Pindar and Anacreon/Anacreon/Ode 40

by Anacreon

ODE XL.—CUPID WOUNDED.^[1]

Young Cupid, once, in luckless hour,
Saw and pluck'd his favourite flower,
A blooming rose—whose leaves among
A bee that slept his finger stung.
Loud he scream'd with sudden pain,
Stamp'd and sobb'd—then scream'd again.
He runs—he flies through mead and grove,
To seek the beauteous Queen of Love.
"Ah me! mamma, I'm kill'd," he cries,
"Thy child, thy own dear Cupid dies!
For, as I play'd on yonder plain,
A winged serpent^[2]—ah! what pain!
A thing the ploughmen call a bee,
With dart of poison wounded me."
Fair Venus, smiling, thus replies:
"Oh dry those pretty pearly eyes;

Think if a little insect's sting
Such painful smart to Cupid bring,
Oh, what must their keen anguish be
Who're wounded to the heart by thee!"

1. The ideas contained in this ode have been made the subject of a song, which was a great favourite, and is still frequently heard. It is however very doubtful whether many who sing it know that they are warbling the strains of a poet who flourished more than two thousand years ago; or, in other words, that they are singing a new version of one of the odes of Anacreon.
2. In order to make Cupid express his pain and alarm more strongly, Anacreon has made him persist in calling the bee a serpent. Theocritus has imitated this beautiful ode in his nineteenth idyllium.