When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dish,
And purple nectar glads the festive hour;
The guest, without a want, without a wish,
Can yield no room to musick’s soothing pow’r.

TRANSLATION
FROM THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES, V. 196[a]

The rites deriv’d from ancient days,
With thoughtless reverence we praise;
The rites that taught us to combine
The joys of musick and of wine,
And bade the feast, and song, and bowl
O’erfill the saturated soul: 
But ne’er the flute or lyre applied
To cheer despair, or soften pride;
Nor call’d them to the gloomy cells
Where want repines and vengeance swells;
Where hate sits musing to betray,
And murder meditates his prey. 
To dens of guilt and shades of care,
Ye sons of melody repair,
Nor deign the festive dome to cloy
With superfluities of joy. 
Ah! little needs the minstrel’s power
To speed the light convivial hour. 
The board, with varied plenty crown’d,
May spare the luxuries of sound[b].

[a] The classical reader will, doubtless, be pleased to see the
    exquisite original in immediate comparison with this translation;
    we, therefore, subjoin it, and also Dr. J. Warton’s imitation of
    the same passage.

[Greek:] skaious de legon kouden ti sophous tous prosthe brotous, ouk an amartois oitines umnous epi men thaliais, epi d’eilapinais kai para deipnois euronto biou terpnas akoas stugious de broton oudeis pulas eureto mousae kai poluchordois odais pauein, exon thanatoi deinai te tuchai sphallonsi domous kaitoi tade men kerdos akeisthai molpaisi brotous ina d’endeipnoi daites ti mataen teinousi boan to paron gar echei terpsin aph auton daitos plaeroma brotaoisin
                        MEDEA, 193—­206.  ED. PORS

Queen of every moving measure,
Sweetest source of purest pleasure,
Music! why thy pow’rs employ
Only for the sons of joy;
Only for the smiling guests,
At natal or at nuptial feasts? 
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those, whom secret griefs devour,
Bid be still the throbbing hearts
Of those whom death or absence parts,
And, with some softly whisper’d air,
Sooth the brow of dumb despair.

[b] This translation was written by Johnson for his friend Dr. Burney,
    and was inserted, as the work of “a learned friend,” in that
    gentleman’s History of Musick, vol. ii. p. 340.  It has always been
    ascribed to Johnson; but, to put the matter beyond a doubt, Mr.
    Malone ascertained the fact by applying to Dr. Burney himself.  J. B.

TRANSLATION
OF THE FIRST TWO STANZAS OF THE SONG “RIO
VERDE, RIO VERDE,” PRINTED IN BISHOP PERCY’S
RELIQUES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY.

AN IMPROMPTU.

Glassy water, glassy water,
  Down whose current, clear and strong,
Chiefs confused in mutual slaughter,
  Moor and Christian roll along.