,
ὅδε καὶ βροτοὺς δαμάζει.
Which I might put as,
I take care to sing of sweet Love, covered in garlands of many flowers. He is the Ruler of the Gods, and he conquers mortals.
I have long found the Anacreontic metre (| u u – u | – u – – |) to be one of the most beautiful, albeit simple, regular rhythms in which a fairly vast corpus of Greek poetry exists, and yet I don’t believe I had ever seen it used in Latin before reading Stefan Tilg’s Neo-Latin Anacreontic Poetry: Its Shape(s) and Its Significance (2014). He quotes a wonderful poem in Boethius’ Consolatio Philosophiae 3.7, which I will adduce here:
Habet hoc voluptas omnis: (sic) stimulis agit fruentes, apiumque par volantum, ubi grata mella fudit, fugit, et nimis feraci ferit icta corda morsu.
In a literal translation, this might be put as,
All pleasure has this property:
it pushes those that enjoy it onward
and, like flying bees,
when it has produced its sweet honey,
it escapes them and
pierces their stricken hearts with a ferocious sting.
I also think the Anacreontic rhythm can be used with success as a hymnic metre, rather than relegating it to the traditional symposiac and erotic poetry; indeed, we see the use of the figures of the Gods and heroes in many of the Anacreontea, and the fragment quoted above shows excellently how erotic poetry can veer into hymnic language. Boethius, too, shows how one can use the Anacreontic line in philosophical discourse. The Anacreon Theologus of Caspar Barth (1655), though I have not read it,3 also provides a historical basis for a more serious take on the usually quaint Anacreontic metres.
So, I set out to write three hymns in Latin using mainly the Anacreontic metre, but allowing myself the use of Ionic lines (| u u – – | u u – – |) occasionally in the final poem.4 I didn’t really like how the Ionic rhythm sounded, and therefore kept their use limited to the demarcation of the three sections that the poem is divided into. I aimed to keep the poems relatively non-sectarian (that is, not overly Platonic), but in the case of Ad deos commune I found it necessary to establish the anagogic goal of the poem, and did so by reference to the divine Abyss. Calumnietur me quisquis vult; non repugnabo.
In order to make the poems more visually interesting, I have made indentations around some shifts in meaning or focus, and divided the longer poems into irregular stanzas. Hopefully this will counteract the tiring process of reading dozens of short and regular lines, which might be straining on the eyes. I hope that the light and skipping metre will grant the poems some levity, which might mix fortuitously with the more serious subject matter.
With these things in mind, please enjoy!
Ad Vestam
Sacra quisquis auget igne
dominamque ture Vestam
vel honorat usque murra,
imitabitur deorum
dominum Jovem potentem.
Ad deos commune et anagogicum
Bona mater indigentum,
Ephesi Diana princeps,
Venus alma, Vesta mater,
ope carmini favete,
animam levate chordis,
cithara, lyraque curva!
Facite addat os Camenae
mihi gratiam canenti;
facite adsit ipse Apollo,
tibi frater, o Diana;
facite adsit et chorea —
tua, Phoebe — Gratiarum,
jaciat suas Cupido
dominus deum sagittas,
hominum imperator ales;
Eratoque, magna Musa,
animam in profundum abyssum5
lyrico reconde versu —
medicamen ut probato,
dea, melle mixtum amarum
pueris adaptat aegris
epidaurius, tua sic
opera medere cordi!
Ad Venerem de amasia
Venerem imprecemur almam,
dominam Cypri venustam,
paphiis sacris vocatam!
Tibi te precor dicata,
quoniam Gyrinna mentem
mihi surripit venusta,
neque reddit allevatae
animam sacratam Amori;
tua victimam Gyrinna
sibi consciscit amantem.
Venus, impotens fuissem,
nisi te et tuam Gyrinnam,
similem tibi atque nymphis,
adamarem ante animam ipsam.
Tua me Gyrinna cordi
habet atque habebit imo,
ideoque gratiarum
tibi quas referre oportet,
neque finis est futurus,
neque finis esse possit!
- https://youtu.be/GYGwgLloZiA ↩︎
- I’ve inserted the article here metri causa, though it is absent in the Loeb. ↩︎
- I am, as usual, indebted to Stefan Tilg’s (2014) discussion (p. 192). ↩︎
- I did not allow myself this variation in the first two attempts because I believe one should most strictly follow the established rules when first attempting a new form, and then take more liberties as one becomes familiar with the style and voice the Muse requires. ↩︎
- I.e., the profundity associated with the One of the Gods. ↩︎
Conjectanea 