The myth of Cupid meets us at every turn in our reading, and is so familiar to young and old, both in pictures and poetry, that explanations are unnecessary. The poems that we have selected to illustrate the myth are of varied authorship and nationality. Those having the full flavor of antiquity are translations from the Greek poet, Anacreon, who wrote in the latter half of the fifth century B.C.

THOMAS BATESON'S MADRIGALS (1618).

Cupid in a bed of roses

Sleeping, chanced to be stung
Of a bee that lay among

The flowers where he himself reposes;
And thus to his mother weeping

Told that he this wound did take

Of a little wingèd snake,

As he lay securely sleeping.
Cytherea smiling said,

That "if so great a sorrow spring
From a silly bee's weak sting

As should make thee thus dismayed,

What anguish feel they, think'st thou, and what pain,
Whom thine empoison'd arrows cause complain?"

CUPID STUNG.

TRANSLATED BY EDWIN ARNOLD.

Love once among the roses
Perceived a bee reposing,

And wondered what the beast was,
And touched it, so it stung him.

Sorely his finger smarted,

And bitterly he greeted,

And wrung his hands together;

And half he ran, half fluttered
To Cytherea's bosom,

Unto his fair sweet mother.

Loud sobbed he, "Ai! ai! mother

Olola! I am murdered!

Olola! it has killed me !

A small brown snake with winglets,
Which men the honey-bee call,
Bit me!" But Cytherea
Said, laughing, "Ah, my baby,
If bees' stings hurt so sorely,
Bethink thee what the smart is
Of those, Love, whom thou piercest."

CUPID AND THE BEE.

THOMAS MOORE.

Cupid once upon a bed
Of roses laid his weary head;
Luckless urchin not to see

Within the leaves a slumbering bee!
The bee awaked — with anger wild
The bee awaked and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;

To Venus quick he runs, he flies;

“Oh, mother ! — I am wounded through — I die with pain — what shall I do? Stung by some little angry thing, Some serpent on a tiny wing,- for once I know,

A bee it was

I heard a peasant call it so.”

Thus he spoke, and she the while
Heard him with a soothing smile;
Then said: "My infant, if so much
Thou feel the little wild-bee's touch,
How must the heart, ah, Cupid, be,
The hapless heart, that's stung by thee?"

DISCOURSE WITH CUPID.

BEN JONSON.

Noblest Charis, you that are
Both my fortune and my star!
Hear what late discourse of you
Love and I have had; and true.
'Mongst my muses finding me,
Where he chanced your name to see
Set, and to this softer strain :
"Sure," said he, "if I have brain,
This here sung can be no other
By description, but my mother!
So hath Homer praised her hair;
So Anacreon drawn the air

Of her face, and made to rise,
Just about her sparkling eyes,

Both her brows, bent like my bow.

By her looks I do her know. And see!
Such my mother's blushes be,

As the bath your verse discloses
In her cheeks of milk and roses;

Such as oft I wanton in.

And above her even chin,

Have you placed the bank of kisses
Ripened with a breath more sweet,

Than when flowers and west winds meet.

Nay, her white and polished neck,
With the lace that doth it deck,
Is my mother's! hearts of slain
Lovers, made into a chain !

Her very name,

With my mother's is the same." "I confess all," I replied,

"And the glass hangs by her side,

And the girdle 'bout her waist,
All is Venus; . .

But, alas! thou seest the least
Of her good who is the best

Of her sex ; but couldst thou, Love,
Call to mind the forms that strove
For the apple, and those three
Make in one, the same were she.
For this beauty still doth hide
Something more than thou hast spied.
Outward grace weak Love beguiles :
She is Venus when she smiles,
But she's Juno when she walks,

And Minerva when she talks."

CUPID AND CAMPASPE.

JOHN LILY.

Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses-Cupid paid;
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother's doves and team of sparrows
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose

Growing on 's cheek (but none knows how);
With these the crystal of his brow,

And then the dimple of his chin;
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?

THE CHEAT OF CUPID. [ANACREON.] TRANSLATED BY ROBERT HERRICK.

One silent night of late,

When every creature rested,

Came one unto my gate,

And knocking, me molested.

"Who's there," said I, "beats there, And troubles thus the sleepy?" "Cast off," said he, "all fear,

And let not locks thus keep thee."

"For I a boy am, who

By moonless nights have swerved; And all with showers wet through And e'en with cold half-starved."

I pitiful, arose,

And soon a taper lighted; And did myself disclose

Unto the lad benighted.

I saw he had a bow,

And wings, too, which did shiver;

And, looking down below,

I spied he had a quiver.

I to my chimney's shrine

Brought him, as Love professes,