A Shepherd from the neighbourhood of Tess offers the fair keeperess of the Tea Chest a decayed leaf fallen from the wreath of Anacreon; if this is accepted, [ . . . ] should pick up a few more, he will communicate them.
November 2nd 1809
To the Keeperess of the Attic Chest
A Translation of the sixteenth Ode of Anacreon
You may sing the Theban War
Or how the Grecians from afar
Led their ships to Phrygia’s strand
How bravely fought the Trojan band.
Not such your poet overthrew,
New were their arms their warfare new
No horse, no footmen fill’d their ranks
No rowers mann’d the trireme’s banks;
Anacreon here, a captive lies
Conquer’d by shafts from female eyes.
Ictinus