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# Gavriil Derzhavin wrote “Anacreon by the Stove” in 1795 about Maria, her harp and Cupid
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/sluchis-anakreonu-mariiu-voseshchat-mezh-nimi-kupidonu-kak-babochke-letat/
- Published: 2024-08-08T06:33:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:40:43.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Books

Should Anacreon chance  
To visit Maria,  
Between them Cupid  
Would flit like a butterfly.  
The winged godling flew  
Around the beauty,  
And fitted his feathered arrows  
To his bow.  
He shot from her heavenly  
And blue eyes,  
And from the roses on her charming lips,  
And from the lilies on her breast.  
But when Maria took up  
The ringing harp  
And let her voice sound  
Into the golden strings,  
Under her scarlet fingers  
The god fluttered more briskly still,  
With the sharpest arrows  
He struck hearts and burned them.  
Anacreon by the stove  
Sighed then, sitting there,  
"Like a moth from the candle,  
I too shall burn," he said.

*Literal translation*

Gavriil Derzhavin, Anacreon by the Stove, 1795

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_13057@08-08-2024_09-33-00.jpg)