Odae — Paris 1554

Ανακρέοντος Τηΐου μέλη. Anacreontis Teij odae. Ab Henrico Stephano luce & Latinitate nunc primum donatae. — Lutetiae. Apud Henricum Stephanum. M. D. LIIII.

Paris, Henri Estienne, 1554

Editio princeps

4to (180 x 134 mm). *4 A-N4 O3 (lacking blank O4): (4) leaves, 110 p. Recent boards (cartonato rustico). Title-leaf a bit browned in inner margin; very small brown spots throughout, see photo. – BP16 114523.

¶ Schreiber n° 140: Editio princeps of what Henri Estienne and his contemporaries believed to be the ancient Greek lyrics of the poet Anacreon (6th century B.C.), who sang of the pleasures of sex and wine, but whose poems are not extant, except for some short fragments. The poems which are printed in this volume consist of the Anacreonta, a collection of Greek lyric poems written in imitation of Anacreon at various dates – some as late as the tenth century. The Anacreonta became the most influential „ancient“ Greek poetic text during the Renaissance, and Estienne’s editio princeps virtually caused a poetic revolution, not only in France, but also in Italy and Germany – where this influence culminated in the 18th century with the Anacreontic Poets.
The young Henri Estienne discovered these Greek lyric poems while in Louvain, in a manuscript owned by the Englishman John Clements, the friend of Thomas More. Their publication by Estienne „was a sensation of the first class and the starting point for a new branch of modern literature“ (R. Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, p. 109). This first edition was greeted with tremendous enthusiasm by the members of the Pléiade, who like everyone else, believed the poems genuine, and each of whom immediately translated or imitated some of the Anacreonta. Ronsard, in particular, was deeply influenced by the book, and immortalized Henri Estienne and his discovery in one of his Odes (v, 16):
Verse donc et reverse encor
Dedans ceste grand‘ coupe d’or:
Je vais boire a Henry Estienne,
Qui des Enfers nous a rendu
Du vieil Anacreon perdu
La douce lyre Teïenne.

The Greek text is followed by the Latin translation by Estienne himself (though it has also been attributed to Jean Dorat); there is also Estienne’s commentary on the Greek text, and his address to the reader, written in Greek. The book is magnificently printed in all three sizes of the „grecs du roi“. The largest font is used for the text up to page 51; the middle size for the text from pp. 52 to 63; and the smallest size for the Greek cited in the notes (Observationes), and for headings in the text.
This is the first book published under the imprint of Henri Estienne II; its title-page bears the Estienne device n° 7, first used by Robert Estienne, who left the block behind in Paris when he moved to Geneva … Since Henri Estienne never owned a press in Paris, it is unlikely that he himself printed this edition; in view of the use of „grecs du roi“, he probably commissioned Guillaume Morel, who succeeded Robert and Charles Estienne in the use of the Royal Greek types, to print the Anacreonta …