¹ Chapter xi, “The Old Singers.”

² Harold W. Thompson, Body, Boots, and Britches (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1940), p. 339.

³ The Works of Anacreon translated into English Verse … by Mr. Addison, London. The ambiguity of “Mr. Addison,” which misled many readers, may have been intentional.

⁴ In the first entitled The Bee and in the second (p. 188) Cupid and a Bee. For these references I am indebted to Professor Otto Kinkeldey of Cornell University and to the Music Division of the New York Public Library. I have at hand no facilities for tracing the song in English songbooks of the period. Music by Gossec for J. B. Gail's French version of the Anacreontic is printed at the end of Gail's Odes d'Anacréon (Paris, 1799).

⁵ By the present writer in The American Journal of Philology, xlix (1928), 105, and by Professor J. G. Fucilla, ibid., l (1929), 190, and in Classical Philology, xxvi (1931), 135.

⁶ Of the modern versions of this theme, more than a hundred and thirty, that are mentioned below, nine have previously been listed by Fritzsche, Theocriti Idyllia (Leipzig, 1870), ii, 103, eight others by Mustard, “Later Echoes of the Greek Bucolic Poets,” A.J.P., xxx (1909), 269, and ten of the English versions by Kerlin, Theocritus in English Literature (Lynchburg, 1910). I have been unable to consult R. Galos, “L'Amour et les abeilles,” in Irodalom-történeti közlemények (Budapest, 1937).

⁷ I find no real resemblance in the four Greek epigrams cited by Fritzsche, op. cit., ii, 102; there is more similarity in the epigram by Bianor (A.P. 9.548) compared with the Theocritean poem by Alciati (below), but it is accidental. Bullen, Anacreon (London, 1893), p. 219, speaks of “this favorite conceit, which we frequently find represented on gems”; but I find no justification for his statement. Bullen, indeed, reproduces on his cover a gem from the Poniatowski Collection, but this, as he says, is a modern fabrication. As such it is noteworthy for the modern influence of the theme. Before the Renaissance I know only the commonly-cited paraphrase of the Anacreontic in the twelfth-century romance by the Byzantine Nicetas Eugenianus (iv, 313).

⁸ Estienne communicated his discovery with several friends between 1549 and 1554; cf. Laumonier, Ronsard poète lyrique, 3rd ed. (Paris, 1932), p. 121. But no version of Cupid and the Bee seems to be affected by this fact.

⁹ In the more accessible edition of Naples, 1520, sig. biiii². Angeriano's poems played a significant rôle in sixteenth-century lyric verse, since they were universally imitated by the vernacular poets. His method was to take a classical, usually a Greek theme, and give it a turn of his own. Thus his treatment of the present motive is typical:

¹¹ From Velius' Poemata (Basel, 1522). The & is not in the first (1525) edition of Soter; in the third (1544) edition it appears on p. 65.

¹² Of these versions in Soter, all except the anonymous translation interpret the words (“he blew on his hand”) as “his hand became swollen,” e.g. Velius: tumuerunt vulnere palmae. Vernacular versions having this peculiarity can therefore be suspected of depending on one of these translations; but cf. Angeriano above, and also Alciati (tumido ungue). A second peculiarity in the translations by Melanchthon and Camerarius is that Love's fingers bleed: digitos monstratque cruentos (Mel.), suffusum … cruorem (Cam.).

¹³ Theocriti Idyttia (Hagenau, 1530); Valckenaer's Theocritus (Leiden, 1810), p. 464.

¹⁵ I have not seen this translation.

¹⁶ Sabinus (Schuler) published his Poemata in 1544 and 1558 at Leipzig. I have seen neither of these books. The verses in question are given under Sabinus' name in Antonio Germano's Giardino di Sentenze (Rome, 1630), p. 296, and without his name in the Notes by Lorenzo Pignoria in Andreae Alciati Emblemata (Padua, 1621), p.470. I quote Pignoria's remarks since they relate to the only Renaissance painting that I have seen mentioned as embodying this theme: “Tabella picta huius argumenti [Cupid and the Bee] extat apud Aloysium Corradinum Juris Consultum [?of Padua] et quidem manu periti artificis depicta, in qua leguntur hi versus:

¹⁷ A prose fable combining Moschus i and Theoc. 1–19, with the “moral”: “Voluptati dolor et calamitas plerumque comes est.”

¹⁸ I have not seen this translation.

¹⁹ Stigel's poems were originally collected in 1566–69 and 1572, after his death. He was a friend of Melanchthon, and his version of the present theme bears some relation to those of Melanchthon and Camerarius in Soter's Epigrammata. Thus he writes, “Figit apis cui dira manus digitosque tenellos”: cf. Melanchthon, “Fixit apis puerum Veneris digitosque tenellos”; again, “digitusque tumescit ab ictu”: cf. Camerarius, “digitusque tumebat ab ictu”; and, “Inque novo stimuli vulnere linquit acum”: cf. Camerarius, “stimulumque recenti in vulnere liquit.” All these points represent departures from the literal sense of the Greek.

²⁰ Scaliger ascribes the original to Moschus.

²¹ Cunich's version also appears in his own Anthologie (Rome, 1771), p. 183, and again in his Theocrili Idyllia (Parma, 1799).

²² I have not seen this book; the translation of “Theocritus” 19 may be that of Cunich.

As probable echoes of the Theocritean poem may be mentioned two epigrams by Celio Calcagnini under the title, Apes in pharetra Cupidinis in Jo. Baptislae Pignae Carminum libri quatuor (Venice, 1553), pp. 199–200, the first beginning:

The form of this epigram, in distichs, suggests that Alamanni may have followed one of the Latin versions also in distichs. Like Strozzi he omits most of Love's lively reaction; but the extension in his last line, “among men and gods,” not in the Greek, I find previously only in Ducher's imitation:

In any case, Alamanni follows “Theocritus,” and Raffaelli should not have printed the title “Da Anacreonte” for a poem probably written in 1547. It seems not to have been noticed that four “unedited” lines by Alamanni in Frati's Rime inedite del cinquecento (Bologna, 1918), p. 34, are the second half of this epigram.

²⁶ Groto's madrigal is for the most part only a colorless reproduction of the theme: thus to represent the reaction of Cupid he has only the tame phrase “Sdegnato assai”; but his opening lines are unusual:

The hollow bee-tree (tronco) may be simply a trait from nature, but as Groto is a bookish poet it is worth notice that the engraving for Alciati's Emb. 112 represents the bees as occupying such a tronco. On an earlier page (Rime, p. 113) Groto has a madrigal made from the epigram of Angeriano mentioned above, in which the bee is happy to die at the hand of the lady.

²⁷ Again a free handling of the theme:

A musical setting for this madrigal is perhaps to be found in Madrigali a sei voci di Giosefo Biffi, Nuremberg, 1600 (cf. E. Vogel, Bibliothek der gedruckten weltlichen Vocalmusik Italiens, Berlin, 1892, i, 98: “Punto da un”); but, if so, it seems to have had no currency in this form. Yet it is hard to resist the impression that Guarini's madrigal is somehow behind the following song popular in England in the eighteenth century:

Two settings for this song are printed, and a third from the Gentleman's Magazine mentioned, in English Songs of the Georgian Period, ed. by A. Moffat and F. Kidson (London: Bayley and Ferguson, n.d.), pp. 194, 290.

²⁸ A free imitation of “Theocritus” given in illustration of the Anacreontic. How free may be judged from what becomes of the expression, “he stamped and skipped about”:

Desmarais doubtless followed one of the Latin versions: Love's finger swells, and there is a reference at the end to the gods.

²⁹ Mentioned by Argelati, Biblioteca degli volgarizzatori (Milan, 1767), iv, 30. I have not seen this version.

³⁰ A professed translation of Melanchthon's Latin version. It is easily accessible in Miss Hélène Harvitt's dissertation, Eustorg de Beaulieît, a disciple of Marot (New York, 1918), p. 71. Beaulieu provides a setting: “En ung verger, ou des mouches à miel Avoient leur nidz,” and extends the “point”: “Veu que toy seul blesses toute nature.”

³¹ Most of D'Amboise's epigrams have neo-Latin sources, and this one is from Angeriano, as the reader may see by turning back to that writer:

³² As Parturier notes, Scève is dependent on D'Amboise, though he changes the point.

³³ Bucher translates from Strozzi (above). Note, for example, Hymettus, pueriles lermettes, D'où vient, A quoy:

With this last motive cf. Calcagnini above (note 22).

³⁴ The superscription, “Pris de Theocrite,” is right, and the editors are mistaken in correcting it to Anacreon. The version is not literal, but I have not succeeded in detecting an intermediate source.

³⁵ Though composed in an anacreontic measure, this poem is from “Theocritus.” The ending recalls Alamanni:

As a whole, however, Baïf's poem, in the succession of motives and in certain phrases, recalls the Latin versions in Soter, and especially that of Melanchthon: cf. “ses tendres doigts” (digitos tenellos); “ses doigts s'en enflèrent” (intumuit manus); “Dépit s'en courrouce, La terre repouce, Et d'un leger saut Il s'élance en haut, Et vole à sa mère” (doloris Impatiens plodensque solum pernicious alis Subvolat ad malrem); “se prenant à rire” (Mater ait ridens: not subridens); “Tu ne vaux pas mieux” (apibus non corpore praestas).

³⁶ Augé-Chiquet, J.-A. de Baïf (Paris, 1909), p. 389 ii, refers this unpublished poem to “Anacreon,” but the initial words given by Marty-Laveaux suggest “Theocritus,” and the fact that Baïf's earlier version is from this source supports my guess that here also “Theocritus” is the original.

³⁷ “Translated out of Theocritus.” Kendall's immediate source eludes me. It must have contained the trait from “Anacreon” which he reproduces:

Hence it must be later than 1554 when the Anacreontea were first published.

³⁸ Watson's note is: “The two first partes of this sonnet are an imitation of certaine Greeke verses of Theocritus; which verses as they are translated by many good Poets of later dayes, so moste aptlye and plainely by C. Urcinus Velius in his Epigrammes,” and he quotes the first six lines of Ursinus' translation. The first nine lines of Watson's poem are from this source, the remaining nine, on Love's cure by Aesculapius, are his own invention.

³⁹ The list of versions, here broken off, is resumed below, following our remarks on Spenser.

⁴⁰ Merritt Y. Hughes, “Spenser and the Greek Pastoral Triad,” Studies in Philology, xx (1923), 196–199.

⁴¹ The discovery that Spenser used Tasso for this poem might have been made by Francesco Viglione, if he had taken his own hint. See his recent book, La Poesia lirica di Edmondo Spenser (Genoa, 1937), p. 298. He believes that Spenser went directly to the Greek of “Anacreon,” and having said so, throws out a suggestion nearer the truth than he knew: “Se poi doveva essere spinto da imitatori, egli aveva, più del Ronsard, familiare il Tasso, che fu dei primi a scrivere odicine sulle orme del lirico di Ceo” (leg. Teo). I note this “near miss” because it brings out the relative sureness of our method of collecting for inspection a large number of versions of a given theme.

⁴² This madrigal is here noted only because Kastner regards it as condensed from Guarini's madrigal given above. I cannot see that it is related to Guarini's poem.

⁴³ Mentioned by Fritzsche, p. 103, and by Kerlin, p. 45; not seen by me.

⁴⁴ Not seen by me; mentioned by Kerlin, p. 46.

⁴⁵ Mentioned by Fritzsche and Kerlin. I have not seen this translation.

⁴⁶ This imitator has brought out a point, elsewhere, so far as I know, only made by Micyllus:

⁴⁷ In his comment on the Anacreontic. Addison's Anacreon is dependent on Madame Dacier's edition.

⁴⁸ Save for small textual differences, this anonymous poem, here referred to “Theocritus xix,” had figured in the same periodical for 1737 (p. 697) as an Imitation of Anacreon. It is, however, mainly from the Theocritean version, as witness,

There may be an element of “Anacreon” in,

but cf. Micyllus:

With the first line given above compare the first line of the anonymous version in The Gentleman's Magazine for 1733, quoted just before. The resemblance, however, goes no further, and the present translation is the better poem.

⁴⁹ Paraphrase in an ode On Pleasure, quoted in part by Kerlin, p. 72. Scott refers to Theoc. xix. Not seen by me.

⁵⁰ Cf. the beginning of anon. in Gent. Mag., 1733, above, and also anon. in Lond. Mag., 1737, 1741, and Fawkes. The line coined by the anonymous imitator in 1733 seems to have rung in the ears of the eighteenth century; for surely this is not the only way of securing a rhyme for “hive.”

⁵¹ Reference may be made to the bibliography in J. B. Gail's Odes d'Anacréon (Paris, 1799); pp. 197–202; to A. Delboulle, Anacréon et les poèmes, anacrèontiques avec les traductions et imitations des poètes du xvi^e siècles (Havre, 1891); to L. A. Michelangeli, Anacreonte e la sua fortuna nei secoli, con una rassegna critica su gl' imitatori e i traduttori italiani delle anacreontee (Bologna, 1922); and to Báraibar, Menéndez y Palayo, and others, Poetas Liricos Griegos, “Bibl. Class.” (Madrid, 1898).

⁵² Influenced by Estienne's version. Raius was a pupil of Pier Vettori to whom Estienne had communicated the Anacreontea soon after their discovery.

⁵³ To Barnes this ode is “omnium prima.”

⁵⁴ Ten poems on this theme, in Greek and Latin, and in various metres: “Graeca et Latina aliquot variationis specimina, quae styli exercendi gratia Anonymus quidam in lepidissimam hanc fabellam lusit.” These versions all frankly employ motives from “Theocritus” as well as from “Anacreon.” Maittaire also quotes the Theocritean poem, with Estienne's translation. He gives two direct translations of the Anacreontic.

⁵⁵ Laumonier, Ronsard poète lyrique (Paris, 1909), pp. 603–605, has successfully shown that this poem is a contamination of “Anacreon” and “Theocritus,” together with some motives of Ronsard's invention. It may be possible to go further. For the Anacreontic Ronsard would naturally turn to Estienne's edition and translation just published. For the Theocritean poem he probably also employed one of the Latin versions. If so, he used one containing the mistranslation, “his hand swelled,” for he has this motive; but my notes do not enable me to govern all the possibilities. Melanchthon's version has this point, and also digitos tenellos (Ronsard, “sa main tendrette”). I note also that Ducher's translation begins:

Compare:

I have at hand only these two lines of Ducher's version.

⁵⁶ Belleau followed the Greek, but helped himself somewhat by Estienne's Latin translation, and had, I think, Ronsard's version beside him. That he followed the Greek is shown at several points where he is slightly more faithful than Estienne, e.g., “Venus la belle” Estienne, candidam Cytheren). That he looked at Estienne is clear from “Le mignon commence à se plaindre,” where the Greek is and Estienne renders: eiulare coepit (Elie André, simply eiulavit). That he recalled Ronsard is suggested by motives occurring in Ronsard but not in “Anacreon” or his translators, e.g., the swollen hand:

Again:

This last is scarcely the natural translation of for which Estienne has Inter rosas. André indeed has A pent rosae insidentem, but his version probably was not available to Ronsard.

⁵⁷ An ode in eight eight-line stanzas, treating the theme freely, but proved to be from “Anacreon” (perhaps through Ronsard) by lines 9–13:

Cf. Ronsard: “Les villageois … Le surnomment une avette.” Perhaps by coincidence this version shows the extension, “men and gods,” that we have found first in the imitations of “Theocritus” by Ducher and Alamanni, and this point becomes the chief motive of Magny's ode, being elaborated in the last five stanzas.

⁵⁸ A fairly close translation, but influenced by Ronsard: e.g., “Cueillant des roses,” cf. Ronsard, “Cueilloit des fleurs” (not in “Anacreon”); “Venus souriant,” cf. Ronsard, “Venus se sourit.” The latter point Ronsard had from “Theocritus.” Doublet's line, “Au bout d'un doit de la main,” recalls “Theocritus,” but is not represented by Ronsard.

⁵⁹ A chanson, much indebted to Ronsard:

⁶⁰ A prose-emblem. The motto of this, the second, Discours is: “Que les choses douces deviennent souvent amères,” taken evidently from Alciati, Emb. 112. Though the idea of making an emblem of this theme obviously came to Baudoin from Alciati, he follows “Anacreon,” whereas Alciati employed “Theocritus.” The Discours is preceded by a fullpage engraving by Briot of Cupid and the Bee.

⁶¹ A professed imitation of Anacreon, in seven stanzas. Note that Love is lying (asleep) on the roses, a new motive in French imitations, but compare Bateson below.

⁶² Quoted, but wrongly ascribed to Mathurin Regnier, by Bullen, Anacreon (London, 1893), p. 220.

⁶³ This version is reprinted by Le Fort de La Morinière, Bibliothèque poétique (Paris, 1745), iii, 498 (ascribed to G**.), and by Brazen de La Martinière, Passetemps poétique (Paris, 1757), ii, 62 (anonymous).

⁶⁴ To judge from the opening lines, for I have not a complete copy, this looks like an imitation of Regnier's or Sanadon's version of the theme.

⁶⁵ See above, under “Theocritus.”

⁶⁶ Entitled The Barginet [pastoral] of Antimachus. This very free treatment of the theme has been regularly claimed for “Theocritus,” e.g., by Kerlin (p. 25) and by Rollins (ii, 94); but on examination it turns irresistibly to the other tradition. The thread may be picked out thus: “Oft from her lap…. He leapt, and gathered sommer flowers, both violets and roses…. A bee that harbour'd hard thereby, Did sting his hand, and made him crye, Oh Mother, I am wounded…. the goddesse sayd, Who hath my Cupid so dismayd? He aunswered: Gentle Mother, The hony-worker in the hive.” Here Cupid gathers flowers (roses), not honey as in “Theocritus,” and the direct address, “Oh Mother, I am wounded,” is clearly from the Anacreontic. Further, the act of gathering flowers recalls Ronsard (“Cueilloit des fleurs”); and still other points suggest Ronsard as Lodge's source: as in Ronsard, Venus asks who wounded him (“Qui t'a, di moi, faus garson, Blessé de telle façon?”—“My little lad, the goddesse said, Who hath my Cupid so dismayd?”); she kisses him (“En le baisant le prit”—“She kist the lad”); she cures him (“Puis sa main lui a soufflée Pour guarir sa plaie enflée.”—“She suckt the wound, and swag'd the sting”). None of these points is in either of the Greek originals. Lodge has developed an elaborate setting of his own, and at the end has made a new application of the fable.

⁶⁷ This excellent version seems to have been made directly from the Greek. It has, however, a peculiarity not found in earlier versions: “Cupid, in a bed of roses, sleeping,” whereas in the original it is the bee that is sleeping among the roses. Cupid sleeping may be a reminiscence of Spenser, or of Watson's imitation of “Theocritus” which begins: “Where tender Love had laide him down to sleepe,” but more likely it is a wilful variant. See below. The French had been able to sing Belleau's version to the music of Richard Renvoysy since 1559, and had to wait until the end of the eighteenth century for Gossec's new musical setting for the translation by Gail (I know of no evidence that either of these was popular). Bateson's charming air deserves to have been popular, but whether it continued in favor until the eighteenth century began to sing John Addison's translation is doubtful.

Herrick's version seems to have been made from the Greek, but probably with Estienne's or André's Latin beside it (cf. André, momordit: “has bitten me”). The two Latin versions are both printed in the Plantin Lyric Poets, Pindari Olympia, etc. (Antwerp, 1567). But the case for the intervening Latin is not here so plain as in Herrick's The Cheat of Cupid which Delattre has shown to be dependent on Estienne: Floris Delattre: Robert Herrick (Paris, 1912), p. 405. The first two lines are very likely a reminiscence of Bateson's song, while other departures from the original, in lines 6 and 10–11, are probably due to Herrick himself (but cf. Ronsard and Lodge). See the next note.

Stanley has taken Herrick's poem of the year before, and corrected it to the Greek text, also regularizing the trochaic metre. It is very successfully done. Note that he retains the charming glide between verses one and two. In the Notes to his Anacreon (ed. of 1651, p. 106) Stanley alludes to Pignoria's report of a painting on the subject, and quotes Sabinus' verses.

⁷⁰ The tradition has now become fixed among the English, despite Stanley, that Cupid, not the bee, lay among the roses:

As Cupid once with wanton play,

Amidst the Rose-trees sporting lay, etc.

⁷² Here once more the reader must be reminded of the shortcomings of my notes. It might repay some one to look again at the versions by Gazoldus, Ducher, Gouvéa, Rapitius, anon, in Taygetus, Capilupi, De Lemene, and Gamier, of which I have kept no copies, and also at those I note as not seen by me, though these are mostly late.

⁷³ The list of poems on Cupid and the Bee drawn up in the preceding pages is probably far from complete. Two further instances have recently fallen to my notice, too late for inclusion in the series. One, a sonnet by Amadis Jamyn (Œuvres poétiques, Paris, 1584. f. 35r), having for its main subject a scratch received by the lady on her hand, employs the Greek theme as introduction, compressed into the first quatrain:

Despite the compression, there remains one mark (riant) to show that Jamyn follows “Theocritus.” Somewhat earlier, Claude Binet had turned out a jeu d'esprit on this theme as a contribution to La Puce de Mlle des Roches (1582) [La Jeunesse d'Estienne Pasquier, Paris, 1610, p. 622]: Amour, flame in hand, approaches the lady, but is driven off and wounded by the puce, so that he runs to his mother—and the rest follows the original save for changes occasioned by the substitution of flea for bee, thus:

Clearly Binet's version is from “Anacreon.” But it is also affected by the modern tradition so far as to show the extension “men and gods” (cf. Notes 24, 25, 28, 35, 57 above):

Finally, for the iconography (cf. Notes 7, 16, 60 above) add a painting with this subject by Bon Boullongne (1649–1717) reported to be in the museum of Angers: see Denais' edition of Colin Bucher, p. 71n.