APPHO
A MEMOIR AND TRANSLATION
H. T. WHARTON
SAPPHO,
SAPPHO
MEMOIR, TEXT, SELECTED RENDERINGS
AND
& ^Literal translation
BY
HENRY THORNTON WHARTON
M.A. OXON.
SECOND EDITION
ftcnfcon
DAVID STOTT, 370, OXFORD STREET
Chicago A. C. McCLURG & CO.
MDCCCLXXXVII
[All rights reserved]
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
HE cordial reception which the first
edition of my little book met with
has encouraged me to make many
improvements in this re-issue. Un-
foreseen delays in its production have also helped
me to advance upon my first essay. Among
other changes, I have been able to obtain a new
fount of Greek type, which has to me a peculiar
beauty. Unfamiliar though some of the letters
may appear at first sight, they reproduce the
calligraphy of the manuscripts of the most
artistic period of the Middle Ages. This type
has been specially cast in Berlin, by favour of
the Imperial Government. In a larger size it is
not unknown to English scholars, but such as I
am now enabled to present has never been used
before.
Last Spring a telegram from the Vienna cor-
respondent of the Times announced that some
2234815
iv Preface to Second Edition.
new verses of Sappho had been found among
the Fa yum papyri in the possession of the Arch-
duke Renier. When the paper on His Imperial
Highness' papyri was read before the Imperial
Academy of Science by Dr. Wilhelm Ritter von
Hartel on the loth of March, it became evident
that the remark was made, not in allusion to the
Archduke's possessions, but to that portion of
the Fayum manuscripts which had been acquired
by the Imperial Museum in Berlin. The verses
referred to were indeed no other than the t\vo
fragments which had been deciphered and
criticized by the celebrated scholar, Dr. F. Blass,
of Kiel, in the Rheinisches Museum for 1880 ;
and further edited by Bergk in the posthumous
edition of his Poetae Lyrici Graeci. I am now
able, not only to print the text of these fragments
and a translation of them, but also, through
the courtesy of the Imperial Government of
Germany, to give an exact reproduction of
photographs of the actual scraps of parchment
on which they were written a thousand years
ago. Dr. Erman, the Director of the Imperial
Egyptian Museum, kindly furnished me with
the photographs ; and the Autotype Company
has copied them with its well-known fidelity.
Among many other additions, that which I
have been able to make to fragment 100 is
particularly interesting. The untimely death of
Preface to Second Edition. v
the young French scholar, M. Charles Graux,
who found the quotation among the dry dust of
Choricius' rhetorical orations, is indeed to be
deplored. Had he lived longer he might have
cleared up for us many another obscure passage
in the course of his studies of manuscripts which
have not hitherto found an editor.
The publication of the memoir on Naukratis
by the Committee of the Egypt Exploration
Fund last autumn is an event worthy of notice,
the town having been so intimately connected
with Sappho's story. On one of the pieces of
pottery found at Naucratis by Mr. Petrie occur
the inscribed letters 2A* (pi. xxxiv., fig. 532),
which some at first thought might refer to
Sappho ; but the more probable restoration is
ei]c ' A<p[po&iTHv, "to Aphrodite."
Since the issue of my first edition, M. De
Vries has published at Leyden an exhaustive
dissertation upon Ovid's Epistle, Sappho to
Phaon, which has caused me to modify some of
my conclusions regarding it. Although Ovid's
authorship of this Epistle seems to me now to
be sufficiently vindicated, I still remain con-
vinced that we are not justified in taking the
statements in it as historically accurate.
It is curious also that a candidate for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University
of Erlangen offered, as his inaugural dissertation,
vi Preface to Second Edition.
in 1885, an account of "Sappho the Mitylenean."
The author, Joacheim I. Paulidos, is a native
of Lesbos. It is a pamphlet of sixty pages,
written, not in modern, but in classical Greek.
His opening sentence, Mia KOI JUOVH efevero 011910
"Sappho stands alone and unique," conies
near the meaning, but misses the polish of the
phrase gives his dominant tone; his acceptance
of her character greatly resembles mine.
Since the years now and then bring to light
some fresh verses of Sappho's, there is a faint
hope that more may still be found. The rich
store of parchments and papyri discovered in
the Fayum has not all been examined yet.
Indeed among a few of these which were lost in
the custom-house at Alexandria in 1881-2, M.
Maspero, the renowned Director of Explorations
in Egypt, thought he had detected the perfume
of Sappho's art.
It is pleasing to see (cf. fragment 95) that our
own Poet Laureate has again recurred, in his
latest volume of poems, to a phrase from Sappho
which he had first used nearly sixty years ago ;
and that he calls her " the poet," implying her
supremacy by the absence of any added epithet.
I am indebted to many kind friends and dis-
tinguished scholars for much assistance. Among
them I must especially thank Professor Blass, of
Kiel. Notwithstanding the frequent recurrence
Preface to Second Edition. vii
of his name on my pages, I owe more to his
cordial help and criticism than I can acknowledge
here.
Little more than I have given is needed to
prove how transcendent an artist Sappho was ;
but I cannot forbear concluding with an extract
from a recent essay on poetry by Mr. Theodore
Watts :
"Never before these songs were sung, and
never since, did the human soul, in the grip of
a fiery passion utter a cry like hers ; and, from
the executive point of view, in directness, in
lucidity, in that high imperious verbal economy
which only Nature can teach the artist, she has
no equal, and none worthy to take the place of
second."
HENRY T. WHARTON.
39, St. George s Road,
Kilburn, London, A". II'.
April, iSSj.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
APPHO, the Greek poetess whom
more than eighty generations have
been obliged to hold without a peer,
has never, in the entirety of her
works, been brought within the reach of English
readers. The key to her wondrous reputation
which would, perhaps, be still greater if it had
ever been challenged has hitherto lain hidden
in other languages than ours. As a name, as a
figure pre-eminent in literary history, she has
indeed never been overlooked. But the English-
reading world has come to think, and to be con-
tent with thinking, that no verse of hers survives
save those two hymns which Addison, in the
Spectator, has made famous by his panegyric,
not by Ambrose Philips' translation.
My aim in the present work is to familiarize
English readers, whether they understand Greek
or not, with every word of Sappho, by translating
x Preface to First Edition.
all the one hundred and seventy fragments that
her latest German editor thinks may be ascribed
to her :
Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song,
Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love.
SWINBURNE.
I have contented myself with a literal English
prose translation, for Sappho is, perhaps above
all other poets, untranslatable. The very diffi-
culties in the way of translating her may be the
reason why no Englishman has hitherto under-
taken the task. Many of the fragments have
been more or less successfully rendered into
English verse, and such versions I have quoted
whenever they rose above mediocrity, so far as I
have been able to discover them.
After an account of Sappho's life as complete
as my materials have allowed, I have taken her
fragments in order as they stand in Bergk, whose
text I have almost invariably followed. I have
given (i) the original fragment in Greek, (2) a
literal version in English prose, distinguished by
italic type, (3) every English metrical translation
that seems worthy of such apposition, and (4) a
note of the writer by whom, and the circum-
stances under which, each fragment has been
preserved. Too often a fragment is only a single
word, but I have omitted nothing.
Preface to First Edition. xi
It is curious to note how early in the history
of printing the literature of Sappho began. The
British Museum contains a sort of commentary
on Sappho which is dated 1475 m the Cata-
logue ; this is but twenty years later than the
famous " Mazarin " Bible, and only one year
after the first book was printed in England. It
is written in Latin by Georgius Alexandrinus
Merula, and is of much interest, apart from its
strange type and contractions of words.
The first edition of any part of Sappho was
that of the Hymn to Aphrodite, by H. Steph-
anus, in his edition of Anacreon, /j.to, 1554.
Subsequent editions of Anacreon contained
other fragments attributed to her, including
some that are now known to be by a later hand.
Fulvius Ursinus wrote some comments on those
then known in the Carmina Novem Illustrium
Feminarum published at Antwerp, 8vo, 1568.
Is. Vossius gave an amended text of the two
principal odes in his edition of Catullus, London,
4to, 1684.
But the first separate edition of Sappho's
works was that of Johann Christian Wolf,
which was published in 4to at Hamburg in
1733, and reprinted under an altered title two
years later. Wolf's work is as exhaustive as was
possible at his date. He gives a frontispiece
figuring all the then known coins bearing refer-
xii Preface to First Edition.
ence to the poetess ; a life of her written, like
the rest of the treatise, in Latin occupies 32
pages ; a Latin translation of all the quotations
from or references to her in the Greek classics,
and all the Latin accounts of her, together
with the annotations of most previous writers,
and copious notes by himself, in 253 pages ;
and the work is completed with elaborate
indices.
The next important critical edition of Sappho
was that of Heinrich Friedrich Magnus Volger,
pp. Ixviii., 195, 8vo, Leipzig, 1810. It was
written on the old lines, and did not do much
to advance the knowledge of her fragments.
Volger added a " musical scheme," which seems
more curious than useful, and of which it is
hard to understand either the origin or the
intention.
But nothing written before 1816 really grasped
the Sapphic question. In that year Welcker
published his celebrated refutation of the long-
current calumnies against Sappho, Sappho vin-
dicated from a prevailing Prejudice. In his zeal
to establish her character he may have been
here and there led into extravagance, but it is
certain that his searching criticism first made
it possible to appreciate her true position.
Nothing that has been written since has suc-
ceeded in invalidating his main conclusions,
Preface to First Edition. xiii
despite all the onslaughts of Colonel Mure and
those few who sympathized with him.
Consequently the next self-standing edition of
Sappho, by Christian Friedrich Neue, pp. 106,
4to, Berlin, 1827, embodying the results of the
" new departure," was far in advance of its pre-
decessors not in cumbrous elaboration, but in
critical excellence. Neue's life of the poetess
was written in the light of Welcker's researches ;
his purification of the text was due to more
accurate study of the ancient manuscripts,
assisted by the textual criticisms published by
Bishop Blomfield the previous year in the
Cambridge Museum Criticum.
Since Neue's time much has been written about
Sappho, for the most part in Latin or German.
The final revision of the text, and collection of
all that can now be possibly ascribed to her,
was made by Theodor Bergk, in his Poetae Lyrici
Graeci, pp. 82-140 of the third volume of the
fourth edition, 8vo, Leipzig, 1882, which I have
here, with rare exceptions, followed.
There is a noteworthy dissertation on her life
by Theodor Kock, Alkdos und Sappho, 8vo,
Berlin, 1862, in which the arguments and con-
clusions of Welcker are mainly endorsed, and
elaborated with much mythological detail.
Perhaps the fullest account of Sappho which
has recently appeared is that by A. Fernandez
xiv Preface to First Edition.
Merino, a third edition of which was published
at Madrid early last year. Written in Spanish,
it discusses in an impartial spirit every question
concerning Sappho, and is especially valuable
for its copious references.
Professor Domenico Comparetti, the cele-
brated Florentine scholar, to whom I shall have
occasion to refer hereafter, has recently done
much to familiarize Italian readers with the chief
points of Sapphic criticism. His enthusiasm for
her character and genius is all that can be
desired, but his acceptance of Welcker's argu-
ments is not so complete as mine. Where truth
must lie between two extremes, and evidence on
either side is so hard to collect and estimate, it
is possible for differently constituted minds to
reach very different conclusions. The motto at
the back of my title page is the guide I am
most willing to follow. But after all, to use the
words of a friend whom I consulted on the
subject, "whether the pure think her emotion
pure or impure ; whether the impure appreciate
it rightly, or misinterpret it ; whether, finally, it
was platonic or not ; seems to me to matter
nothing." Sappho's poetic eminence is inde-
pendent of such considerations. To her,
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Preface to First Edition. xv
Those who wish to learn more about Sappho
than is here recorded will find a guide in the
Bibliography which I have added at the end
of the volume. My sole desire in these pages
is to present " the great poetess " to English
readers in a form from which they can judge
of her excellence for themselves, so far as that
is possible for those to whom Aeolic Greek is
unfamiliar. Her more important fragments
have been translated into German, French,
Italian, and Spanish, as well as English ; but
all previous complete editions of her works have
been written solely by scholars for scholars.
Now that, through the appreciation of Sappho
by modern poets and painters, her name is
becoming day by day more familiar, it seems
time to show her as we know her to have been,
to those who have neither leisure nor power to
read her in the tongue in which she wrote.
I have not concerned myself much with tex-
tual criticism, for I do not arrogate any power
of discernment greater than that possessed by
a scholar like Bergk. Only those who realize
what he has done to determine the text of
Sappho can quite appreciate the value of his
work. Where he is satisfied, I am content.
He wrote for the learned few, and I only strive
to popularize the result of such researches as
his : to show, indeed, so far as I can, that
xvi Preface to First Edition.
which centuries of scholarship have succeeded
in accomplishing.
The translations by Mr. John Addington
Symonds, dated 1883, were all made especially
for this work in the early part of that year, and
have not been elsewhere published. My thanks
are also due to Mr. Symonds for much valuable
criticism.
The medallion which forms the frontispiece
has been engraved by my friend Mr. John
Cother Webb, after the head of Sappho in the
picture by Mr. L. Alma Tadema, R.A., ex-
hibited at the Royal Academy in 1881, as
"op. ccxxiii.," and now in America. I trust
that my readers will sympathize with me in
cordial gratitude to both artist and engraver,
to the one for his permission, to the other for
his fidelity.
HENRY T. WHARTON.
3Q, St. George s Road,
Kilburn, London, A". II'.
May, iSSj.
LIFE OF SAPPHO.
[JAPPHO, who called herself Psappha
in her own Aeoltc dialect (in frag-
ments i and 59), is said to have
been at the zenith of her fame
about the year 610 B.C.
During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to
prophesy (628 B.C.), Daniel was carried away to
Babylon (606 B.C.), Nebuchadnezzar besieged
and captured Jerusalem (587 B.C.), Solon was
legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus,
the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over
Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama,
the founder of Buddhism, the religion now pro-
fessed by perhaps almost a third of the whole
population of the globe.
Two centuries have sufficed to obscure most
of the events in the life of Shakspere ; it can
hardly be expected that the lapse of twenty-five
2 Life of Sappho.
centuries should have left many authentic records
of the history of Sappho. Little even of that
internal evidence, upon which biography may
rely, can be gathered from her extant poems, in
such fragmentary form have they come down to
us. Save for the quotations of grammarians and
lexicographers, no word of hers would have
survived. Yet her writings seem to have been
preserved intact till at least the third century of
our era, for Athenaeus, who wrote about that
time, applies to himself the words of the
Athenian comic poet Epicrates in his Anti-Lais
(about 360 B.C.), saying that he too
Had learnt by heart completely all the songs,
Breathing of love, which sweetest Sappho sang.
Scaliger says that the works of Sappho and
other lyric peets were burnt at Constantinople
and at Rome in the year 1073, in the popedom
of Gregory VII. Cardan says the burning took
place under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 A.D.
And Petrus Alcyonius relates that he heard when
a boy that very many of the works of the Greek
poets were burnt by order of the Byzantine
emperors, and the poems of Gregory Nazianzen
circulated in their stead. Bishop Blomfield
(Mus. Crit. i. p. 422) thinks they must all have
been destroyed at an early date, because neither
Alcaeus nor Sappho was annotated by any of the
Life of Sappho. 3
later Grammarians. " Few indeed, but those,
roses," as the poet Meleager said, are the precious
verses the zeal of anti-paganism has spared to us.
Of Sappho's parents nothing is definitely
known. Herodotus calls her father Scaman-
dronymus, and as he wrote within one hundred
and fifty years of her death there is little reason
to doubt his accuracy. But Suidas, who com-
piled a Greek lexicon in about the eleventh
century A.D., gives us the choice of seven other
names. Her mother's name was Cleis. The
celebrated Epistle known as that of Sappho to
Phaon, of which I subjoin a translation by
Pope in the Appendix, and which is commonly
ascribed to Ovid, 1 says Sappho was only six
1 Prof. Domenico Comparetti has lately (1876) pub-
lished an essay on the authenticity of this Epistle and on
its value in elucidating the history of Sappho. After
minutely examining all the evidence against it, he con-
cludes that it is the genuine work of Ovid. And last
year De Vries brought out an elaborate dissertation on
the same subject ; he. proves, almost to a certainty, that
Ovid wrote the Epistle in question. But the fact remains
that it is absent from all the oldest and best MSS., and
was only given its present place in Ovid's Heroic Epistles
by Heinsius in 1629. Even if it be genuine, we may
safely aver that in Ovid's day it was far more difficult to
estimate Sappho's character rightly than it is now. The
Romans, we can well believe, were likely to regard her
in no olher light than that in which she had been por-
trayed by the facile and unscrupulous comedians of
Athens.
4 Life of Sappho.
years old " when the bones of her parent,
gathered up before their time, drank in her
tears ; " this is supposed to refer to her father,
because in fr. 90 she speaks of her mother as
still alive.
She had two brothers, Charaxus and Lari-
chus ; Suidas indeed names a third, Eurygius,
but nothing is known of him.
Larichus was public cup-bearer at Mitylene,
an office only held by youths of noble birth
(cf. fr. 139), whence it is inferred that Sappho
belonged to the wealthy aristocratic class.
Charaxus was occupied in carrying the highly-
prized Lesbian wine to Naucratis x in Egypt,
1 The exact site of Naucratis was unknown until De-
cember, 1884, when Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, acting
as agent for the Egypt Exploration Fund, discovered it
at Nebireh, or rather close to El Gaief, a modern Arab
village on the Rosetta mouth of the Nile, about forty
miles from the present sea-coast. It is near the edge of
the Delta, some six miles N.E. of Tel-el-Barucl, a rail-
way station nearly midway between Alexandria and
Cairo. Before Mr. Petrie's explorations, Naucratis had
been sought for several miles nearer the sea than it actu-
ally lay, and its identification had been despaired of.
For centuries it was the only city in Egypt in which the
Greeks were permitted to settle and carry on commerce
unmolested. lonians, Dorians, and Aeolians there united
in a sort of Hanseatic league, with special representatives
and a common sanctuary, the Panhellenion, which served
as a tie among them. This rich colony remained in
Life of Sappho. 5
where he fell in love with a woman of great
beauty, Doricha or Rhodopis, and ransomed
her from slavery for a great sum of money.
Herodotus says she came originally from Thrace,
and had once served ladmon of Samos, having
been fellow-slave with Aesop the fabulist. Suidas
says Charaxus married her, and had children by
her; but Herodotus only says that she was
made free by him, and remained in Egypt, and
"being very lovely, acquired great riches for a
person of her condition." Out of a tenth part
of her gains (cf. fr. 138) she furnished the temple
of Apollo at Delphi with a number of iron spits
for roasting oxen on. Athenaeus however blames
Herodotus for having confused two different
persons, saying that Charaxus married Doricha,
while it was Rhodopis who sent the spits to
Delphi. Certainly it appears clear that Sappho
in her poem called her Doricha, but Rhodopis,
" Rosy-cheek," was probably the name by which
she was known among her lovers, on account of
her beauty.
Another confusion respecting Rhodopis is that
faithful connection with the mother-country, contributed
to public works in Hellas, received political fugitives
from that home as guests, and made life fair for them,
as for its own children, after the Greek model. The
women and the flower-garlands of Naucratis were unsur-
passed in beauty.
6 Life of Sappho.
in Greece she was believed to have built the third
pyramid, and Herodotus takes pains to show that
such a work was far beyond the reach of her
wealth, and was really due to kings of a much
earlier date. Still the tale remained current,
false as it undoubtedly was, at least till the time
of Pliny (about 77 A.D.). It has been shown by
Bunsen and others that it is probable that
The Rhodope that built the pyramid
was Nitocris, the beautiful Egyptian queen who
was the heroine of so many legends ; Mycerinus
began the third pyramid, and Nitocris finished
it.
Strabo and Aelian relate a story of Rhodopis
which recalls that of Cinderella. One day. they
say, when Rhodopis was bathing at Naucratis,
an eagle snatched up one of her sandals from
the hands of her female attendants, and carried
it to Memphis ; the eagle, soaring over the head
of the king (whom Aelian calls Psammetichus),*
who was administering justice at the time, let
the sandal fall into his lap. The king, struck
with the beauty of the sandal and the singularity
of the incident, sent over all Egypt to discover
* Psammetichus flourished about 588 B.C. He was
the Fharaoh-hophra mentioned by the prophet Jeremiah
(xliv. 30), whose house in Tahpanhes has been recently
discovered by Mr. Petrie.
Life of Sappho. 7
the woman to whom it belonged. The owner
was found in the city of Naucratis and brought
to the king ; he made her his queen, and at her
death erected, so the story goes, this third pyra-
mid in her honour.
Suidas says Sappho " married one Cercolas,
a man of great wealth, who sailed from Andros,
and," he adds, " she had a daughter by him,
named Cle'is." In fr. 85 (cf. fr. 136) Sappho
mentions this daughter Clai's by name, and Ovid,
in the Epistle already alluded to, also refers to
her. But the existence of such a husband has
been warmly disputed, and the name (Penifer)
and that of his country (Virllid) are conjectured
to have been invented in ribaldry by the Comic
poets ; certainly it was against the custom of the
Greeks to amass wealth in one country and go
to seek a wife in a distant island. Some autho-
rities do not mention Andros, one of the islands
of the Cyclades, but state that Sappho's family
belonged to an Aeolian colony in the Troad.
The age in which Sappho flourished is mainly
determined by concurrent events. Athenaeus
makes her contemporary with Alyattes the father
of Croesus, who reigned over Lydia from 628 to
570 B.C. Eusebius mentions her in his Chro-
nicle for the year 604 B.C. Suidas says she
lived about the 42nd Olympiad (612-609 B.C.),
in the time of the poets Alcaeus, Stesichorus,
8 Life of Sappho.
and Pittacus. Her own verses in fr. 28 are
said to have been written in answer to those
of Alcaeus addressing her
' lorrXoK cifvu jneAAi)(6jueioe Sdmpoi,
0eAa> TiyeiiTHV, aAAci jue KcoAuei mtcog,
"Violet-weaving, pure, soft-smiling Sappho, I
want to say something, but shame deters me "
(cf. p. 24). Athenaeus says that Hermesianax,
in an elegy (cf. fr. 26), spoke of Sappho as
beloved by Anacreon, and he quotes from the
third book of some elegiac poetry by Herme-
sianax, " A Catalogue of things relating to
Love," these lines of his :
And well thou knowest how famed Alcaeus smote
Of his high harp the love-enlivened strings,
And raised to Sappho's praise the enamoured note,
'Midst noise of mirth and jocund revellings :
Aye, he did love that nightingale of song
With all a lover's fervour, and, as he
Deftly attuned the lyre, to madness stung
The Teian bard with envious jealousy.
For her Anacreon, charming lyrist, wooed,
And fain would win, with sweet mellifluous chime,
Encircled by her Lesbian sisterhood ;
Would often Samos leave, and many a time
From vanquished Teos' viny orchards hie
To viny Lesbos' isle, and from the shore,
O'er the blue wave, on Lectum cast his eye,
And think on bygone days and times no more.
( Translated by J. BAILEY. )
Life of Sappho. 9
Diphilus too, in his play Sappho, represented
Archilochus and Hipponax as her lovers for a
joke, as Athenaeus prudently remarks. Neither
of these, however, was a contemporary of hers,
and it seems quite certain that Anacreon, who
flourished fully fifty years later, never set eyes
on Sappho (cf. fr. 26).
How long she lived we cannot tell. The epi-
thet repairepa, "somewhat old," which she applies
to herself in fr. 75, may have been merely rela-
tive. The story about her brother Charaxus and
Rhodopis would show she lived at least until
572 B.C., the year of the accession of Amasis,
king of Egypt, under whose reign Herodotus
says Rhodopis flourished ; but one can scarcely
draw so strict an inference. If what Herodotus
says is true, Sappho may have reached the age
of fifty years. At any rate, "the father of
history" is more worthy of credence than the
scandal-mongers. An inscription on the famous
Parian marbles, a system of chronology com-
piled, perhaps by a schoolmaster, in the third
century B.C. (cf. p. 15), says : "When Aristocles
reigned over the Athenians, Sappho fled from
Mitylene and sailed to Sicily;" but the exact
date is illegible, though it may be placed between
604 and 592 B.C. It is hardly safe to refer to
this Ovid's assertion that she went to Sicily in
pursuit of Phaon.
io Life of Sappho.
Balancing all the evidence, Fynes-Clinton, in
his Fasti Hellenici, i. p. 225, takes the years
611-592 B.C. to be the period in which Sappho
flourished.
That she was a native of Lesbos, an island in
the Aegean sea, is universally admitted, and all
but those writers who speak of a second Sappho
say she lived at Mitylene, the chief city of the
island. The existence of a Sappho who was a
courtesan of Eresus, a smaller Lesbian city,
besides the poetess of Mitylene, is the invention
of comparatively late authors ; and it is probably
due to their desire to detach the calumnies,
which the Comic poets so long made popular,
from the personality of the poetess to whose
good name her own contemporaries bore witness
(cf. Alcaeus' address to her, p. 8).
Strabo, in his Geography, says : " Mitylene
[MmjAHVH or MUTIAHVH] is well provided with every-
thing. It formerly produced celebrated men,
such as Pittacus, one of the Seven Wise Men ;
Alcaeus the poet, and others. Contemporary
with these persons flourished Sappho, who was
something wonderful ; at no period within
memory has any woman been known who in
any, even the least degree, could be compared
to her for poetry." Indeed the glory of Lesbos
was that Sappho was its citizen, and its chief
fame centres in the fact of her celebrity. By its
Life of Sappho. 1 1
modern name Mitilene, under the dominion of
the Turks, the island,
Where burning Sappho loved and surg,
is now mainly known for its oil and wine and
its salubrity. In ancient times its wine was the
most celebrated through all Greece, and Vergil
refers to its vines, which trailed like ivy on the
ground, while many authors testify to the excep-
tional wholesomeness of Lesbian wine. But the
clue to Sappho's individuality can only be found
in the knowledge of what, in her age, Lesbos
and the Lesbians were; around her converges
all we know of the Aeolian race. "For a certain
space of time," writes Mr. J. Addington Symonds
in his Studies of Greek Poets, first series, pp. 127
ff., " the Aeolians occupied the very foreground
of Greek literature, and blazed out with a bril-
liance of lyrical splendour that has never been
surpassed. There seems to have been some-
thing passionate and intense in their tempera-
ment, which made the emotions of the Dorian
and the Ionian feeble by comparison. Lesbos,
the centre of Aeolian culture, was the island of
overmastering passions ; the personality of the
Greek race burned there with a fierce and steady
flame of concentrated feeling. The energies
which the lonians divided between pleasure,
politics, trade, legislation, science, and the arts,
12 Life of Sappho.
and which the Dorians turned to war and state-
craft and social economy, were restrained by
the Aeolians within the sphere of individual
emotions, ready to burst forth volcanically. No-
where in any age of Greek history, or in any part
of Hellas, did the love of physical beauty, the
sensibility to radiant scenes of nature, the con-
suming fervour of personal feeling, assume such
grand proportions and receive so illustrious an
expression as they did in Lesbos. At first this
passion blossomed into the most exquisite lyrical
poetry that the world has known : this was the
flower-time of the Aeolians, their brief and
brilliant spring. But the fruit it bore was bitter
and rotten. Lesbos became a byword for cor-
ruption. The passions which for a moment had
flamed into the gorgeousness of Art, burnt their
envelope of words and images, remained a mere
furnace of sensuality, from which no expression
of the divine in human life could be expected.
In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the
Provencal troubadours, who made a literature of
Love, or the Venetian painters, who based their
Art upon the beauty of colour, the voluptuous
charms of the flesh. In each case the motive
of enthusiastic passion sufficed to produce a
dazzling result. But as soon as its freshness
was exhausted there was nothing left for Art to
live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
Life of Sappho. 13
Several circumstances contributed to aid the
development of lyric poetry in Lesbos. The
customs of the Aeolians permitted more social
and domestic freedom than was common in
Greece. Aeolian women were not confined to
the harem like lonians, or subjected to the rigo-
rous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing
freely with male society, they were highly edu-
cated, and accustomed to express their sentiments
to an extent unknown elsewhere in history
until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian
ladies applied themselves successfully to litera-
ture. They formed clubs for the cultivation of
poetry and music. They studied the art of
beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and
diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the
scientific side of Art. Unrestrained by public
opinion, and passionate for the beautiful, they
cultivated their senses and emotions, and de-
veloped their wildest passions. All the luxuries
and elegancies of life which that climate and
the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford, were at
their disposal ; exquisite gardens, in which the
rose and hyacinth spread perfume ; river-beds
ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate ;
olive-groves and fountains, where the cyclamen
and violet flowered with feathery maidenhair ;
pine-shadowed coves, where they might bathe
in the calm of a tideless sea ; fruits such as only
14 Life of Sapplio.
the southern sea and sea-wind can mature ;
marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone
in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and
samphire and wild rosemary through all the
months ; nightingales that sang in May ; temples
dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory;
statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such
scenes as these the Lesbian poets lived, and
thought of Love. When we read their poems,
we seem to have the perfumes, colours, sounds
and lights of that luxurious land distilled in
verse. Nor was a brief but biting winter wanting
to give tone to their nerves, and, by contrast
with the summer, to prevent the palling of so
much luxury on sated senses. The voluptuous-
ness of Aeolian poetry is not like that of Persian
or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint,
proportion, tact. We find nothing burden-
some in its sweetness. All is so rhythmic-
ally and sublimely ordered in the poems
of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity
and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated
passion."
The story of Sappho's love for Phaon, and her
leap from the Leucadian rock in consequence
of his disdaining her, though it has been so long
implicitly believed, does not seem to rest on
any firm historical basis. Indeed more than
one epigrammatist in the Greek Anthology
Life of Sappho. 15
expressly states that she was buried in an Aeolic
grave. 1
Still Phaon, for all the myths that cluster
round his name, for his miraculous loveliness
and his insensibility to love, may yet have been
a real personage. Like other heroes, he may
possibly have lived at a period long anterior to
that of the traditions about him which have
been handed down to us. He is said to have
been a boatman of Mitylene (cf. fr. 140), who
was endowed by Aphrodite with youth and
extraordinary beauty as a reward for his having
ferried her for nothing. Servius, who wrote
about 400 A.D. (cf. p. 38), says she gave him an
alabaster box of ointment, the effect of which
was to make all women fall in love with him ;
and that one of these he does not mention her
name threw herself in despair from the cliff of
Leucas. Servius further states, on the authority
of Menander, that the temple was founded by
Phaon of Lesbos. Phaon's beauty and power
1 Such light as can be thrown upon the legend from
Comparative Mythology, and from the possible etymo-
logies of the names of Sappho and Phaon, has been, I
fear rather inconclusively, gathered by Leonello Modona
in his La Saffo storica (Florence, 1878). Human nature,
however, varies so little from age to age, that I think it
better to judge the story as it has come down to us, than
to resort to the most erudite guessing.
1 6 Life of Sappho.
of fascination passed into a proverb. Pliny,
however, says he became the object of Sappho's
love because he had found the male root of the
plant called eryngo, probably our sea-holly, and
that it acted like a love-charm. And when
Athenaeus is talking about lettuces, as to their
use as food and their anti-aphrodisiac properties,
he says Callimachus' story of Aphrodite hiding
Adonis under a lettuce is " an allegorical state-
ment of the poet's, intended to show that those
who are much addicted to the use of lettuces
are very little adapted for pleasures of love.
Cratinus," he goes on, " says that Aphrodite
when in love with Phaon hid him in the leaves
of lettuces; but the younger Marsyas says that
she hid him amid the grass of barley."
Those fanciful writers who assert the existence
of a second Sappho, say that it was not the
poetess who fell in love with Phaon, but that
other Sappho on whom they fasten all the absurd
stories circulated by the Comic writers. The
tale runs that the importunate love of Sappho
caused Phaon to flee to Sicily, whither she
followed him. Ovid's Epistle, before mentioned
(p. 3), is the foundation for the greater part of
the legend. The inscription on the Parian
marbles (cf. p. 9) also mentions a certain year
in which " Sappho sailed from Mitylene and fled
to Sicily." The chronicle, however, says nothing
Life of Sappho. 17
about Phaon, nor is any reason given for her
exile ; some have imagined that she was obliged
to leave her country on political grounds, but
there is no trace in her writings, nor does any
report indicate, that she ever interested herself
in politics.
Strabo,in his Geography already quoted (p. 10),
says: "There is a white rock which stretches
out from Leucas to the sea and towards Cephal-
lenia, that takes its name from its whiteness.
The rock of Leucas has upon it a temple of
Apollo, and the leap from it was believed to
stop love. From this it is said that Sappho first,
as Menander says somewhere, ' in pursuit of the
haughty Phaon, urged on by maddening desire,
threw herself from its far-seen rocks, imploring
thee [Apollo], lord and king.'" The former
promontory of Leucas is now separated from the
mainland and forms one of the Ionian islands,
known as Santa Maura, off the wild and rugged
coast of Acarnania. The story of Sappho's
having ventured the Leucadian leap is repeated
by Ovid, and was never much doubted, except
by those who believed in a second Sappho, till
modern times. Still it is strange that none of
the many authors who relate the legend say
what was the result of the leap whether it was
fatal to her life or to her love. Moreover
c
1 8 Life of Sappho.
Ptolemy Hephaestion (about 100 A.D.), who, in
the extant summary of his works published in
the Myriobiblon of Photius, gives a list of many
men and women who by the Leucadian leap
were cured of the madness of love or perished,
does not so much as mention the name of
Sappho. A circumstantial account of Sappho's
leap, on which the modern popular idea is
chiefly founded, was given by Addison, relying
to no small extent upon his imagination for his
facts, "with his usual exquisite humour," as
Warton remarks, in the 233rd Spectator, Nov. 27,
1711. "Sappho the Lesbian," says Addison,
" in love with Phaon, arrived at the temple of
Apollo habited like a bride, in garments as white
as snow. She wore a garland of myrtle on her
head, and carried in her hand the little musical
instrument of her own invention. After having
sung a hymn to Apollo, she hung up her garland
on one side cf his altar, and her harp on the
other. She then tucked up her vestments like
a Spartan virgin, and amidst thousands of
spectators, who were anxious for her safety and
offered up vows for her deliverance, marched
directly forwards to the utmost summit of the
promontory, where, after having repeated a
stanza of her own verses, which we could not
hear, she threw herself off the rock with such
an intrepidity as was never before observed in
Life of Sapplio. 19
any who had attempted that dangerous leap.
Many who were present related that they saw
her fall into the sea, from whence she never rose
again ; though there were others who affirmed
that she never came to the bottom of her leap,
but that she was changed into a swan as she fell,
and that they saw her hovering in the air under
that shape. But whether or no the whiteness
and fluttering of her garments might not deceive
those who looked upon her, or whether she
might not really be metamorphosed into that
musical and melancholy bird, is still a doubt
among the Lesbians. Alcaeus, the famous lyric
poet, who had for some time been passionately
in love with Sappho, arrived at the promontory
of Leucate that very evening in order to take the
leap upon her account ; but hearing that Sappho
had been there before him, and that her body
could be nowhere found, he very generously
lamented her fall, and is said to have written
his hundred -and -twenty -fifth ode upon that
occasion."
It is to be noted in this connection that the
part of the cliff of Santa Maura or Leukadi,
known to this day as " Sappho's Leap," was
used, even in historical times, as a place whence
criminals condemned to death were thrown into
the sea. The people used, it is said, to tie
numbers of birds to the limbs of the condemned
2O Life of Sappho.
and cover them with feathers to break the force
of their fall, and then send boats to pick them
up. If they survived, they were pardoned.
Those modern critics who reject the whole
story as fabulous derive it from the myth of the
love of Aphrodite and Adonis, who in the Greek
version was called Phaethon or Phaon. Theodor
Kock (cf. Preface) is the latest exponent of
these views, and he pushes them to a very
fanciful extent, even adducing Minos as the sun
and Britomartis as the moon to explain the
Leucadian leap. Certainly the legend does not
appear before the Attic Comedy, about 395 B.C.,
more than two centuries after Sappho's death.
And the Leucadian leap may have been ascribed
to her from its having been often mentioned
as a mere poetical metaphor taken from an
expiatory rite connected with the worship of
Apollo ; the image occurs in Stesichorus and
Anacreon, and may possibly have been used by
Sappho. For instance, Athenaeus cites a poem
by Stesichorus about a maiden named Calyca
who was in love with a youth named Euathlus,
and prayed in a modest manner to Aphrodite to
aid her in becoming his wife; but when the
young man scorned her, she threw herself from
a precipice : and this he says happened near
Leucas. Athenaeus says the poet represented
the maiden as particularly modest, so that she
Life of Sappho. 21
was not willing to live with the youth on his own
terms, but prayed that if possible she might be-
come the wedded wife of Euathlus ; and if that
were not possible, that she might be released
from life. And Anacreon, in a fragment pre-
served by Hephaestion, says, as if proverbially,
" Now again rising I, drunk with love, dive from
the Leucadian rock into the hoary wave."
O poet-woman, none forgoes
The leap attaining the repose !
Sappho " loved, and loved more than once,
and loved to the point of desperate sorrow ;
though it did not come to the mad and fatal
leap from Leucate, as the unnecessary legend
pretends. There are, nevertheless," continues
Mr. Edwin Arnold, " worse steeps than Leucate
down which the heart may fall ; and colder seas of
despair than the Adriatic in which to engulf it."
Seeing that six comedies are known to have
been written under the title of Sappho (cf. p. 37),
and that her history furnished material for at
least four more, it is not strange that much of
their substance should in succeeding centuries
have been regarded as genuine. In a later and
debased age she became a sort of stock character
of the licentious drama. The fervour of her love,
and the purity of her life, and the very fact of a
woman having been the leader of a school of
22- Life of Sappho.
poetry and music, could not have failed to have
been misunderstood by the Greek comedians
at the close of the fifth century n.c. The society
and habits of the Aeolians at Lesbos in Sappho's
time were, as M. Bournouf (Lit. Grecq. \. p. 1 94)
has shown, in complete contrast to those of the
Athenians in the period of their corruption ;
just as the unenviable reputation of the Lesbians
was earned long after the date of Sappho. "It
is not surprising,'' writes Mr. Philip Smith, in his
article Sappho in Smith's Dictionary of Greek
and Roman Biography, " that the early Christian
writers against heathenism should have accepted
a misrepresentation which the Greeks them-
selves had invented." The license of the Attic
comedians is testified by Athenaeus' mention
that Antiochus of Alexandria, a writer otherwise
unknown, whose date is quite uncertain, wrote
a "Treatise on the Poets who were ridiculed
by the Comic writers of the Middle Comedy ; "
and by the fact that a little before 403 B.C. a
la\v was passed which enacted that no one
was to be represented on the stage by name,
UH frelv ovojuctSTi Kajjuwbeiv (cf. p. 36).
It was not till early in the present century
that the current calumnies against Sappho were
seriously enquired into by the celebrated scholar
of Gottingen, Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, and
found to be based on quite insufficient evidence.
Life of Sappho. 23
Colonel Mure endeavoured at great length, both
here and in Germany, to expose fallacies in
Welcker's arguments ; but the bitterness of his
attack, and the unfairness of much of his reason-
ing, go far to weaken his otherwise acknowledged
authority. Professor Comparetti has recently
examined the question with much fairness and
erudition, and, with the possible exception
referred to above (p. 3, note), has done much
to separate fiction from fact; but he does not
endorse all Welcker's conclusions.
Sappho seems to have been the centre of a
society in Mitylene, a kind of aesthetic club,
devoted to the service of the Muses. Around
her gathered maidens from even comparatively
distant places, attracted by her fame, to study
under her guidance all that related to poetry and
music ; much as at a later age students resorted
to the philosophers of Athens.
The names of many of her girl-friends (eraTpai)
and pupils (juaGHTpiai) are preserved. The most
celebrated was Erinna of Telos, a poetess of
whose genius too few lines are left for us to
judge, but we know what the ancients thought
of her from this Epigram in the Greek Anthology :
These are Erinna's songs : how sweet, though slight !
For she was but a girl of nineteen years :
Yet stronger far than what most men can write :
Had Death delayed, whose fame had equalled hers?
(J. A. SYMONDS.)
24 Life of SappJio.
Probably fr. 77 refers to her. Of the other
poetess, Damophyla of Pamphylia, not a word
survives, but Apollonius of Tyana says she
lived in close friendship with Sappho, and made
poems after her model. Suidas says Sappho's
"companions and friends were three, viz., Atthis,
Telesippa, and Megara ; and her pupils were
Anagora of the territory of Miletus, Gongyla
of Colophon, and Euneica of Salamis." She
herself praises Mnasidica along with Gyrinna (as
Maximus Tyrius spells the name) in fr. 76 ; she
complains of Atthis preferring Andromeda to
her in fr. 41 ; she gibes at Andromeda in fr. 70,
and again refers to her in fr. 58, apparently
rejoicing over her discomfiture. Of Gorgo, in
fr. 48, she seems to say, in Swinburne's para-
phrase,
I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways.
Anactoria's name is not mentioned in any
fragment we have, although tradition says
that fr. 2 was addressed to her; but Maximus
Tyrius and others place her in the front rank of
Sappho's intimates : " What Alcibiades," he says,
" and Charmides and Phaedrus were to Socrates,
Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to the
Lesbian." Another, Dica, we find her (in fr. 78)
praising for her skill in weaving coronals. And
in fr. 86 a daughter of Polyanax is addressed as
Life of Sappho. 25
one of her maidens. The name is not preserved
of her whom (in fr. 68) she reproaches as disloyal
to the service of the Muses. The text of Ovid's
Sappho io Phaon is so corrupt that we know not
whom she is enumerating there of those she
loved ; even the name of her " fair Cydno "
varies in the MSS. Nor can we tell who " those
other hundred maidens " were whom Ovid (cf.
p. 184) makes her say she "blamelessly loved"
before Phaon satisfied her heart. But the pre-
servation of the names of so many of her asso-
ciates is enough to prove the celebrity of her
teaching.
Little more can be learnt about Sappho's
actual life. In fr. 72 she says of herself, " I am
not one of a malignant nature, but have a quiet
temper." Antiphanes, in his play Sappho, is said
by Athenaeus to have represented her proposing
absurd riddles, 1 so little did the Comic writers
understand her genius. Fr. 79 is quoted by
Athenaeus to show her love for beauty and
honour. Compare also fr. u and 31 for his
testimony to the purity of her love for her girl-
friends : novice Ka6apa roiq Ka9apoi<;, " unto the
pure all things are pure."
Plato, in his Phaedrus, calls Sappho "beauti-
ful," for the sweetness of her songs; "and yet,"
1 Sappho's riddle is translated in full by Colonel
Higginson in his "Atlantic Essays," p. 321.
26 Life of Sappho.
says Maximus Tyrius, "she was small and dark,"
une petite brunette,
The small dark body's Lesbian loveliness
That held the fire eternal.
(SWINBURNE.)
The epithet " beautiful " is repeated by so many
writers that it may everywhere refer only to the
beauty of her writings. Even Ovid seems to
think that her genius threw any lack of comeli-
ness into the shade, a lack, however, which, if
it had existed, could not have escaped the
derision of the Comic writers, especially since
Homer (Iliad, ix. 129, 271) had celebrated the
characteristic beauty of the women of Lesbos.
The address of Alcaeus to Sappho, quoted on
p. 8, shows the sweetness of her expression, even
if the epithet ionAoKoc (violet-weaving) cannot be
replaced by lonAoKajuoc (with violet locks), as
some MSS. read. And Damocharis, in the
Greek Anthology, in an epigram on a statue of
Sappho, speaks of her bright eyes showing her
wisdom, and compares the beauty of her face to
that of Aphrodite. To another writer in the
Greek Anthology she is "the pride of the lovely-
haired Lesbians." Anacreon, as well as Philo-
xenus, calls her "sweet-voiced" (cf. fr. i).
But though we know so little of Sappho's
personal appearance, the whole testimony of
Life of Sappho. 27
the ancient writers describes the charm of her
poetry with unbounded praise.
Strabo, in his Geography, calls her "something
wonderful " (eaujuaarov TI XP^ )) an d says he
knew " no woman who in any, even the least
degree, could be compared to her for poetry "
(cf. p. 10).
Such was her unique renown that she was
called "The Poetess," just as Homer was "The
Poet." Plato numbers her among the Wise.
Plutarch speaks of the grace of her poems
acting on her listeners like an enchantment,
and says that when he read them he set aside
the drinking-cup in very shame. So much was
a knowledge of her writings held to be an
essential of culture among the Greeks that
Philodemus, a contemporary of Cicero, in an
Epigram in the Greek Anthology, notes as the
mark of an ill-informed woman that she could
not even sing Sappho's songs.
Writers in the Greek Anthology call her the
Tenth Muse, Child of Aphrodite and Eros, nurs-
ling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas,
companion of Apollo, and prophesy her immor-
tality. For instance, Antipater of Sidon says :
Does Sappho then beneath thy bosom rest,
Aeolian earth ? That mortal Muse, confessed
Inferior only to the choir above,
That foster-child of Venus and of Love ;
28 Life of Sappho.
Warm from whose lips divine Persuasion came,
Greece to delight, and raise the Lesbian name.
O ye who ever twine the three-fold thread,
Ye Fates, why number with the silent dead
That mighty songstress whose unrivalled powers
Weave for the Muse a crown of deathless flowers ?
(FRANCIS HODGSON.)
And Tullius Laurea :
Stranger, who passest my Aeolian tomb,
Say not ' ' The Lesbian poetess is dead ; "
Men's hands this mound did raise, and mortal's work
Is swiftly buried in forgetfulness.
But if thou lookest, for the Muses' sake,
On me whom all the Nine have garlanded,
Know thou that I have Hades' gloom escaped :
No dawn shall lack the lyrist Sappho's name.
And Pinytus :
This tomb reveals where Sappho's ashes lie,
But her sweet words of wisdom ne'er will die.
(LORD NEAVES.)
And Plato :
Some thoughtlessly proclaim the Muses nine ;
A tenth is Lesbian Sappho, maid divine.
(LORD NEAVES.)
Indeed all the praises of the Epigrammatists
are in the same strain ; none but held her,
with the poetess Nossis, "the flower of the
Graces."
Life of Sappho. 29
Many authors describe how the Lesbians
gloried in Sappho's having been their citizen,
and say that her image was engraved on the
coins of Mitylene " though she was a woman,"
as Aristotle remarks. J. C. Wolf describes six
extant coins which may presumably have been
struck at different times in honour of her ; he
gives a figure of each on his frontispiece, but
they have little artistic merit.
It is important to notice that no coins bear-
ing the name or effigy of Sappho have hitherto
been discovered which were current before the
Christian era, so that no conclusion drawn from
inscriptions on them is of any historical im-
portance. In the time of the Antonines, from
which most of these coins seem to date, her
name was as much sullied by traditions as it has
been to the present day.
Some busts there are of her, but none seem
genuine. Perhaps the best representation of
what she and her surroundings might have
been is given by Mr. Alma Tadema in his
" Sappho," exhibited at the Royal Academy in
1881, which has been etched by Mr. C. O.
Murray, and admirably photographed in various
sizes by the Berlin Photographic Company ;
from the head of Sappho in this picture Mr.
J. C. Webb has engraved the medallion which
forms the frontispiece of this work.
3O Life of Sappho.
A bronze statue of Sappho was splendidly
made by Silanion, and stolen by Verres, accord-
ing to Cicero, from the prytaneum at Syracuse.
And Christodorus, in the Greek Anthology,
describes a statue of her as adorning the gym-
nasium of Zeuxippus at Byzantium in the fifth
century A.D. Pliny says that Leon, an artist
otherwise unknown, painted a picture of her in
the garb of a lutist (psaltria).
Not only do we know the general estimate of
Sappho by antiquity, but her praise is also often
given in great detail. Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
when he quotes her Ode to Aphrodite (fr. i),
describes at length the beauty of her style.
Some of Demetrius' praise is quoted as fr. 124,
but he also elaborately shows her command
of all the figures and arts of rhetoric. What
Longinus, Plutarch, and Aristoxenus thought of
her I have summarized under fr. 2 . The story
of Solon's praise is given under fr. 137. And
Plutarch, in his Life of Demetrius, telling a story
of Antiochus' (324-261 B.C.) being in love with
Stratonlce, the young wife of his father, and
making a pretence of sickness, says that his
physician Erasistratus discovered the object of
the passion he was endeavouring to conceal by
observing his behaviour at the entrance of every
visitor to his sick chamber. "When others
entered," says Plutarch, "he was entirely un-
Life of Sappho. 31
affected ; but when Stratonice came in, as she
often did, either alone or with Seleucus [his
father, king of Syria], he showed all the symp-
toms described by Sappho, the faltering voice,
the burning blush, the languid eye, the sudden
sweat, the tumultuous pulse ; and at length, the
passion overcoming his spirits, he fainted to a
mortal paleness." The physician noted what
Sappho had described as the true signs of love,
and Plutarch touchingly relates how the king in
consequence surrendered Stratonice to his son,
and made them king and queen of Upper Asia.
Modern writers are not less unanimous than
the ancients in their praise of Sappho. Addison
prefixes this quotation from Phaedrus(iii. i, 5),
to his first essay on her (Spectator, No. 223) :.
"O sweet soul, how good must you have been
heretofore, when your remains are so delicious ! "
"Her soul," he says, "seems to have been made
up of love and poetry. She felt the passion in
all its warmth, and described it in all its
symptoms. ... I do not know," he goes on,
" by the character that is given of her works,
whether it is not for the benefit of mankind
that they are lost. They are filled with such
bewitching tenderness and rapture, that it
might have been dangerous to have given them
a reading."
Mr. J. Addington Symonds says : " The world
32 Life of Sappho.
has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss
of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest
fragments preserved . . . that we muse in a
sad rapture of astonishment to think what the
complete poems must have been. ... Of all
the poets of the world, of all the illustrious
artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose
every word has a peculiar and unmistakable
perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and
illimitable grace. In her art she was unerring.
Even Archilochus seems commonplace when
compared with her exquisite rarity of phrase.
. , . Whether addressing the maidens, whom
even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could
not forget ; or embodying the profounder yearn-
ings of an intense soul after beauty, which has
never on earth existed, but which inflames the
hearts of noblest poets, robbing their eyes of
sleep, and giving them the bitterness of tears to
drink these dazzling fragments
Which still, like sparkles of Greek fire,
Burn on through Time, and ne'er expire,
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate
utterance, diamonds, topazes, and blazing rubies,
in which the fire of the soul is crystallized for
ever. ... In Sappho and Catullus . . . we
meet with richer and more ardent natures [than
those of Horace and Alcaeus] : they are endowed
Life of Sappho, 33
with keener sensibilities, with a sensuality more
noble because of its intensity, with emotions
more profound, with a deeper faculty of thought,
that never loses itself in the shallows of ' Stoic-
Epicurean acceptance,' but simply and exqui-
sitely apprehends the facts of human life."
And some passages from Swinburne's Notes
on Poems and Reviews, showing a modern poet's
endeavour to familiarize his readers with Sappho's
spirit, can hardly be omitted. Speaking of his
poem Anactoria he says : "In this poem I have
simply expressed, or tried to express, that violence
of affection between one and another which
hardens into rage and deepens into despair.
The key-note which I have here touched," he
continues, "was struck long since by Sappho.
We in England are taught, are compelled under
penalties to learn, to construe, and to repeat, as
schoolboys, the imperishable and incomparable
verses of that supreme poet ; and I at least am
grateful for the training. I have wished, and I
have even ventured to hope, that I might be in
time competent to translate into a baser and later
language the divine words which even when a
boy I could not but recognize as divine. That
hope, if indeed I dared ever entertain such a
hope, I soon found fallacious. To translate the
two odes and the remaining fragments of Sappho
is the one impossible task ; and as witness of
D
34 Life of Sappho.
this I will call up one of the greatest among
poets. Catullus ' translated ' or as his country-
men would now say 'traduced' the Ode to
Anactoria Etc 'Epcojuevav : a more beautiful trans-
lation there never was and will never be ; but
compared with the Greek, it is colourless and
bloodless, puffed out by additions and enfeebled
by alterations. Let anyone set against each
other the two first stanzas, Latin and Greek, and
pronounce. . . Where Catullus failed, I could
not hope to succeed ; I tried instead to repro-
duce in a diluted and dilated form the spirit of
a poem which could not be reproduced in the
body.
" Now the ode Ei<; ' Epco.uevav the ' Ode to
Anactoria ' (as it is named by tradition), the
poem . . . which has in the whole world of
verse no companion and no rival but the Ode
to Aphrodite, has been twice at least translated
or traduced.' . . . To the best (and bad is the
best) of their ability, they [Nicholas Boileau-
Despreaux and Ambrose Philips] have 'done
into ' bad French and bad English the very
words of Sappho. Feeling that although I
might do it better I could not do it well, I
abandoned the idea of translation GKWV aeKovii
re eujuco. I tried then to write some paraphrase
of the fragments which the Fates and the Chris-
tians have spared us. I have not said, as
Life of Sappho. 35
Boileau and Philips have, that the speaker
sweats and swoons at sight of her favourite by
the side of a man. I have abstained from touch-
ing on such details, for this reason : that I felt
myself incompetent to give adequate expression
in English to the literal and absolute words of
Sappho ; and would not debase and degrade
them into a viler form. No one can feel more
deeply than I do the inadequacy of my work.
' That is not Sappho,' a friend once said to me.
I could only reply, ' It is as near as I can come ;
and no man can come close to her.' Her
remaining verses are the supreme success, the
final achievement, of the poetic art. ... I
have striven to cast my spirit into the mould of
hers, to express and represent not the poem but
the poet. I did not think it requisite to dis-
figure the page with a foot-note wherever I had
fallen back upon the original text. Here and
there, I need not say, I have rendered into
English the very words of Sappho. I have tried
also to work into words of my own some expres-
sion of their effect : to bear witness how, more
than any other's, her verses strike and sting the
memory in lonely places, or at sea, among all
loftier sights and sounds how they seem akin
to fire and air, being themselves ' all air and
fire ' ; other element there is none in them. As
to the angry appeal against the supreme mystery
36 Life of Sappho.
of oppressive heaven, which I have ventured to
put into her mouth at that point only where
pleasure culminates in pain, affection in anger,
and desire in despair they are to be taken as
the first outcome or outburst of foiled and fruit-
less passion recoiling on itself. After this, the
spirit finds time to breathe and repose above all
vexed senses of the weary body, all bitter
labours of the revolted soul ; the poet's pride of
place is resumed, the lofty conscience of invin-
cible immortality in the memories and the
mouths of men." No one who wishes to under-
stand Sappho can afford to neglect a study of
the poem thus annotated by its author.
The Greek comedies relating to the history
of Sappho, referred to on previous pages, were
all written by dramatists who belonged to what
is known as the Middle Comedy, two ceAtujies
after her time (404-340 B.C.) The comedy of
that period was devoted to satirizing cflfees of
people rather than individuals, to ridiculing
stock-characters, to criticising the systems and
merits of philosophers and writers, to parodies
of older poets, and to travesties of mythological
subjects. The extent to which the license of
the comic writers of that age had reached may
be judged from the passing of the law referred
to on a previous page (p. 22) JUH 5elv ovojuaari
v though the practice continued under
Life of Sappho. 37
ill-concealed disguise. Writers of such a temper
were obviously unfit to hand down unsullied a
character like Sappho's, powerful though their
genius might be to make their inventions seem
more true than actual history " to make the
worse appear the better reason."
Sappho was the title of comedies by Ameipsias,
Amphis, Antiphanes, Dlphilus, Ephippus, and
Timocles, but very little is known of their con-
tents. Of those by Ameipsias and Amphis only
a single word out of each survives. Athenaeus
quotes a few lines out of those by Ephippus and
Timocles, for descriptions of men of con-
temptible character. The same writer refers to
that by Diphilus for his use of the name of a
kind of cup (jueTavirrrpig) which was used to drink
out of when men had washed their hands after
dinner, and for his having represented Archi-
lochus and Hipponax (cf. p. 9) as lovers of
Sappho. Of that by Antiphanes (cf. p. 25),
who was the most celebrated and the most pro-
lific of the playwrights of the Middle Comedy,
we have, again in Athenaeus, a longer passage
preserved ; but it is merely to show the poetess
proposing and solving a wearisome riddle (rpt<po<;),
satirizing a subtlety his grosser audience could
not understand.
Besides these, Antiphanes and Plato (the
comic writer, not the philosopher) each wrote a
38 Life of Sappho.
play called Phaon. Of that by Antiphanes but
three words remain. Plato's drama is several
times quoted by Athenaeus, but only when he
is discussing details of cookery one passage
obviously for the sake of its coarseness. Menan-
der wrote a play called Leucadia, and Antiphanes
one called Leucadius. Antiphanes' play fur-
nishes Athenaeus with nothing but a catalogue
of seasonings. Some lines out of Menander's
Leucadia are quoted above (p. 17) from Strabo,
and it is referred to by several authors for the
sake of some word or phrase ; Servius, com-
menting on Vergil's Aeneid, iii. 274, gives a
precis of Turpilius' Latin paraphrase of it, which
is mentioned above, p. 15.
Such is our knowledge of the comic accounts
of Sappho's history. When we consider the
general character of the Middle Comedy, written
as it was to please the Athenians after their
golden time had passed, it is not unreasonable
to take accounts which seem to have originated
in such treatment with somewhat more than
diffidence.
But it is not only the Greek dramatists who
have written plays on the story of Sappho. Two
have appeared in English during the last few
years, one of which, by the late Mrs. Estelle
Lewis (" Stella "), has been translated into
modern Greek by Cambourogio for representa-
Life of Sappho. 39
tion on the Athenian stage. The most cele-
brated, however, and one of considerable beauty,
is by John Lilley, " the Euphuist " ; it is called
Sapho and Phao, and was acted before Queen
Elizabeth in 1584. The whole is allegorical,
Sapho being probably meant for Elizabeth,
queen of an island, and Phao is supposed to be
Leicester. Lilley makes his Sapho a princess of
Syracuse, and takes other liberties though not
such as the Greeks did with her history ;
strangely enough, however, he makes no refer-
ence to the Leucadian leap. " When Phao
cometh," he makes Sapho soliloquize, "what
then ? Wilt thou open thy love ? Yea ? No,
Sapho, but staring in his face till thine eyes
dazzle and thy spirits faint, die before his face ;
then this shall be written on thy tomb, that
though thy love were greater than wisdom could
endure, yet thine honour was such as love could
not violate." Venus is introduced as marring
their mutual love, and Phao says : " This shall
be my resolution, wherever I wander, to be as I
were kneeling before Sapho ; my loyalty un-
spotted, though unrewarded. . . . My life
shall be spent in sighing and wishing, the one
for my bad fortune, the other for Sapho's good."
In France, the first opera written by the cele-
brated M. Charles Gounod was entitled Sapho.
The libretto was by M. Emile Augier. It was
40 Life of Sappho.
first given at the Acade'mie, April 16, 1851 ; and
in Italian, as Safe, at Covent Garden, Aug. 9,
in the same year. It was reproduced in 1858,
and again in the new Opera House, April 3, 1884.
Each time both author and composer recast
their work, which contains many brilliant scenes
and melodies. The celebrated Madame de Stael
wrote a drama called Sapho, but it has been long
forgotten. Alphonse Daudet's novel, Sapho,
moeurs Parisiennes, of which a version drama-
tized by M. Belot was played for the first time
at the Gymnase in Paris, December 18, 1885,
bears no reference to the poetess beyond the
soubriquet of the heroine. The most artistically-
finished tragedy of the German dramatist Grill-
parzer is his Sappho. It was produced at Vienna
in 1819, and is still played at many of the
principal German theatres. An inferior Italian
translation of it received a high encomium from
Lord Byron. It is best known to English readers
by Miss Ellen Frothingham's faithful translation.
The Queen of Roumania, under her nom de
guerre of " Carmen Sylva," is the most distin-
guished among living poets who have idealized
the life of Sappho. But her poem under that
title, published in her Stiirme, owes more to its
rich poetic charm than to the actual facts of the
Greek story ; in it the Lesbian seems to live in
the Germany of to-day.
Life of Sappho. 41
Although so little of Sappho remains, her
complete works must have been considerable.
She seems to have been the chief acknowledged
writer of " Wedding-Songs," if we may believe
Himerius (cf. fr. 93) ; and there is little doubt
that Catullus' Epithalamia were copied, if not
actually translated, from hers. Menander the
Rhetorician praises her " Invocatory Hymns,"
in which he says she called upon Artemis and
Aphrodite from a thousand hills ; perhaps fr. 6
is taken out of one of these. Her hymn to
Artemis is said to have been imitated by Damo-
phyla (cf. p. 24). She was on all sides regarded
as the greatest erotic poet of antiquity ; as
Swinburne makes her sing of herself
My blood was hot wan wine of love,
And my song's sound the sound thereof,
The sound of the delight of it.
Epigrams and Elegies, Iambics and Monodies,
she is also reported to have written. Nine books
of her lyric Odes are said to have existed, but
it is uncertain how they were composed. The
imitations of her style and metre made by
Horace are too well known to require more
than a passing reference. Some of his odes
have been regarded as direct translations from
Sappho; notably his Carm. iii. 12, Miserarum
est neque amori dare ludum neque duld, which
Voiger compares to her fr. 90. Horace looked
4 2 Life of Sappho.
forward to hearing her in Hades singing plain-
tively to the girls of her own country (Car in. ii.
13, I4 1 ), and in his time
Still breathed the love, still lived the fire
To which the Lesbian tuned her lyre.
(Carm. iv. 9. 10. )
Athenaeus says that Chamaeleon, one of the
disciples of Aristotle, wrote a book about Sappho;
and Strabo says Callias of Lesbos interpreted
her songs. Alexander the Sophist used to lecture
on her, and Dracon of Stratonica, in the reign of
Hadrian, wrote a commentary on her metres.
She wrote in the Aeolic dialect, the form of
which Bergk has restored in almost every in-
stance. The absence of rough breathings, the
throwing back of the accent, and the use of the
digamma (f) and of many forms and words un-
known to ordinary Attic Greek, all testify to this.
Three idyls ascribed to Theocritus (cf. fr. 65) are
imitations of the dialect, metre, and manner of
the old Aeolic poets; and the 28th, says Professor
Mahaffy, "is an elegant little address to an ivory
spindle which the poet was sending as a present
1 A quaint mediaeval commentator on Horace, quoted
by Professor Comparetti, says this passage (querentetn
Sappho ptiellis de popularibus] refers to Sappho's com-
plaining, even in Hades, of her Lesbian fellow-maidens
for not loving the youth with whom she was herself so
much in love.
Life of Sappho. 43
to the wife of his physician friend, Nikias of Cos,
and was probably composed on the model of a
poem of Sappho."
Her poems or jue\H were undoubtedly written
for recitation with the aid of music ; " they were,
in fact," to quote Professor Mahaffy again, "the
earliest specimens of what is called in modern
days the Song or Ballad, in which the repetition
of short rhythms produces a certain pleasant
monotony, easy to remember and easy to under-
stand."
What Melic poetry like Sappho's actually was
is best comprehended in the light of Plato's de-
finition of tnelos, that it is " compounded out of
three things, speech, music and rhythm."
Aristoxenus, as quoted by Plutarch, ascribes
to her the invention of the Mixo-Lydian mode.
Mr. William Chappell thinks the plain meaning
of Aristoxenus' assertion is merely that she sang
softly and plaintively, and at a higher pitch than
any of her predecessors. All Greek modes can
be exhibited by means of our diatonic scale, by
the white keys, for example, omitting the black
ones, of our modern pianofortes; the various
modes having been merely divisions of the dia-
tonic scale into certain regions each consisting
of one octave. The ecclesiastical Mixo-Lydian
mode supposed to be similar to the Greek mode
of the same name, is the scale of our G major
44 Life of Sappho.
without the F^ or leading note. It was called
in the early Christian Church "the angelic
mode," and is now known as the Seventh of
the ecclesiastical or Gregorian modes. The
more celebrated instances of the use of this
mode in modern church music are Palestrina's
four-part motet Dies sanctificatus, the Antiphon
Asperges me as given in the Roman Gradual,
and the Sarum melody of Sanctorum mentis
printed in the Rev. T. Helmore's Hymnal
Noted. The subjoined example of it is given
in Sir George Grove's Dictionary of Music
and Musicians:
together with a technical description of its
construction.
Sappho is said by Athenaeus, quoting Menaech-
mus and Aristoxenus, to have been the first of
the Greek poets to use the Pektis (TTHKTI<;), a
foreign instrument of uncertain form, a kind of
harp (cf. fr. 122), which was played by the fingers
without a plectrum. Athenaeus says the Pektis
was identical with the Magadis, but in this he
was plainly wrong, for Mr. Wm Chappell has
shown that any instrument which was played in
octaves was called a Magadis, and when it was
in the form of a lyre it had a bridge to divide
Life of Sappho. 45
the strings into two parts, in the ratio of 2 to i,
so that the short part of each string gave a sound
just one octave higher than the other. Sappho
also mentions (in fr. 154) the Baromos or
Barmos, and the Sarbitos or Barbitos, kinds of
many-stringed Lesbian lyres which cannot now
be identified.
As to the metres in which Sappho wrote, it is
unnecessary to describe them elaborately here.
They are discussed in all treatises on Greek or
Latin metres, and Neue has treated of them at
great length in his edition of Sappho. Suffice it
to say that Bergk has as far as possible arranged
the fragments according to their metres, of which
I have given indications often purposely general
in the headings to the various divisions. The
metre commonly called after her name was pro-
bably not invented by her ; it was only called
Sapphic because of her frequent use of it. Its
strophe is made up thus :
Mr. Robinson Ellis, in the preface to his trans-
lation of Catullus, gives some examples of
Elizabethan renderings of the Sapphic stanza
46 Life of Sappho.
into English, but nothing repeats its rhythm to
my ear so well as Swinburne's Sapphics :
All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
With such lines as these ringing in the reader's
ears, he can almost hear Sappho herself singing
Songs that move the heart of the shaken heaven,
Songs that break the heart of the earth with pity,
Hearing, to hear them.
In the face of so much testimony to Sappho's
genius, and in the presence of every glowing
word of hers that has been spared to us, there
is no need for me to panegyrize the poetess
whom the whole world has been long since con-
tented to hold without a parallel. What Sappho
wrote, to earn such unchallenged fame, we can
only vainly long to know ; what still remains for
us to judge her by, I am willing to leave my
readers to estimate.
I. IN SAPPHIC METRE.
I.
TToiKiAoGpov', aedvar' 'A9p65iTa,
TTCU Aiog, SoAonAoKe, Ataaojuai ae
JUH ju' uocuai JUHT oviaiai bdjuva,
TTOTVia, 0UJUOV
aAAa ruib' eA0', mnora KarepcoTa
TOQ ejua^ aiibcoc; aioiaa nnAui
eKAueg, ncxrpog 6e 66juov Ainoiaa
Xpuaiov fiAGeq
apju' uno^eutaiaa' KaAoi 5e a' afov
OTpouGoi nepi ffiq jueAatvag
&iveuvTe<; nrep' an' wpuvco al'Ge-
poq bia jueaaco.
ai\|/a 6' etKOVTO' TU 5', w jucxKaipa,
jueibicioaia' aeavcxrco npoaconco,
Hpe', OTTI &HUT6 ntTiovGa KOJTTI
KOJTTI MOI jua^iOTa GeAco
jucuvoAa 6uMcp* jiva 5Hure TTeiQoj
Mate; CXJ-HV eg aav ^lAorara, TI^ a'
Y'lrep', a6iKH6i;
48 Sappho.
KOI fop ai 9eufei, raxecoc 6iwi,
ai bk 6topa JUH beKer', uAAa 5(i>3ei,
ai 6e JUH <ptAei, raxecoc; 9iAH3ei
KwuK e0eAoisa.
tA0e MOI Kcti vuv, xaAenav be Auaov
K jaepijuvav, oooa be MOI reAeaaoi
liueppei, reAeoov au 6' aura
eaao.
Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne,
daughter of Zeus, wearer of wiles, I pray thee
break not my spirit with anguish and distress, O
Queen. But come hither, if ei'er before thou didst
hear my voice afar, and listen, and leaving thy
father's golden house earnest with chariot yoked,
and fair fleet sparrows drew thee, flapping fast
their wings around the dark earth, from heaven
through mid sky. Quickly arrived they ; and
thou, blessed one, smiling with immortal counte-
nance, didst ask What now is befallen me, and
U7iy flow I call, and What I in my mad heart
most desire to see. " What Beauty now would st
thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee,
Sappho '? For even if she flies she shall soon
follo7t>, and if sfie rejects gifts shall yet give, and
if she loves not shall soon love, /lonwer loth."
Come, I pray thee, nmv too, and release me from
cruel cares and all that my heart desires to
accomplish, accomplish thon. and be thyself my
ally.
In Sapphic Metre. 49
A HYMN TO VENUS.
O Venus, beauty of the skies,
To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles ;
O goddess, from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.
If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferred,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
gentle goddess, hear me now.
Descend, thou bright immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confessed.
Thou once didst leave almighty Jove
And all the golden roofs above :
The car thy wanton sparrows drew,
Hovering in air they lightly flew ;
As to my bower they winged their way
1 saw their quivering pinions play.
The birds dismissed (while you remain)
Bore back their empty car again :
Then you, with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smiled,
And asked what new complaints I made,
And why I called you to my aid ?
E
5O Sappho.
What frenzy in my bosom raged,
And by what cure to be assuaged ?
What gentle youth I would allure,
Whom in my artful toils secure ?
Who does thy tender heart subdue,
Tell me, my Sappho, tell me who ?
Though now he shuns thy longing arms,
He soon shall court thy slighted charms ;
Though now thy offerings he despise,
He soon to thee shall sacrifice ;
Though now he freeze, he soon shall burn,
And be thy victim in his turn.
Celestial visitant, once more
Thy needful presence I implore.
In pity come, and ease my grief,
Bring my distempered soul relief,
Favour thy suppliant's hidden fires,
And give me all my heart desires.
AMBROSE PHILIPS, 1711.
TO THE GODDESS OF LOVE.
O Venus, daughter of the mighty Jove,
Most knowing in the mystery of love,
Help me, oh help me, quickly send relief,
And suffer not my heart to break with grief.
In Sapphic Metre. 5 1
If ever thou didst hear me when I prayed,
Come now, my goddess, to thy Sappho's aid.
Orisons used, such favour hast thou shewn,
From heaven's golden mansions called thee
down.
See, see, she comes in her cerulean car,
Passing the middle regions of the air.
Mark how her nimble sparrows stretch the wing,
And with uncommon speed their Mistress bring.
Arrived, and sparrows loosed, hastens to me ;
Then smiling asks, What is it troubles thee ?
Why am I called ? Tell me what Sappho wants.
Oh, know you not the cause of all my plaints ?
I love, I burn, and only love require ;
And nothing less can quench the raging fire.
What youth, what raving lover shall I gain ?
Where is the captive that should wear my chain ?
Alas, poor Sappho, who is this ingrate
Provokes thee so, for love returning hate ?
Does he now fly thee ? He shall soon return :
Pursue thee, and with equal ardour burn.
Would he no presents at thy hands receive ?
He will repent it, and more largely give.
The force of love no longer can withstand ;
He must be fond, wholly at thy command.
5 2 Sappho.
When wilt thou work this change ? Now, Venus
free,
Now ease my mind of so much miser}- ;
In this amour my powerful aider be ;
Make Phaon love, but let him love like me.
HERBERT, 1713.
HYMN TO VENUS.
Immortal Venus, throned above
In radiant beauty, child of Jove,
O skilled in every art of love
And artful snare ;
Dread power, to whom I bend the knee,
Release my soul and set it free
From bonds of piercing agony
And gloomy care.
Yet come thyself, if e'er, benign.
Thy listening ears thou didst incline
To my rude lay, the Starr)* shine
Of Jove's court leaving,
In chariot yoked with coursers fair,
Thine own immortal birds that bear
Thee swift to earth, the middle air
With bright wings cleaving.
Soon they were sped and thou, most blest,
In thine own smiles ambrosial dressed,
Didst ask what griefs my mind oppressed
What meant my song
Iii Sapphic Metre. 53
What end my frenzied thoughts pursue
For what loved youth I spread anew
My amorous nets " Who, Sappho, who
" Hath done thee wrong ?
" What though he fly, he'll soon return
" Still press thy gifts, though now he spurn ;
" Heed not his coldness soon he'll burn,
" E'en though thou chide."
And saidst thou thus, dread goddess ? Oh,
Come then once more to ease my woe ;
Grant all, and thy great self bestow,
My shield and guide !
JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE, 1833.
Splendour-throned Queen, immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Jove, Enchantress, I implore thee
Vex not my soul with agonies and anguish ;
Slay me not, Goddess !
Come in thy pity come, if I have prayed thee ;
Come at the cry of my sorrow ; in the old times
Oft thou hast heard, and left thy father's heaven,
Left the gold houses,
Yoking thy chariot. Swiftly did the doves fly,
Swiftly they brought thee, waving plumes of
wonder
Waving their dark plumes all across the aether,
All down the azure.
Very soon they lighted. Then didst thou,
Divine one,
54 SappJio.
Laugh a bright laugh from lips and eyes
immortal,
Ask me, " What ailed me wherefore out of
heaven
" Thus I had called thee ?
" What it was made me madden in my heart so ? "
Question me, smiling say to me, " My Sappho,
" Who is it wrongs thee ? Tell me who refuses
" Thee, vainly sighing."
" Be it who it may be, he that flies shall follow ;
' ; He that rejects gifts, he shall bring thee many ;
" He that hates now shall love thee dearly,
madly
" Aye, though thou wouldst not."
So once again come, Mistress ; and, releasing
Me from my sadness, give me what I sue for,
Grant me my prayer, and be as heretofore now
Friend and protectress.
EDWIN ARNOLD, 1869.
Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, beguiler, I implore thee,
Weigh me not down with weariness and anguish,
O thou most holy !
Come to me now, if ever thou in kindness
Hearkenedst my words, and often hast thou
hearkened
Heeding, and coming from the mansions golden
Of thy great Father,
In Sapphic Metre, 55
Yoking thy chariot, borne by the most lovely
Consecrated birds, with dusky-tinted pinions,
Waving swift wings from utmost heights of heaven
Through the mid-ether ;
Swiftly they vanished, leaving thee, O goddess,
Smiling, with face immortal in its beauty,
Asking why I grieved, and why in utter longing
I had dared call thee ;
Asking what I sought, thus hopeless in desiring,
Wildered in brain, and spreading nets of
passion
Alas, for whom? and saidst thou, "Who has
harmed thee ?
" O my poor Sappho !
" Though now he flies, ere long he shall pursue
thee ;
" Fearing thy gifts, he too in turn shall bring
them ;
' Loveless to-day, to-morrow he shall woo thee,
" Though thou shouldst spurn him."
Thus seek me now, O holy Aphrodite !
Save me from anguish ; give me all I ask for,
Gifts at thy hand ; and thine shall be the glory,
Sacred protector !
T. W. HIGGINSON, 1871.
56 Sappho.
O fickle-souled, deathless one, Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee,
Lady august, never with pangs and bitter
Anguish affray me !
But hither come often, as erst with favour
My invocations pitifully heeding,
Leaving thy sire's golden abode, thou earnest
Down to me speeding.
Yoked to thy car, delicate sparrows drew thee
Fleetly to earth, fluttering fast their pinions,
From heaven's height through middle ether's
liquid
Sunny dominions.
Soon they arrived ; thou, O divine one, smiling
Sweetly from that countenance all immortal,
Askedst my grief, wherefore I so had called thee
From the bright portal ?
What my wild soul languished for, fren zy-stricken ?
" Who thy love now is it that ill requiteth
Sappho ? and who thee and thy tender yearning
Wrongfully slighteth ?
Though he now fly, quickly he shall pursue
thee
Scorns he thy gifts ? Soon he shall freely
offer
Loves he not ? Soon, even wert thou unwilling,
Love shall he proffer."
In Sapphic Metre. 57
Come to me then, loosen me from my torment,
All my heart's wish unto fulfilment guide thou,
Grant and fulfil ! And an ally most trusty
Ever abide thou.
MORETON JOHN WALHOUSE, in the
Gentleman's Magazine, 1877.
Star-throned incorruptible Aphrodite,
Child of Zeus, wile-weaving, I supplicate thee,
Tame not me with pangs of the heart, dread
mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish.
But come thou, if erst in the days departed
Thou didst lend thine ear to my lamentation,
And from far, the house of thy sire deserting,
Camest with golden
Car yoked : thee thy beautiful sparrows hurried
Swift with multitudinous pinions fluttering
Round black earth, adown from the height of
heaven
Through middle ether :
Quickly journeyed they; and, O thou, blest Lady,
Smiling with those brows of undying lustre,
Asked me what new grief at my heart lay,
wherefore
Now I had called thee,
What I fain would have to assuage the torment
Of my frenzied soul ; and whom now, to please
thee,
5 8 Sappho.
Must persuasion lure to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee ?
Yea, for though she flies, she shall quickly chase
thee ;
Yea, though gifts she spurns, she shall soon
bestow them ;
Yea, though now she loves not, she soon shall
love thee,
Yea, though she will not !
Come, come now too ! Come, and from heavy
heart-ache
Free my soul, and all that my longing yearns to
Have done, do thou ; be thou for me thyself too
Help in the battle.
J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 1883.
Besides these complete versions many others
there are, but these are by far the best com-
pare the following stanza out of Akenside's Ode
on Lyric Poetry (about 1745) :
But lo, to Sappho's melting airs
Descends the radiant queen of Love :
She smiles, and asks what fonder cares
Her suppliant's plaintive measures move :
Why is my faithful maid distressed ?
Who, Sappho, wounds thy tender breast ?
/;/ Sapphic Metre. 59
Say, flies he ? Soon he shall pursue.
Shuns he thy gifts ? He soon shall give.
Slights he thy sorrows ? He shall grieve,
And soon to all thy wishes bow.
And Swinburne's paraphrase-
For I beheld in sleep the light that is
In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss
Of body and soul that mix with eager tears
And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears:
Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet,
Imperishable, upon her storied seat ;
Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south,
A mind of many colours, and a mouth
Of many tunes and kisses ; and she bowed,
With all her subtle face laughing aloud,
Bowed down upon me, saying, " Who doth thee
wrong,
Sappho?" but thou thy body is the song,
Thy mouth the music ; thou art more than I,
Though my voice die not till the whole world
die;
Though men that hear it madden ; though love
weep,
Though nature change, though shame be charmed
to sleep.
Ay, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead ?
Yet the queen laughed from her sweet heart and
said :
60 Sappho.
" Even she that flies shall follow for thy sake,
And she shall give thee gifts that would not take,
Shall kiss that would not kiss thee "(yea, kiss me)
" When thou wouldst not " when I would not
kiss thee !
Anactoria, p. 67 f,
And his
O thou of divers-coloured mind, 1 O thou
Deathless, God's daughter subtle-souled lo, now.
Now too the song above all songs, in flight
Higher than the day-star's height,
And sweet as sound the moving wings of night !
Thou of the divers-coloured seat behold
Her very song of old !
O deathless, O God's daughter subtle-souled .'
*****
Child of God, close craftswotnan, I beseech thee ;
Bid not ache nor agony break nor master,
Lady, my spirit.
Songs of the Spring-tides: On the Cliffs.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing at Rome
about 25 B.C., quotes this, commonly called The
Ode to Aphrodite, as a perfect illustration of the
1 TioiKiXoOpov' =on richly-worked throne, is by some
read notKiAo<ppov=full of various wiles, subtle-minded.
/;/ Sapphic Metre. 61
elaborately finished style of poetry, showing in
detail how its grace and beauty lie in the subtle
harmony between the words and the ideas.
Certain lines of it, though nowhere else the
whole, are preserved by Hephaestion and other
authors.
2.
i MOI KHvoa I'aoc; 6eoiaiv
ejujuev a>VHp, SOTIQ evavriog TOI
Uavei, Kai nAaoiov a&u 9wveu-
aaq OnaKouei
KOI r^ai^aq ijuepoev, TO )aoi MCXV
KOpbiav ev GTH0eoiv enroaaev
cbq fap euibov ppoxecoc; ae, <pcovaq
oubev er' eiVer
aA\a Kau juev fAcoaaa eafe, \enrov 6'
6' oubev opHju', enippoju-
6' aKOuai.
a & jui&pwQ KOKxeerai, TpojuoQ 5e
naaav afpei, x^wROTepa 5e noiaq
ejLiMi, TeOvaKHV b' 6Aij"co 'mbeuHQ
(paivo)uai [uAAa].
aAAa nav roAjucnrov, [enei Kai nevHta].
That man seems to me peer of gods^ who sits in
thy presence, and hears dose to him thy sweet
speech and lovely laughter ; that indeed makes my
62 Sappho.
heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee
but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is
broken down, and straightway a subtle fire //as
run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight,
my ears ring, sweat pours dovvn, and a trembling
seizes all my body ; I am paler than grass, and
seem in my madness little better than one dead.
But I must dare all, since one so poor ....
The famous imitation of this ode by Catullus,
ii., Ad Lesbiam
Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
Qui sedens adversus identidem te
Spectat et audit
Dulce ridentem, misero quod omnis
Eripit sensus mihi : nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
*****
Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
Lumina nocte
is thus translated by Mr. W. E. Gladstone :
Him rival to the gods I place,
Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,
Who listens and who looks on thee ;
In Sapphic Metre. 63
Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight
Doth all my sense consign to death ;
For when thou dawnest on my sight,
Ah, wretched ! flits my labouring breath.
My tongue is palsied. Subtly hid
Fire creeps me through from limb to limb :
My loud ears tingle all unbid :
Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim.
Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee all the while
Softly speak and sweetly smile.
'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast ;
For while I gazed, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost :
My bosom glowed ; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame ;
O'er my dim eyes a darkness hung ;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.
In dewy damps my limbs were chilled ;
My blood with gentle horror thrilled ;
My feeble pulse forgot to play ;
I fainted, sank, and died away.
AMBROSE PHILIPS, 1711.
64 Sappho.
Thy fatal shafts unerring move,
I bow before thine altar, Love.
I feel thy soft resistless flame
Glide swift through all my vital frame.
For while I gaze my bosom glows,
My blood in tides impetuous flows,
Hope, fear, and joy alternate roll,
And floods of transports whelm my soul.
My faltering tongue attempts in vain
In soothing murmurs to complain ;
Thy tongue some secret magic ties,
Thy murmurs sink in broken sighs.
Condemned to nurse eternal care,
And ever drop the silent tear,
Unheard I mourn, unknown I sigh,
Unfriended live, unpitied die.
SMOLLETT, in Roderick Random, 1741.
Blest as the immortal gods is he,
The youth whose eyes may look on thee,
Whose ears thy tongue's sweet melody
May still devour.
Thou smilest too ? sweet smile, whose charm
Has struck my soul with wild alarm,
And, when I see thee, bids disarm
Each vital power.
In Sapphic Metre. 65
Speechless I gaze : the flame within
Runs swift o'er all my quivering skin ;
My eyeballs swim ; with dizzy din
My brain reels round ;
And cold drops fall ; and tremblings frail
Seize every limb ; and grassy pale
I grow ; and then together fail
Both sight and sound.
JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE, 1833.
Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissful
Man who sits and gazes at thee before him,
Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee
Silverly speaking,
Laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this only
Stirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble !
For should I but see thee a little moment,
Straight is my voice hushed ;
Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and
through me
'Neath the flesh impalpable fire runs tingling ;
Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring
Waves in my ear sounds ;
Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes
All my limbs, and paler than grass in autumn,
Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter,
Lost in the love-trance.
J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 1883.
F
66 Sappho.
Compare Lord Tennyson :
I watch thy grace ; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,
While I muse upon thy face ;
And a languid fire creeps
Through my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly : soon
From thy rose-red lips my name
Floweth ; and then, as in a swoon,
With dinning sound my ears are rife,
My tremulous tongue faltereth,
I lose my colour, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death
Brimmed with delicious draughts of warmest
life.
I die with my delight, before
I hear what I would hear from thee.
Eleanore, 1832.
And
I^ast night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame. Fatima^
1 When Fatima was first published (1832) this motto
was prefixed
4>mveTCu juoi KHVOQ TGOQ 6eoTaiv
ejujLtev avHp,
showing Tennyson's acknowledgments to Sappho.
In Sapphic Metre. 67
And with line 14, Swinburne's
Paler than grass in summer. Sapphics.
and,
Made like white summer-coloured grass.
Aholibah.
Longinus, about 250 A.D., uses this, The Ode
to Anactoria, or To a beloved Woman, or To a
Maiden, as tradition variously names it, to illus-
trate the perfection of the Sublime in poetry,
calling it " not one passion, but a congress of
passions," and showing how Sappho had here
seized upon the signs of love-frenzy and har-
monized them into faultless phrase. Plutarch
had, about 60 A.D., spoken of this ode as
" mixed with fire," and quoted Philoxenus as
referring to Sappho's " sweet-voiced songs heal-
ing love."
68 Sappho.
3-
"Aorepeq juev 14191 KctAav oeAavvuv
a\y anoKpunroiai <pdevvov et5oQ,
oiTTTOTa n\H0oiaa juuMaru AUJUTTH
rav [em naaav]
w w apfupia w w-
The stars about the fair moon in their turn
hide their bright face when she at about her full
lights up all earth with silver.
Planets, that around the beauteous moon
Attendant wait, cast into shade
Their ineffectual lustre, soon
As she in full-orbed majesty arrayed,
Her silver radiance pours
Upon this world of ours.
J. H. MERIVALE.
The stars around the lovely moon
Their radiant visage hide as soon
As she, full-orbed, appears to sight,
Flooding the earth with her silvery light.
? FELTON.
In Sapphic Metre. 69
The stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight, and lights all space.
EDWIN ARNOLD, 1869.
Stars that shine around the refulgent full moon
Pale, and hide their glory of lesser lustre
When she pours her silvery plenilunar
Light on the orbed earth.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
Quoted by Eustathius of Thessalonica, late ir
the twelfth century, to illustrate the simile in tht
Jliad, viii. 551 :
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful. TENNYSON.
Julian, about 350 A.D., says Sappho applied the
epithet silver to the moon ; wherefore Blomfield
suggested its position here.
70 Sappho.
'Ajucpi 5'e \yuxpov KeA<i6ei bi ua&oov
6e
KCOJUO Karappei.
And round about the [breeze] murmurs cool
through apple-bortghs, and slumber streams from
quivering leaves.
Through orchard-plots with fragrance crowned
The clear cold fountain murmuring flows ;
And forest leaves with rustling sound
Invite to soft repose.
J. H. MERIVALF.
All around through branches of apple-orchards
Cool streams call, while down from the leaves
a-tremble
Slumber distilleth.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
Cited by Hermogenes, about 170 A.D., as an
example of simple style, and to show the pleasure
given by description. The fragment describes
/// Sapphic Metre. Ji
the gardens of the nymphs, which Demetrius,
about 150 A.D., says were sung by Sappho. Cf.
Theocritus, Idyl, vii. 135: "High above our
heads waved many a poplar, many an elm-tree,
while close at hand the sacred water from the
Nymph's own cave welled forth with murmurs
musical" (A. Lang). And Ovid, Hero'id., xv.
157,
A spring there is whose silver waters show, etc.
(cf. Pope's translation infra, p. 190) probably
refers to it.
5-
\j w w w "EA9e Kunpi
Xpucicuoiv ev KuAiKeooiv a[3pa><;
6a/\icuoi veicrap
Come, goddess of Cyprus, and in golden cups
serve nectar delicately mixed with delights.
Come, Venus, come
Hither with thy golden cup,
Where nectar-floated flowerets swim.
72 Sappho.
Fill, fill the goblet up ;
These laughing lips shall kiss the brim,
Come, Venus, come !
ANON. (Edin. Rm^ 1832).
Kupris, hither
Come, and pour from goblets of gold the nectar
Mixed for love's and pleasure's delight with
dainty
Joys of the banquet.
J. A. SYMOXDS, 1883.
Athenaeus, a native of Naucratis, who flourished
about 230 A.D.. quotes these verses as an example
of the poets' custom of invoking Aphrodite in
their pledges. Applying them to himself and
his fellow-guests, he adds the words TOUTOIGI TO!<;
eraipou; ejuoiq re KOI oolq. Some scholars believe
that Sappho actually wrote
Talo5e rate ejuaig erdpaiGi KCU oaiq,
For these my companions and thine.
Aphrodite was called Cypris, " the Cyprian,"
because it was mythologically believed that when
she rose from the sea she was first received as
a goddess on the shore of Cyprus {Homeric
Hymns, vi.).
Iii Sapphic Metre. 73
6.
"H ae Kunpoq KOI TToupoq H TTavopjuoq.
Or Cyprus and Faphos, or Panormus [holds]
thee.
If thee Cyprus, or Paphos, or Panormos
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
From Strabo, about 19 A.D. Panormus
(Palermo) in Sicily was not founded till after
Sappho's time, but it was a common name, and
all seaports were under the special protection of
Aphrodite.
7 AND 8.
Sot b' erco AeuKac; eni fkojuov
KUiriAei\|/w TOI w w w v
But for thee will I [lead] to the altar [the
offspring] of a white goat . . . and add a
libation for thee.
74 Sappho.
Adduced by Apollonius of Alexandria, about
140 A.D., to illustrate similarities in dialects.
The fragment is probably part of an ode de-
scribing a sacrifice offered to Aphrodite.
Al8' If CO, XpU003T9Ov' 'A<pp6&lTCt,
rov&e TOV nciAov
This lot may I win, golden-crowned Aphrodite.
From Apollonius, to show how adverbs give
an idea of prayer.
10.
At Me Tijaiav tnoHaav epfct
TO o<pa 601001.
Who gave me their gifts and made me honoured.
From Apollonius, to illustrate the Aeolic dia-
lect. Bergk thinks this fragment had some
connection with fr. 68, and perhaps with fr. 32.
It seems to refer to the Muses.
In Sapphic Metre. 75
1 1.
w w Toibe vuv t
TCU<; ejuaiai repnva KaAcx; uei
7X//J will I now sing deftly to please my girl-
friends.
Quoted by Athenaeus to prove that freeborn
women and maidens often called their girl
associates and friends Iraipai (Hetaerae), without
any idea of reproach.
12.
^ w w w "Omvaq rap
eu 6eoo, KHVCH jue juaAiara aivvov-
TCXI. w w w .
For they whom I benefit injure me most.
From the Etymologicum Magmim, a dictionary
which was compiled about the tenth century
A.D.
SappJio.
13-
w w w "EfOJ 5e KHV' OT-
TCO TIQ eparcu.
But that which one desires 7 ....
From Apollonius, to illustrate the use of the
verb epdtco. Bergk now reads eparcti instead of
fpaTcu as formerly, on the analogy of ^IUKHTUI and
6uva,ucu in the Fayum fragments.
14.
TCUQ Kc'Aai<; ujujuiv [TO] VOHJUO TCOJUOV
ou 6iajiieiTrrov.
To you, fair maids, my mind changes not.
From Apollonius, to show the Aeolic use of
for UMIV, " to you."
In Sapphic Metre. //
15-
w w w "Efcov 6' eMOUTOi
TOUTO GUVOlbct.
And this I feel in myself.
From Apollonius, to show Aeolic accentuation.
16.
TOUCH [6e] vt/Gxpoc; juev Ifevro eCjuog,
nop b' i'etai TO nrepa. w w
Bid their heart turned cold and they dropt their
wings.
In Pindar, Pyth. \. 10, the eagle of Zeus,
delighted by music, drops his wings, and the
Scholiast quotes this fragment to show that
Sappho says the same of doves.
78 Sappho.
w - y w KOT ejuov
Tbv 6 emrrAcHovTeg ajuoi cpepoiev
According to my weeping : it and all care let
buffeting winds bear away.
From the Etymologicum Magnum, to show
that the Aeolians used \ in the place of .33.
"Ajuoi is a guess of Bergk's for uvejuoi, " winds."
18.
M' a xpuoone5iAy\OQ AUCOQ.
Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn ....
Me but now Aurora the golden-sandalled.
J. A. SVMONDS, 1883.
Quoted by Ammonius of Alexandria, at the
close of the fourth century A.D., to show Sappho's
use
/// Sapphic Metre. 79
19.
w w ww TT6&OQ 54
.TTOiKiAog MO^HC; eKaAunre, Aubi-
ov KaAov epfov.
A broidered strap of fair Lydian work covered
her feet.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Aristophanes'
Peace, 1174; and also by Pollux, about 180 A.D.
Blass thinks the lines may have referred to an
apparition of Aphrodite.
2O.
- \j w TTavTobdnaig
va xpotaioiv.
Shot with a thousand hues.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Apollonius of
Rhodes, i. 727, in speaking of Jason's double-
folded mantle having been reddish instead of
name -coloured. Some think, however, that
Sappho here refers to Iris, i.e. the rainbow.
8o Sappho.
21.
.... EjueOev b' TxeiaGa AuOuv.
Me thou forgettest.
From Apollonius, as is also the following, to
show the Aeolic use of ejueQev for tjuoO, "of me."
22.
- w - w - w w "H TIV
[juaAAov] av9pconcL)V "jiieGev (piAnoOa.
Or lovest another more than me.
23-
Ou TI juoi tjujueg.
Ye are nought to me.
Quoted by Apollonius, as is also the followin
fragment, to show that ujueTc was in Aeolic C
" you."
In Sapphic Metre. 81
24-
A<; Be\er'
While ye will.
25-
Kui TToSHco KCU juuojucu \j w
/ yearn and seek ....
From the Etymologicum Magnum, to show
that the Aeolians used no0Hoj for noeeco, " I yearn."
26.
Kelvov, co xpu<3o0pove Moua' , tvianeq
Gjuvov, K rag KaAAifuvaiKoq tc
THioq x^P 01 *^ cv aei&e repnvax;
O Muse of the golden throne, raise that strain
which the reverend elder of Teos, from the goodly
land of fair women, used to sing so sweetly.
G
82 Sappho.
O Muse, who sitt'st on golden throne,
Full many a hymn of dulcet tone
The Teian sage is taught by thee ;
But, goddess, from thy throne of gold,
The sweetest hymn thou'st ever told
He lately learned and sang for me.
T. MOORE.
Athenaeus says " Hermesianax was mistaken
when he represented Sappho and Anacreon as
contemporaries, for Anacreon lived in the time
of Cyrus and Polycrates [probably 563-478 B.C.],
but Sappho lived in the reign of Alyattes the
father of Croesus. But Chamaeleon, in his
treatise on Sappho, asserts that according to
some these verses were made upon her by
Anacreon,
' Spirit of Love, whose tresses shine
Along the breeze in golden twine,
Come, within a fragrant cloud
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud,
And on those wings that sparkling play
Waft, oh waft me hence away !
Love, my soul is full of thee,
Alive to all thy luxury.
/// Sapphic Metre. 83
But she, the nymph for whom I glow,
The pretty Lesbian, mocks my woe,
Smiles at the hoar and silvered hues
Which Time upon my forehead strews.
Alas, I fear she keeps her charms.
In store for younger happier arms.' "
T. MOORE.
Then follows Sappho's reply, the present frag-,
ment. " I myself think," Athenaeus goes on to
say, " that Hermesianax is joking concerning
the love of Anacreon and Sappho, for Diphilus
the comic poet, in his play called Sappho^ has
represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the
lovers of Sappho."
Probably the whole is spurious, for certainly
Sappho never saw Anacreon : she probably died
before he was born. Even Athenaeus says that
it is clear to every one that the verses are not
Sappho's.
84 Sappho.
II. IN DACTYLIC METRE.
27.
evaq ev GTH0eaiv opfaq
When anger spreads through the breast, guard
thy tongue from barking idly.
Quoted by Plutarch, in his treatise On re-
straining anger, to show that in wrath nothing is
more noble than quietness. Blass thinks that
Bergk is wrong in his restoration of the verses ;
he considers their metre choriambic (like fr.
64, ff.), and reads them thus :
* ^ OKi&vajueva<; OTHGeoiv opfaq Tre<puAafjueva (?)
f\u>oaav jaavfuAaKav ww ww ^
He compares fr. 72 with them.
In Alcaic Metre. 85
III. IN ALCAIC METRE.
28.
Ai 6' Hxeq eoAoov i'juepov H xaAoov,
Kcti JUH TI yehrHV rAcooa* eKUKa KOKOV,
ai6a>g Ke a' ou Kixavev
aM' tAefeq nepl TOO
Hadst thou felt desire for things good or noble,
and had not thy tongue framed some evil speech,
shame had not filled thine eyes, but thou hadst
spoken honestly about it.
THE LOVES OF SAPPHO AND ALCAEUS.
Alcaeus. I fain would speak, I fain would tell,
But shame and fear my utterance
quell.
Sappho. If aught of good, if aught of fair
Thy tongue were labouring to declare,
Nor shame should dash thy glance,
nor fear
Forbid thy suit to reach my ear.
ANON. (Edin. Rev., 1832, p. 190).
86 Sappho.
Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, i. 9, about 330 B.C.,
says "base things dishonour those who do or
wish them, as Sappho showed when Alcaeus said,
ionAoK* oirvct jueMuxMei&e Zdnqxu,
0e/\<jo TI ./einHV, a\Aa jue KCoAuei ai'Scoq.
' Violet-weaving, pure, softly-smiling Sappho, I
would say something, but shame restrains me,'"
(cf. supra, p. 8,) and she answered him in the
words of the present fragment.
Blass (Rhein. Mus. 1879, xx ix-> P- I 5>)
believes that these verses also are Sappho's,
not Alcaeus'. Certainly they were quoted as
Sappho's by Anna Comnena, about mo A.D.,
as well as by another writer whom Blass refers
to. Blass would read the last line nepi & SiKaiooq
C&IKCIUOQ) = nepi ou ebiKctlouc, about that ivJiich then
didst pretend.
IV. IN MIXED GLYCONIC AND
ALCAIC METRE.
29.
Kavra
rav en' oaaoiq ajuntTuoov X"P IV -
Stand face to face, friend .... and unveil
the grace in thine eyes.
hi CJioriambic Metre. 87
Athenaeus, speaking of the charm of lovers'
eyes, says Sappho addressed this to a man who
was admired above all others for his beauty.
Bergk thinks it may have formed part of an ode
to Phaon (cf. fr. 140), or of a bridal song; and
A. Schoene suspects that it was possibly ad-
dressed to Sappho's brother. The metre is quite
uncertain.
V. IN CHORIAMBIC METRE.
[This is a very unsatisfactory category. Some of the
fragments, e.g. 30-43, are in Aeolian dactyls, wherein the
second foot is always a dactyl ; 44-49 are Gly conies ;
50-54 are in the Ionic a majore metre ; some others are
Asclepiads, etc. But where so much is uncertain, it
seems to be the simplest way to group them thus.]
30.
Xpuaeoi 6' epefJivOoi err' ai'ovwv ^u
And golden pulse grew on the shores.
Quoted by Athenaeus, when he is speaking of
vetches.
88 Sappho.
ACITCO KCU Niofkt juaAa M'CV (piAcu naav tTtupui.
Leto and Niobe were friends full dear.
Quoted by Athenaeus for the same reason as
fr. ii. Compare also fr. 143.
32.
MvaoesOai riva 901111 KOI usrepov
Men 1 think will remember us even hereafter.
Compare Swinburne's
Thou art more than I,
Though my voice die not till the whole world
die.
and
Memories shall mix and metaphors of me.
and
I Sappho shall be one with all these things,
With all high things for ever.
Anactoria.
In Choriambic Metre. 89
Dio Chrysostom, the celebrated Greek rhe-
torician, writing about too A.D., observes that
Sappho says this " with perfect beauty."
To illustrate this use of 90,111, Bergk quotes
a fragment preserved by Plutarch, which may
have been written by Sappho :
..... erco
Moisuv eu
/ think I have a goodly portion in the violet-
weaving Muses.
33-
'Hpdjuav juev efa> oe0ev, "ArGi, naAai nora.
/ loved thee once, Atthis, long ago.
I loved thee, hark, one tenderer note than all
Atthis, of old time, once one low long fall,
Sighing one long low lovely loveless call,
Dying one pause in song so flamelike fast
Atthis, long since in old time overpast
One soft first pause and last.
One, then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain
Storms all the music-maddened night again.
SWINBURNE, Songs of the Springtides, p. 57.
go SappJio.
Quoted by Hephaestion, about 150 A.D., as
an example of metre. The verse stood at the
beginning of the first ode of the second book of
Sappho's poems, which Hephaestion says was
composed entirely of odes in this metre : thus,
34-
S.uiKpct juoi Trai'g ejujuev e<pa!veo
A slight and ill-favoured child didst thou seem
to me.
Quoted by Plutarch ; and by others also.
Bergk thinks it is certain that this fragment
belongs to the same poem as does the preceding,
judging from references to it by Terentianus
Maurus, about 100 A.D., and by Marius Victo-
rinus, about 350 A.D.
35-
"AAAct, JUH juefaAuveo baKTuAioo nepi.
Foolish woman, pride not thyself on a ring.
Preserved by Herodian the grammarian, who
lived about 160 A.D.
/;/ Choriambic Metre. 91
36.
OUK 016' OTTI 8eco- 6uo juoi TO VOHMOTO.
/ know not what to do ; my mind is divided.
Quoted by the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus,
about 220 B.C.
37-
6' ou &OKIJUOIJU' opavco 6uai nd
/ do not think to touch the sky with my two
arms.
Quoted by Herodian. Cf. Horace, Carm. I.
i. 36, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice,
My head, exalted so, will touch the stars,
which some think a direct translation of this line
of Sappho's.
Old Horace? M will strike,' said he,
'The stars with head sublime.'
TENNYSON, Ttresias, 1885.
92 Sappho.
33.
*Q<; 6e new; nebct jLtorepa nerrrepufcoiuai.
^^/ I flutter like a child after her mother.
I ,ike a child whose mother 's lost,
I am fluttering, terror-tost.
M. J. WALHOtVK.
Quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum as an
example of Aeolic. It may have related to a
sparrow, and been imitated by Catullus, 3, 6 ff. :
Sweet, all honey : a bird that ever hailed her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.
Nor would move from her arms away : but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither,
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.
(ROBINSON ELLIS.)
39-
'Hpoc; uffeAoc ljUpo9cavoc UH
Springs messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale.
In CJioriambic Metre. 93
The dear good angel of the Spring,
The nightingale.
BEN JONSON, The Sad Shepherd, Act ii.
The tawny sweet winged thing
Whose cry was but of Spring.
SWINBURNE, Songs of tfie Springtides,
P- 52.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Sophocles, Electro,
149, "the nightingale is the messenger of Zeus,
because it is the sign of Spring."
40.
Satire n' 6 AusijueAm; bovei
fAuKuniKpov ujuuxavov opnerov.
Ncnv Love masters my limbs and shakes me,
fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving King,
The bitter-sweet impracticable thing,
Wild-beast-like rends me with fierce quivering.
J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 1883.
94 Sappho.
Compare
O Love, Love, Love ! O withering might !
TENNYSON, Fatima.
O bitterness of things too sweet !
SWINBURNE, Fragoktta.
Sweet Love, that art so bitter.
SWINBURNE, Tristram of Lyonesse.
and the song in Bothwell, act i. sc. i :
Surely most bitter of all sweet things thou art,
And sweetest thou of all things bitter, love.
Quoted by Hephaestion. Cf. fr. 125,
41.
"ArQt, ool 6* ejueQev juev u
9povria6HV, eni &' 'AvSpojuebav TTOTH.
But to f/tee, Atthis, the thought of me is hateful ;
thouflittest to Andromeda.
Quoted by Hephaestion together with fr. 40,
but it seems to be the beginning of a different
ode.
In Choriambic Metre. 95
42.
"Epog 6aur' erivaSev ejuoi 9ptvag,
avejuoQ KQT' opog 6puaiv ejuneacov.
Now Eros shakes my soul, a wind on the
mountain falling on the oaks.
Lo, Love once more my soul within me rends,
Like wind that on the mountain oak descends.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
Quoted by Maximus Tyrius, about 150 B.C.,
in speaking of Socrates exciting Phaedrus to
Bacchic frenzy when he talked of love.
43-
"Oia navvuxoc aacpi Kcrrarpei.
IVhen all night long [sleep] holds their [eyes].
Quoted by Apollonius to show the Aeolic
form of acpi. Bergk thinks that Sappho may
have written -
OTTTTCIT' [acopog],
OTO navvuxog 0091
therefore I translate it so.
96 Sappho.
44.
XetpojLiaKTpa 5e KCtj-rovoov
nop<pupa ....
Kai raura juev OTijuaaeK;,
enejuV emu ^GOKOCU;
bcopa ri.uia Kctfrovcov.
And purple napkins for thy lap . . . (even these
wilt thou despise) I sent from Phocaea, precious
gifts for thy lap.
Quoted by Athenaeus out of the fifth book of
Sappho's Songs to Aphrodite, to show that x e 'P"-
juaKTpa were cloths, handkerchiefs, for covering
the head. But the whole passage is hopelessly
corrupt.
45-
"Are &H xeAu &ia MOI
<poovdeaaa fevoio.
Come nou>, divine shell, become vocal for me.
Quoted by Hermogenes and Eustathius, of
Sappho apostrophizing her lyre.
In Choriamb ic Metre. 97
46.
KundAcuc; u
UJUTT' anu\a bepa.
And tender woven garlands round tender neck.
From Athenaeus.
47-
PeAAcoc; TrcufxxpiAampa.
Fonder of maids than Gellc.
Quoted as a proverb by Zenobius, about 130
A. ix ; said of those who die an untimely death,
or of those whose indulgence brings ruin on
their children. Gello was a maiden who died
in youth, whose ghost the Lesbians said
pursued children and carried them off.
98 Sappho.
48.
MuAd &H
Of G or go full weary.
I am weary of all thy words and soft strange
ways.
SWINBURNE, Anactoria.
Quoted by Choeroboscus, about the end of
the sixth century A.D., to show that the Aeolic
genitive ended in -cog. Maximus Tyrius men-
tions this girl Gorgo along with Andromeda
(cf. fr. 41) as beloved by Sappho.
49.
Bpev6eioo
Of a proud (or perfumed, we flowery) palace.
Athneaeus says Sappho here mentions the
" royal " and the "brentheian" unguent together,
as if they were one and the same thing ; but the
reading is very uncertain.
In CJiorianibic Metre. 99
50.
"Ej-oo 6' eni )ua/\0uKav
juAav ano\eco
But I upon a soft cushion dispose my liwi>.<.
From Herodian.
KH b' uju3poaiaq juev Kpurnp e
' Epjuaq b' eAev b/\niv eeoiq
KHVOI 6' cipa ncwreq KapXHGici T' H\OV
Kci\ei3ov, upuaavTO 5e ndjunav eaAa
no faju[3pa).
And there the bowl of ambrosia was mixed, and
Hermes took the ladle to pour out for the gods ;
and then they all held goblets, and made libation,
and wished the bridegroom all good luck.
The first two lines are quoted by Athenaeus
to show that in Sappho Hermes was cupbearer
to the gods ; and in another place he quotes the
ioo Sappho.
rest to illustrate her mention of carchesia, cups
narrow in the middle, with handles reaching from
the top to the bottom. Lachmann first joined
the two fragments. The verses appear to belong
to the Epithalamia.
52.
Ae6uK juev a ceAavva
KG! TTAma&ec, jueaai 6e
vuKTeg, wapa 6' epX T> a>pa,
If co be jjova Kare-Jbco.
The moon has set, and the Pleiades ; it is mid-
night, the time is going by, and I sleep alone.
The silver moon is set ;
The Pleiades are gone ;
Half the long night is spent, and yet
I lie alone. J. H. MERIVALE.
The moon hath left the sky ;
Lost is the Pleiads' light ;
It is midnight
And time slips by ;
But on my couch alone I lie.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of
metre.
/// Owriambic Metre. 101
53-
TT,\HpHc; uev ecpaiver' a oeXavva,
ai 6' cl)g nepi POOJUOV e
T/ie moon rose full, and the women stood as
though around an altar.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of
Praxilleian verses, i.e. such as the Sicyonian
poetess Praxilla (about B.C. 450) wrote in the
metre known as the Ionic a majore trimeter
brachycatalectic. Blass thinks that the lines are
part of the same poem as that to which the
succeeding fragment belongs.
54-
saai vu nor* a>5' ejuMeAeooc;
UTTCt\oi<; 0^9' epoevra fJoijuov
repev avSog juaXaKOV juoiTeioai.
Thus at times with tender feet the Cretan
ivomen dance in measure round the fair altar,
trampling the fine soft bloom of the grass.
102 Sappho.
Mr. Moreton J. Walhouse thus combines the
previous fragment with this :
Then, as the broad moon rose on high,
The maidens stood the altar nigh ;
And some in graceful measure
The well-loved spot danced round,
With lightsome footsteps treading
The soft and grassy ground.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of
metre, vv. i and 2 in one place and v. 3 in
another ; Bergk says Santen first joined them.
"Afipa bHure TTOXHO ono\a a/V\6]uav.
Then delicately in thick robe I sprang.
From Herodian, as an illustration of the
Aeolic dialect. Bergk attributes this to Sappho,
but Cramer and others think that Alcaeus wrote
the line.
/;/ CJioriainbic Metre. 103
56.
4>aioi &H noTct AH&CXV uaKiv9iva>v
[un' av9ea>v] nenuKabjuevov
eupHv anov.
Leda they say once found an egg hidden under
hyacinth-blossoms,
From the Etymologicum Magnum, Athenaeus,
and others. Bergk thinks fr. 112 may be con-
tinuous with this, thus
eupHv OHOV cbtco
TTO/Xl) \6UKOTepOV w w v
since Athenaeus quotes fr. 112 after fr. 56. It
is uncertain what flower the Greeks meant by
" hyacinth ;" it probably had nothing in common
with our hyacinth, and it seems to have com-
prised several flowers, especially the iris, gladiolus,
and larkspur.
57-
' Oip9a\juoi(; be jueAmc; VUKTOQ ucopog.
And dark-eyed Sleep, child of Night.
From the Etymologicum Magnum, to show
that the first letter of uwpoq = wpoq, "sleep,"
was redundant.
104 Sappho.
57A.
Oepdnaivav '
Aphroditfs handmaid bright as gold.
Philodemus, about 60 B.C., in a MS. discovered
at Herculaneum, says that Sappho thus addresses
TTeieoj, Persuasion. The MS. is however de-
fective, and Gomperz, the editor, thinks from
the context that Hecate is here referred to.
Cf. frr. 132, 155. (Bergk formerly numbered
this fr. 141.)
58.
"Eyei juev 'Av&poMefca Ka\av ci
Andromeda has a fair requital.
Quoted by Hephaestion together with the
following, although the lines are obviously out
of different odes. Probably each fragment is
the first line of separate poems.
In Choriambic Metre. 105
59-
I TUV TroAuoA(3ov ' A(ppc5irav ;
Sappho, why [celebrate] blissful Aphrodite ?
60.
Acute vuv, ttjSpcu Xdpueg, KaMiKOMoi re Moioai.
Come now, delicate Graces and fair-haired Muses.
Quoted by Hephaestion, Attilius Fortunatianus
(about the fifth century A.D.), and Servius, as an
example of Sappho's choriambic tetrameters.
61.
TTcipSevov abucptovov.
A sweet-voiced maiden.
From Attilius Fortunatianus.
106 SappJio.
62.
KorOvddKCt, Ki'SepH 1 , afjpog "Aboovig, ri e Oeijuev ;
KamjTrrca9e KOpai KQI KarepeiKeaGe
Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea ; what
shall we do ? Beat your breasts, maidens, and
rend your tunics.
Quoted by Hephaestion, and presumed to be
Sappho's from a passage in Pausanias, where he
says she learnt the name of the mythological
personage Oetolmus (as if OITOQ Aivou, " the death
of Linus"), from the poems of Pamphos, a
mythical poet of Attica earlier than Homer, and
so to her Adonis was just like Oetolinus. The
Linus-song was a very ancient dirge or lamenta-
tion, of which a version (or rather a late render-
ing, apparently Alexandrian) has been preserved
by a Scholiast on Homer, running thus: "O
Linus, honoured by all the gods, for to thee first
they gave to sing a song to men in clear sweet
sounds ; Phoebus in envy slew thee, but the
Muses lament thee." A charming example of
what the Linus-song was in the third century
B.C., remains for us in Bion's Lament for Adonis.
In CJwriambic Metre. 107
63-
*O TOV "Abcoviv.
Ah for Adonis !
From Marius Plotius, about 600 A.D. It seems
to be the refrain of the ode to Adonis. Cf. fr.
108.
64.
"E/\0ovT* e opcxvo) nop9t>piav [exovra] nepOejuevov
Coming from heaven wearing a purple mantle.
From heaven he came,
And round him the red chlamys burned like
flame. J. A. SYMONDS.
Quoted by Pollux, about 180 A.D., who says
that Sappho, in her ode to Eros, out of which
this verse probably came, was the first to use the
word x^Mik, a short mantle fastened by a brooch
on the right shoulder, so as to hang in a curve
across the body.
loS Sappho.
65-
aj-vai Xctpuec, beure Aiog Kopcu.
Come, rosy-armed pure Graces, daughters of Zeus.
Theocritus' Idyl 28, On a Distaff, according
to the argument prefixed to it, was written in the
dialect and metre of this fragment. And Philo-
stratus, about 220 A.D., says "Sappho loves the
rose, and always crowns it with some praise,
likening to it the beauty of her maidens; she
likens it also to the arms of the Graces, when
she describes their elbows bare." Cf. fr. 146.
66.
w '06' "Apeuc 901101 Kev v A9oisrov ctpnv 3iu.
But Ares says he would drag Hephaestus by force.
From Priscian, late in the fifth century A.D.
w ww ww TToAAa 6" dvapitt.uu
TTOTHpld Kd/NuicplQ.
Many thousand cups thou drainest.
Quoted by Athenaeus when descanting on
drinking-cups.
Iii Clioriambic Metre. 109
68.
Kc<T6uvotoa 6e Keiaeai TTOTO, KCOU fivotMoauva aeOcv
eaaer' cure TOT OUT' ucrrepov oi) rap nebexcig 3pc6a>v
TOOV IK TTiepiaq, a\,\' acpdvHc; KHV 'At&a OOJUOK;
9oiT(iseig ne&' ajuaupcov veKucov EKnenoTajaeva.
But thou shalt ever lie dead, nor shall there be
any remembrance of thee then or thereafter, for
thou hast not of the roses of Pieria ; but thou shalt
wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting
among the shadowy dead.
In the cold grave where thou shalt lie
All memory too of thee shall die,
Who in this life's auspicious hours
Disdained Pieria's genial flowers ;
And in the mansions of the dead,
With the vile crowd of ghosts, thy shade,
While nobler spirits point with scorn,
Shall flit neglected and forlorn.
? FELTOX.
Thee too the years shall cover ; thou shalt be
As the rose born of one same blood with thee,
As a song sung, as a word said, and fall
Flower-wise, and be not any more at all,
1 10 Sappho.
Nor any memory of thee anywhere ;
For never Muse has bound above thine hair
The high Pierian flowers whose graft outgrows
All Summer kinship of the mortal rose
And colour of deciduous days, nor shed
Reflex and flush of heaven about thine head, etc.
SWINBURNE, Anactoria.
Thou liest dead, and there will be no memory
left behind
Of thee or thine in all the earth, for never didst
thou bind
The roses of Pierian streams upon thy brow :
thy doom
Is writ to flit with unknown ghosts in cold and
nameless gloom.
EDWIN ARNOLD, 1869.
Yea, thou shalt die,
And lie
Dumb in the silent tomb ;
Nor of thy name
Shall there be any fame
In ages yet to be or years to come :
For of the flowering Rose,
Which on Pieria blows,
Thou hast no share :
/// Choriamb ic Metre. 1 1 1
But in sad Hades' house,
Unknown, inglorious,
'Mid the dim shades that wander there
Shalt thou flit forth and haunt the filmy air.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
\Vhen thou fallest in death, dead shalt thou lie,
nor shall thy memory
Henceforth ever again ever be heard then or in
days to be,
Since no flowers upon earth ever were thine,
plucked from Pieria's spring,
Unknown also 'mid hell's shadowy throng thou
shalt go wandering.
ANON., Love in Idleness, 1883.
From Stobaeus, about 500 A.D., as addressed
to an uneducated woman. Plutarch quotes the
fragment as written to a certain rich lady ; but
in another work he says the crown of roses was
assigned to the Muses, for he remembered
Sappho's having said to some unpolished and un-
educated woman these same words. Aristides,
about 150 A.D., speaks of Sappho's boastfully
saying to some well-to-do woman, " that the
Muses made her blest and worthy of honour,
and that she should not die and be forgotten ; "
though this may refer to fr. 10.
1 1 2 Sappho.
69.
Ovb' lav &OKIMOIJLU npoai5oiaav <pdoQ u\ia>
eoae<j6ai aocpiav ndpOevov eig oi/6eva nw
TOiaurav.
No one maiden I think shall at any time see the
sunlight that shall be as wise as thou.
Methinks no maiden ever
Will live beneath the sun
Who is as wise as thou art,
Not e'en till Time is done.
Quoted by Chrysippus. It is probably out
of the same ode as the preceding.
70.
Tic 5* aFpoicoTic; TOI OeAfet voov,
OUK eniirraMeva ra [JpaKe' !\KHV eni TOW
What country girl bewitches thy /uarf, KV/V
knows not how to draw her dress about her ankles ?
/// Choriambic Metre. \ 1 3
What country maiden charms thee,
However fair her face,
Who knows not how to gather
Her dress with artless grace ?
Athenaeus, speaking of the care which the
ancients bestowed upon dress, says Sappho thus
jests upon Andromeda. Three other authors
quote the same lines.
"Hptov ee5iua' IK Fuapoov TUV Tavuaibpojuov.
/ taught Hero of Gyara, the sivift runner.
Quoted by Choeroboscus, to show the Aeolic
accusative.
72.
w 'AAA('t TIC; OUK ejUMi
opfav, a\A' agciKHV rav (ppev' exw w
/ am not of a malignant nature, but hare a
quiet temper.
Quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum to
show the meaning of a3aKHQ, " childlike, in-
nocent."
I
U4 Sappho.
73-
-j Aurop opened 3Te<pavHTT,\oKeuv.
But charming [maidens] plaited garlands.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Aristophanes'
Thesmophoriazusae 401, to show that plaiting
wreaths was a sign of being in love.
74-
- w Si) re KOIUOC; 0epano>v " Epcoq.
Ttioti and my servant Love.
Quoted by Maximus Tyrius to show that
Sappho agreed with Diotima when the latter
said to Socrates (Plato, Syrnpos., p. 328) that
Love is not the son, but the attendant and ser-
vant of Aphrodite.
/// Choriambic Metre. 1 1 5
75-
AXA* eoov <pi;\OQ ujujuiv [a\\o]
Ae)(0(; apvuoo veiorepov
ou fap rAaaoju' ero> SUVOIKHV
vtw f eiaa fepairepa.
if thou lovest us, choose another and a
younger bed-fellow ; for I will not brook to live
with thee, old woman with young man.
From Stobaeus' Anthology, and Apostolius.
76.
Eu,uop9cmpa Mvaoi&iKa raq and/\ac fupivvcoq.
Mnasidica is more shapely than the tender
Gyrimw.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of
metre (cf. p. 24).
1 1 6 SappJio.
77-
oubaju' en', a> "puvva, oeOev
Scornf idler than thee, Eranna, have I nawherc
found.
Quoted by Hephaestion with the foregoing.
The MSS. do not agree; perhaps w'pawa is an
adjective, for &> epareivH, O lovely .
78.
c, w AIKO, np839' epcirai^ <po3ui3iv
QVHTOIO ayveppaio' airaXatai xtpotv-
6L'av6eaiv K fup neXerai KOI xap'TOQ juaKaipav
iuV\ov nporepHV 3T9avcoTOioi
Do thou, Dica, set garlands round thy lovely
twining slwots of dill together with soft
hands : for those who have fair flowers mav best
stand first, even in the favour of Goddesses ; ichc
turn their face aivayfroin those who lack garland.
In Ckoriambic Metre. 1 1 /
Here, fairest Rhopode, recline,
And 'mid thy bright locks intertwine,
With fingers soft as softest down,
The ever verdant parsley crown.
The Gods are pleased with flowers that bloom
And leaves that shed divine perfume,
But, if ungarlanded, despise
The richest offered sacrifice.
J. H. MERIVALE.
But place those garlands on thy lovely hair,
Twining the tender sprouts of anise green
With skilful hand ; for offerings and flowers
Are pleasing to the Gods, who hate all those
Who come before them with uncrowned heads.
C. D. YONGK.
Of foliage and flowers love-laden
Twine wreaths for thy flowing hair,
With thine own soft fingers, maiden.
Weave garlands of parsley fair ;
For flowers are sweet, and the Graces
On suppliants wreathed with may
Look down from their heavenly places,
But turn from the crownless away.
J. A. SY.MONDS, 1883.
1 1 8 Sappho.
Mr. J. A. Symonds has also thus expanded
the lines into a sonnet (1883) :
Bring summer flowers, bring pansy, violet,
Moss-rose and sweet-briar and blue columbine ;
Bring loveliest leaves, rathe privet, eglantine,
Brown myrtles with the dews of morning wet :
Twine thou a wreath upon thy brows to set ;
With thy soft hands the wayward tendrils
twine ;
Then place them, maiden, on those curls of
thine,
Those curls too fair for gems or coronet.
Sweet is the breath of blossoms, and the Graces,
When suppliants through Love's temple wend
their way,
Look down with smiles from their celestial places
On maidens wreathed with chaplets of the
may ;
But from the crownless choir they hide their
faces,
Nor heed them when they sing nor when they
pray.
Athenaeus, quoting this fragment, says :
"Sappho gives a more simple reason for our
wearing garlands, speaking as follows .... in
which lines she enjoins all who offer sacrifice to
wear garlands on their heads, as they are beautiful
things and acceptable to the Gods."
In Choriambic Metre. 1 1 9
79-
Efoj 6'e 9i\Hju' (<3poauvv, KOI juoi TO \junpov
tpcx; ^ ae.Nico KCU TO xaAov
delicacy, and for me Love has the sun's
splendour and beaut\.
In speaking of perfumes, Athenaeus, quoting
Clearchus, says : " Sappho, being a thorough
woman and a poetess besides, was ashamed to
separate honour from elegance, and speaks thus
.... making it evident to everybody that the
desire of life that she confessed had brilliancy
and honour in it ; and these things especially
belong to virtue."
80.
Kaju juev re TU\OV
And down 1 set the cushion.
Quoted by Herodian, along with fr. 50.
1 20 Sappho.
81.
'O nAouroQ oveu aeu f' opera 'sr' OUK aaivHC irapoiKOQ
[H 6' e aucpcnipcov Kpaaiq eubaijuoviaq e\ei TO uKpovj.
U'calth without thee, Worth, is no safe neigh-
bour [but the mixture of both is the height of
happiness\.
Wealth without virtue is a dangerous guest :
Who holds them mingled is supremely blest.
J. H. MKRIVAI.K.
From the Scholiast on Pindar. The second
line appears to be the gloss of the commentator,
though Blass believes it is Sappho's.
In Various Metres. 121
VI. IN VARIOUS METRES.
82.
Aura 6e ou KaAAiona.
And thou thyself, Calliope.
Quoted by Hephaestion when he is analyzing
a metre invented by Archilochus.
AOUOIQ anctAaQ erupat;
ev GTHGetuv v ^ .
Sleep thou in the bosom of thy tender girl-
friend.
From the Etymologicum Magnum. Blass
thinks that the proper place for this fragment is
among the Epithalamia,
122 Sappho.
84.
Aeupo 5nure Motaai, xpusiov \inoiaai.
Hither noiv, Muses, leaving golden
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of a
verse made of two Ithyphallics.
8 5 .
"Em juoi Ka\a nai'q,
ejn9pHv exoiaa nop9
avri ra; efco oube Aubiav naiaav ou5' tpavvav.
/ have a fair daughter with a form like a
golden flower, Cleis the beloved, above whom I
[prize] nor all Lydia nor lovely [Lesbos] ....
I have a child, a lovely one,
In beauty like the golden sun,
Or like sweet flowers of earliest bloom :
And Clai's is her name, for whom
I Lydia's treasures, were they mine,
Would glad resign. J. H. MERIVALK.
Quoted and elaborately scanned by Hephae-
stion, although Bergk regards the lines as merely
trochaic.
/;/ the Ionic a Minor e Metre. 123
86.
TToAAcc juoi TOV
TToAuuvaKTiba natoa xop HV -
All joy to thee, daughter of Poly an ax.
From Maximus Tyrius. It seems to be
addressed to either Gorgo or Andromeda.
VII. IN THE IONIC A MI NO RE
METRE.
87.
Zu 5' eAe,uav ovap KunpofevHa.
//; a dream I spake with the daughter of
Cyprus.
I. e. Aphrodite. From Hephaestion
1 24 Sappho.
88.
Ti jue TTav&iovu; d> "pavva
, lovely swallow, daughter of Pandlon,
[weary] me?
From Hephaestion, who says Sappho wrote
whole songs in this metre. "Q "pavva is Is.
Vossius' emendation ; cbpdva is the ordinary
reading, which Hesychius explains as perhaps
an epithet of the swallow " dwelling under the
roof."
89.
. . . . Aju 9! &' SppoiQ Aaaiou; eu fe TnjKciaoev.
She wrapped herself ivell in delicate hairy ....
From Pollux, who says the line refers to fine
closely-woven linen.
In tJie Ionic a Minore Metre. 125
90.
inurep, OUTOI buvajuai KpeKHV TOV IOTOV,
noOa) bajueiaa nafSoq ppabivav 61 'Acppo&irav.
Sweet Mother, I cannot weave my web, broken
as T am by longing for a maiden, at soft Aphro-
dite's will.
[As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid
In love sick langour hung her head,
Unknowing where her fingers strayed
She weeping turned away and said ]
" Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain,
I cannot weave as once I wove,
So wildered is my heart and brain
\Vith thinking of that youth I love."
T. MOORE, Evenings in
Greece, p. 18.
Sweet mother, I the web
Can weave no more;
Keen yearning for my love
Subdues me sore,
And tender Aphrodite
Thrills my heart's core.
M. J. WALHOUSE.
Cf. Mrs. John Hunter's " My mother bids me
bind my hair," etc.
From Hephaestion, as an example of metre.
126 Sappho.
VIII. EPITHALAMIA, BRIDAL
SONGS.
91.
"l\yoi fen TO
' Y/LIHVQOV
aeppere TeKjovrec uvbpec
' YjuHvaov.
rajufJpoq epxerai taoq Apeu'i,
[' YJUHVOOV]
avbpoc juefaAco noAu /aeisCDv
[' YjuHvaov].
Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters. (Hymen-
aeus /) Like Ares comes tfie bridegroom, (Hyincn-
aeus /) taller far than a tall man. (Hymen-
aeus /)
Artists, raise the rafters high !
Ample scope and stately plan
Mars-like comes the bridegroom nigh,
Loftier than a lofty man.
ANON., Edinb. Rev., 1832, p. 109.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of a
iiits-hymnic poem, where the refrain follows each
Epithalainia, Bridal Songs. 127
line. The hymcnaeus or wedding-song was sung
by the bride's attendants as they led her to the
bridegroom's house, addressing Hymen the god
of marriage. The metre seems, says Professor
Mahaffy (Hist, of Class. Greek Lit., i., p. 20,
1880), to be the same as that of the Linus song;
cf. fr. 62.
TTeppoxoq, dx; or' aoi&oq 6 AeajSioq aAAo&dnoiow.
Toiuering, as the Lesbian singer towers among
men of other lands.
Quoted by Demetrius, about 150 A.D. It is
uncertain what " Lesbian singer " is here referred
to ; probably Terpander, but Neue thinks it may
mean the whole Lesbian race, from their pre-
eminence in poetry.
93-
Otov TO r/\uKujua,Nov epeuGerai aKpa> tn' uo5a)
aKpov en' aKpcmmp- \e\a9ovro 6e Ma\o6p6nHe<;,
ou ,uJiv tKXeAaGovT', a\A' OUK ebuvavr'
1 28 Sappho.
As the siveet-apple blushes on the end of the
bough, the very end of the bough, which the
gatherers overlooked, nay overlooked not but could
not reach.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Hermogenes,
and by others, to explain the word r\uKuua\ov,
"sweet-apple," an apple grafted on a quince;
it is used as a term of endearment by Theocritus
(Idyl ii. 39), "Of thee, my love, my sweet-
apple, I sing." Himerius, writing about 360
A.D., says: "Aphrodite's orgies we leave to
Sappho of Lesbos, to sing to the lyre and make
the bride-chamber her theme. She enters the
chamber after the games, makes the room,
spreads Homer's bed, assembles the maidens,
leads them into the apartment with Aphrodite
in the Graces' car and a band of Loves for
playmates. Binding her tresses with hyacinth,
except what is parted to fringe her forehead, she
lets the rest wave to the wind if it chance to
strike them. Their wings and curls she decks
with gold, and drives them in procession before
the car as they shake the torch on high." And
particularly this : " It was for Sappho to liken
the maiden to an apple, allowing to those who
would pluck before the time to touch not even
with the finger-tip, but to him who was to gather
the apple in season to watch its ripe beauty ; to
Epiihalamia, Bridal Songs. 129
compare the bridegroom with Achilles, to match
the youth's deeds with the hero's." Further on
he says : " Coine then, we will lead him into the
bride-chamber and persuade him to meet the
beauty of the bride. O fair and lovely, the
Lesbian's praises appertain to thee : thy play-
mates are rosy-ankled Graces and golden
Aphrodite, and the Seasons make the meadows
bloom." These last words, especially
"Q KctAa, co
O fair, O lovely . . .
seem taken out of one of Sappho's hymeneal
odes, although they also occur in Theocritus,
Idyl xviii. 38.
94-
Oiv TCIV uuKivSov tv oupeoi noiiuevec; av5pe<;
nooai KUTaoTeipoioi, x^MCd &' emrrop9upei uv6oQ.
As on the hills the shepherds trample the hyacinth
under foot, and the flower darkens on the ground.
K
1 30 Sappho.
Compare Catullus, xi. 21-24 :
Think not henceforth, thou, to recall Catullus'
Love ; thy own sin slew it, as on the meadow's
Verge declines, un-gently beneath the ploughshare
Stricken, a flower. (ROBINSON ELLIS.)
And Vergil, Aeneid, ix. 435, of Euryalus dying:
And like the purple flower the plough cuts down
He droops and dies.
Pines she like to the hyacinth out on the path by
the hill top }
Shepherds tread it aside, and its purples lie lost on
the herbage.
EDWIN ARNOLD, 1869.
ONE GIRL.
(A combination from Sappho.}
i.
I -ike the sweet apple which reddens upon the
topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig, which the pluckers
forgot, somehow,
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could
get it till now.
Epitkalantia, Bridal Songs. 131
n.
Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills
is found,
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever
tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden into the
ground.
D. G. ROSSETTI, 1870 ;
in 1 88 1 he altered the title to Beauty. (A com-
bination from Sappho.]
Quoted by Demetrius, as an example of the
ornament and beauty proper to a concluding
sentence. Bergk first attributed the lines to
Sappho.
95-
yeonepe, TTUVTO 9tpcov, ooct <puivo\i<; eoKeSao" auax;,
<ptpeig oi'v, cptpec; cura, (ptpeig anu jaarepi nat&a.
Evening, thou that b /ingest all that bright
morning scattered ; thou bringest the sheep, //it'
goat, the child back to her mother.
1 32 Sappho.
Thus imitated by Byron :
O Hesperus, thou bringest all good things
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer :
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest ;
Thou bring'st the child too to its mother's breast.
Don Juan, iii. 107.
And by Tennyson :-
The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all
things bringeth,
Smoothing the wearied mind : bring me my love,
Rosalind.
Thou comest morning or even ; she cometh not
morning or evening.
False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet
Rosalind ?
Leonine Elegiacs, 1830-1884.
Hesperus brings all things back
Which the daylight made us lack.
Brings the sheep and goats to rest,
Brings the baby to the breast.
EDWIN ARNOLD, 1869.
EpitJialainia, Bridal Songs. 133
livening, all things thou bringest
Which dawn spread apart from each other ;
The lamb and the kid thou bringest,
Thou bringest the boy to his mother.
J. A. SYMONDS, 1883.
Hesper, whom the poet call'd the Bringer home
of all good things. TENNYSON,
Lock sky Hall Sixty Years After, 1886.
From the Etymologicum Magnum, where it is
adduced to show the meaning of auox;, " dawn."
The fragment occurs also in Demetrius, as an
example of Sappho's grace.
96.
' ATm'tp9evo<; 55
I shall be ever maiden.
From a Parisian MS. edited by Cramer, ad-
cuuxd to show the Aeolic form of ud, " ever."
1 34 Sappho.
97-
AtOGOJUeV, HGl TTOTHp.
Jlc will give, says the father . . . .
From a Parisian MS. edited by Cramer.
98.
Oupcopo) TTt>6e(; tTrroporuioi,
TCI fee adjugaAa nejunepoHa,
msurroi 5e &.K' ISenovaauv.
To the doorkeeper feet seven fathoms long, and
sandals of five bulls' hides, the work often cobblers.
From Hephaestion, as an example of metre.
I )emetrius says : " And elsewhere Sappho girds
at the rustic bridegroom and the doorkeeper
ready for the wedding, in prosaic rather than
poetic phrase, as if she were reasoning rather
than singing, using words out of harmony with
dance and song."
Epithalamia^ Bridal Songs. 135
99-
ie rajufBpe ooi juev 6h ruMoq, COQ cipoo,
' xHc; 5'e ndp9evov, v cipao.
Happy bridegroom, noiv is thy wedding come
to thy desire, and thou hast the maiden of thy
desire.
Quoted by Hephaestion, along with the follow-
ing, to exemplify metres ; both fragments seem
to belong to the same ode.
IOO.
A\6,V\()(io(; 5' en' ijueprw Kexurcu npoaconq).
And a soft [paleness] is spread orer the lovely
face.
In the National Library of Madrid there is
a MS. of an epithalamium by Choricius, a
rhetorician of Gaza, who flourished about 520
A.D., in which the lamented Ch. Graux (Rerue
de Philologie, 1880, p. 81) found a quotation
from Sappho which is partly identical with this
1 36 Sappho.
fragment preserved by Hephaestion. H ; Weil
thus attempts to restore the passage :
Sol xpiev ju'ev el&oc;, omrcxTU o' w v
jueMixp' , epo<; o' en' ijueprco
Kexurcti nposcbnor
w TerijuotK' Itoxa a' 'Acppobira.
Well favoured is thy form, and thine eyes ....
honeyed, and love is spread over thy fair face . . .
Aphrodite has honoured thee above all.
Two apparent imitations by Catullus are
quoted by Weil to confirm his restoration of
Sappho's verses ; viz., mellitos oculos, honeyed
eyes (48, i), and pulcher es, neque te Venus
negligit, fair thou art, nor does Venus neglect
thee (61, 194).
101.
'O (iiev fop KC'</\OQ, 0330V i&Hv, TreAeTOi [a
6 6e KOfaGoq CUTIKO Kai Ka\o<; eaaerai.
He who is fair to look upon is [good], and he
who is good will soon be fair also.
Beauty, fair flower, upon the surface lies ;
But worth with beauty e'en in aspect vies.
? FEI.TON.
Epithalamia, Bridal Songs. 137
Galen, the physician, writing about 160 A.D.,
says : " It is better therefore, knowing that the
beauty of youth is like Spring flowers, its pleasure
lasting but a little while, to approve of what the
Lesbian [here] says, and to believe Solon when
he points out the same."
I O2.
*Hp' en nup9evla<; tnifJuXAojuai ;
Do I still long for maidenhood?
Quoted by Apollonius, and by the Scholiast
on Dionysius of Thrace, to illustrate the inter-
rogative particle Spa, Aeolic fipa, and as an ex-
ample of the catalectic iambic.
103.
Xaipoiaa vujucpa, xaiperco 5' 6 ftxj
The bride [comes] rejoicing ; let the bridegroom
rejoice.
From Hephaestion, as a catalectic iambic.
138 Sappho.
104.
Tico a" , co <pi/\e rajufSpe, KuAtog uV.uacio ;
ppabivco oe KOAIGT' eiKaabco.
Whereunto may I well liken t/iee. dear bride-
groom ? To a soft shoot may 1 best liken thce.
From Hephaestion, as an example of metre.
105.
...... Xaipe, vu.ucpn,
Xipe, Ti.iue ruMppe, noAAo.
If ail, bride .' noble bridegroom, all hail .'
Quoted by Servius, about 390 A.D., on Vergil,
Georg. I. 31 ; also referred to by Pollux and
Julian.
Epifha/amta, Bridal Songs. 139
1 06.
Oi) fup HV urepa ndl'q, d> rajuPpe, roiauia.
For there was no other girl, O bridegroom, like
her.
From Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
107, 108.
'Earrer' 'YjuHvoov.
"fi TOV 'Abobviov.
Sing Hymenaeus .'
Ah for Adonis !
From Plotius, about the fifth or sixth century
A.D., to show the metre of Sappho's hymeneal
odes. The text is corrupt ; the first verse is
thus emended by Bergk, the second by Scaliger.
Cf. fr. 63.
140 SappJto.
109.
A. TTopGevio, napOevio, not jue A'mois" OIXH ;
B. OUKETI HtCO TTpOC G, Ol)KTi HCOJ.
A. Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither art thou
gone away from me?
B. Never again will I come to thee, never again.
" Sweet Rose of May, sweet Rose of May,
Whither, ah whither fled away ? "
" What's gone no time can e'er restore
I come no more, I come no more."
J. H. MERIVALE.
From Demetrius, who quotes the fragment to
show the grace of Sappho's style and the beauty
of repetition.
IIO.
"AAAov JUH KajneoTcpav <ppeva.
fool, faint not thou in thy strong heart.
From a very corrupt passage in Herodian.
The translation is from Bergk's former emenda-
tion,
"A\Aa JUH Kajae TU orepeav <ppeva.
Epithalamia, Bridal Songs. 141
1 1 1.
4>aiveTC<! /oi Khivoq.
To himself he seems .....
From Apollonius, to show that the Aeolians
used the digamma,/". Bergk says this fragment
does not belong to fr. 2.
112.
' Qtco TTO\U Aeimorepov.
Mifch whiter than an egg.
From Athenaeus ; cf. frs. 56 and 122.
A\HT' ejuoi jue/\i
Neither honey nor bee for me.
A proverb quoted by many late authors,
referring to those who wish for good unmixed
with evil. They seem to be the words of the
bride. This, and the second line of fr. 62, and
142 Sappho.
many other verses, show Sappho's fondness for
alliteration ; frs. 4 and 5, among several others,
show that she did not ignore the charm of
assonance.
114,
MH KIVH x^
Stir not the shingle.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Apollonius to
show that xepo&eg were "little heaps of stones."
ajujue.
Thou burnest us.
Compare Swinburne's
My life 'is bitter with thy love ; thine eyes
Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs
Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound, etc.
Anactoria.
Quoted by Apollonius to show die Aeolic
form of Hjuog, " us."
EpitJialamui, Bridal Songs. 143
116.
A napkin dripping.
From the Scholiast on Aristophanes' Plutns*
quoted to show the meaning of HMITU^IOV, "a
half worn out shred of linen with which to wipe
the hands."
117.
Tov /bv nai6
Slie called him her son.
Quoted by Apollonius to show the Aeolic use
of the digamma. Cf. fr. 132.
M4 Sappho.
IX. EPIGRAMS.
All three are preserved only in the Greek
Anthology, The authenticity of the last, fr. 1 20,
is doubtful. To none of them does Bergk restore
the form of the Aeolic dialect.
118.
TTcu&ec;, ucpcovoq toioa rob' evvemo, at TIQ
<peovav aKOfuaTav KcrrGeueva npb nobiov
Aieonia jue Kopa Aarouc aveSHKev 'Apiara
' EpMOKAeibaia TO> ZaovaTdba,
aa TTponoXoq, beanoiva fuvaiKciv ti ai)
v euic\eiaov feveav.
Maidens, dumb as I am, I speak thus, if any
ask, and set before your feet a tireless voice : To
Letds daughter Aethopia was I dedicated by Arista
daughter of Hermodeides son of Saona'iades, thy
setvant, O queen of women ; whom bless thou, and
deign to glorify our house.
Epigrams. 145
Ox A PRIESTESS OF DIANA.
1 )oes any ask ? I answer from the dead ;
A voice that lives is graven o'er my head :
To dark-eyed Dian, ere my days begun,
Aristo vowed me, wife of Saon's son :
Then hear thy priestess, hear, O virgin Power,
And thy best gifts on Saon's lineage shower.
R.
The goddess here invoked as the " queen of
women" appears to have been Artemis, the
Diana of the Romans.
119.
Ti.ua6oQ a&e KOVIC, rav &H npb fajuoio SavcGjav
5earo 4>epae(p6vc(q Kucivecx; OaAajuoq,
(; KOI oirocpQtuevaq naaai veo0afi oi&apco
t.uepruv Kpcrrix; eOevro KO.UOV.
This is the dust of Tiinas, whom Persephone's
dark chamber received, dead before her wedding ;
when she perished, all her fellows dressed with
sharpened steel the lovely tresses of their heads.
L
1 46 SappJio.
This dust was Timas'; ere her bridal hour
She lies in Proserpina's gloomy bower ;
Her virgin playmates from each lovely head
Cut with sharp steel their locks, their strewments
for the dead.
SIR CHARLES A. ELTON.
This is the dust of Timas, whom unwed
Persephone locked in her darksome bed :
For her the maids who were her fellows shore
Their curls, and to her tomb this tribute bore.
J. A. SYMONDS.
1 20.
Tto rpinel TTe/Ndfoovi narnp tneGHKe MevlaKOc;
Kuprov Kui Kconav, juva.jua K
Over the fisherman Pelagon his father Meniscus
set weel and oar^ memorial of a luckless life.
ON A FISHERMAN.
This oar and net and fisher's wickered snare
Meniscus placed above his buried son
Memorials of the lot in life he bore,
The hard and needy life of Pelagon.
SIR CHARLES A. ELTON.
Miscellaneous. 147
Here, to the fisher Pelagon, his sire Meniscus
laid
A wicker-net and oar, to show his weary life and
trade.
LORD NEAVKS.
Bergk sees no reason to accept the voice of
tradition in attributing this epigram to Sappho.
X. MISCELLANEOUS.
121.
Athenaeus says :
" It is something natural that people who
fancy themselves beautiful and elegant should
be fond of flowers ; on which account the
companions of Persephone are represented as
gathering flowers. And Sappho says she saw
uvOe' a.uepfouacev naib' otfav dnaAuv,
"A maiden full tender plucking flowers"
148 Sappko.
122, 123.
TT6\u nuKTiSoq u&ujueAeoTtpu,
Far sweeter of tone than harp, more golden than
gold.
Quoted by Demetrius as an example of hyper-
bolic phrase. A commentator on Hermogenes
the rhetorician says : " These things basely
flatter the ear, like the erotic phrases which
Anacreon and Sappho use, r^axToc AeuK<mp
whiter than milk, GEicrrog unuAorrepa fresher than
water, TTHKTI&OOV ejuMeAeoTepa more musical tlian
the harp, mnou fauporepa more skittish than a
horse, p66a>v afjporepa more delicate than the rose,
luarlou eavou jucxAaKcorepa softer than a fine robe,
XpuaoG Tijuicorepa more precious than gold."
124.
Demetrius says :
" Wherefore also Sappho is eloquent and sweet
when she sings of Beauty as of Love and Spring
and the Kingfisher ; and every beautiful expres-
sion is woven into her poetry, besides what she
herself invented."
Miscellaneous. \ 49
125.
Maximus Tyrius says :
" Diotima says that Love flourishes in pros-
perity, but dies in adversity ; a sentiment which
Sappho comprehends when she calls Love rXuKu-
ntKpog bitter-sweet [cf. fr. 40], and aAfeolboopoc;
giver of pain. Socrates calls Love the wizard,
Sappho juuQcmAoKoc; the weaver of fictions.''
126.
To jue\H)iia TOUJUOV.
My darling.
Quoted by Julian, and by Theodorus Hyrta-
cenus in the twelfth century A.D., as of " the
wise Sappho." Eergk says Sappho would have
written TO jue/\Hjua d),uov in her own dialect.
150 Sappho.
127.
Aristides says :
"To ravoc; the brightness standing over the
whole city, ou fcict<p6eTpov rai; ovj/etg not destroying
the sight, as Sappho says, but developing at once
and crowning and' watering with cheerfulness ;
in no way uaKivOlvw av9ei o,uoiov like a hyannth-
flmver, but such as earth and sun never yet
showed to men.''
128.
Pollux writes :
" Anacreon says they are crowned
also with dill, as both Sappho [cf. fr. 78] and
Alcaeus say ; though these also say seAivoiq with
parsley.' 1 ''
Miscellaneous. 151
129.
Philostratus says :
" Thus contend [the maidens] po&onHxei<; KOI
(\iKcbni5eq Kcti KdAMnupHoi KOI jueAicpwvoi with rosy
arms and glancing eyes and fair cheeks and
honeyed voices this indeed is Sappho's sweet
salutation."
And Aristaenetus :
" Before the porch the most musical and
jLieiMx6<poivoi soft-voiced of the maidens sang the
hymeneal song ; this indeed is Sappho's sweet-
est utterance."
Antipater of Sidon, Anthol. Pal. ix. 66, and
others, calJ Sappho siveet-voiced.
130.
Libanius the rhetorician, about the fourth
century A.D., says :
" If therefore nought prevented Sappho the
Lesbian from praying VUKTCI OHJTH revea0ai birrAaotov
that the night might be doubled for her, let me
also ask for something similar. Time, father of
152 Sappho.
year and months, stretch out this very year for
us as far as may be, as, when Herakles was born,
thou didst prolong the night."
Bergk thinks that Sappho probably prayed for
VUKTCX TpmAaaictv a night thrice as long as an ordin-
ary night, in reference to the myth of Jupiter
and Alcmene, the mother of Hercules.
Strabo says :
" A hundred furlongs further (from Elaea, a
city in Aeolis) is Cane, the promontory opposite
to Lectum, and forming the Gulf of Adramyttium,
of which the Elaitic Gulf is a part. Canae is a
small city of the Locrians of Cynus, over against
the most southerly extremity of Lesbos, situated
in the Canaean territory, which extends to Argi-
nusae and the overhanging cliff which some call
Aega, as if 'a goat,' but the second syllable
.should be pronounced long, Aega, like KTU and
<ipxa> for this was the name of the whole moun-
tain which at present is called Cane or Canae
.... and the promontory itself seems after-
wards to have been called Aega, as Sappho says.
the rest Cane or Canae."
Miscellaneous, 153
132.
The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius says :
" Apollonius calls Love the son of Aphrodite,
Sappho of Earth and Heaven."
But the Argument prefixed to Theocritus, Idyl
xiii., says :
" Sappho called Love the child of Aphrodite
and Heaven"
And Pausanias, about 1 80 A.D., says :
"On Love Sappho the Lesbian sang many-
things which do not agree with one another."
Cf. fr. 117.
133-
Himerius says :
" Thou art, I think, an evening-star, of all
stars the fairest: this is Sappho's song to
Hesperus." And again : " Now thou didst ap-
pear like that fairest of all stars ; for the Athen-
ians call thee Hesperus."
Bergk thinks Sappho's line ran thus :
'Aajtpwv mivTcov 6 KuMorog ....
Of all stars the fairest.
1 54 SappJio.
Elsewhere Himerius refers to what seems an
imitation of Sappho, and says : " If an ode had
been wanted, I should have given him such an
ode as this
pofceoov epamov ppuouaa, Nu^upa
cifaAjna KCcAAiorov, 181 npbq CUVHV, 181 irpoc
AiXa nai?ouoa, rAuKeta vuj^lar "Earrepcx; a' CKOUSOV
ufoi, aprvpoOpovov ^ufiav"Hpav
Bride teeming with rosy loves, bride, fairest
image of the goddess of Paphos, go to the couch, go
to the bed, softly sporting, sweet to the bridegroom.
May Hesperus lead thee rejoicing, honouring H \ra
of the silver throne, goddess of marriage.
Bride, in whose breast haunt rosy lovo .'
Bride, fairest of the Paphian groves !
Hence, to thy marriage rise, and go !
Hence, to thy bed, where thou shalt show
With honeyed play thy wedded charms,
Thy sweetness in the bridegroom's arms !
I^et Hesper lead thee forth, a wife,
Willing and worshipping for life,
The silver-throned, the wedlock dame.
Queen Hera, wanton without shame !
J. A. SYMOXDS, 1883.
Miscellaneous. 155
134-
The Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius says:
" The story of the love of Selene is told by
Sappho, and by Nicander in the second book of
his Europa ; and it is said that Selene came to
Endymion in the same cave " (on Mount Latin us
in Caria).
135-
The Scholiast on Hesiod, Op. et. D., 74,
says :
"Sappho calls Persuasion 'A<ppo5m)(;
Daughter of Aphrodite." Cf. fr. 141.
136.
Maximus Tyrius says :
" Socrates blames Xanthippe for lamenting his
death, as Sappho blames her daughter
Ou fup 6ejiuQ ev IUOUOOTKOAGOV okia 6pfivov eivai'
ou K ajujui npenei Ta5e.
for lamentation may not be in a poet's house :
such things befit not us."
1 56 Sappho.
137-
Aristotle, in his Rtietoric, ii. 23, writes:
H coonep 001900, on TO cmoGvHaKeiv KOKOV oi 6eoi
rap OUTGO KeKpiKaaiv ane0vHGKOv fap av.
Gregory, commenting on Hermogenes, also
quotes the same saying :
oiov <pHOiv H ZaTTcpcb, cm TO ano9vHCJKeiv KUKOV oi
Qeoi fap OUTCO KeKpiKaoiv aneOvHOKOv fap av, etnep HV
KaAov TO ano9vHOKeiv.
Several attempts have been made to restore
these words to a metrical form, and this of
Hartung's appears to be the simplest :
Tb 6VOGKIV KUKOV OUTGO KeKplKdGl GeOl'
edvaOKOv fap av ei'nep KoiAov HV Tube.
Death is evil; the Gods have so judged : Jiad
it been good, they would die.
The preceding fragment (136) seems to have
formed part of the same ode as the present.
1'erhaps it was this ode, which Sappho sent to
her daughter forbidding her to lament her
mother's death, that Solon is said to have so
highly praised. The story is quoted from Aclian
Miscellaneous. 157
by Stobaeus thus : " Solon the Athenian [who
died about 558 B.C.], son of Execestides, on his
nephew's singing an ode of Sappho's over their
wine, was pleased with it, and bade the boy teach
it him ; and when some one asked why he
took the trouble, he said, iva juaQwv curb anoedvoo,
' That I may not die before I have learned it.'"
138.
Athenaeus says :
" Naucratis has produced some celebrated
courtesans of exceeding beauty ; as Doricha,
who was beloved by Charaxus, brother of the
beautiful Sappho, when he went to Naucratis on
business, and whom she accuses in her poetry of
having robbed him of much. Herodotus calls
her Rhodopis, not knowing that Rhodopis was
different from the Doricha who dedicated the
famous spits at Delphi."
Herodotus, about 440 B.C., said :
" Rhodopis came to Egypt with Xanthes of
Samos ; and having come to make money, she
was ransomed for a large sum by Charaxus of
Mitylene, son of Scamandronymus and brother
158 Sappho.
of Sappho the poetess. Thus Rhodopis was
made free, and continued in Egypt, and being
very lovely acquired great riches for a Rhodopis,
though no way sufficient to erect such a pyramid
[as Mycermus'] with. For as any one who wishes
may to this day see the tenth of her wealth, there
is no need to attribute any great wealth to her.
For Rhodopis was desirous of leaving a monu-
ment to herself in Greece, and having had such
a work made as no one ever yet devised and
dedicated in a temple, to offer it at Delphi as a
memorial of herself : having therefore made from
the tenth of her wealth a great number of iron
spits for roasting oxen, as far as the tenth allowed,
she sent them to Delphi ; and they are still piled
up behind the altar which the Chians dedicated,
and opposite the temple itself. The courtesans
of Naucratis are generally very lovely : for in the
first place this one, of whom this account is given,
became so famous that all the Greeks became
familiar with the name Rhodopis ; and in the
next place, after her another whose name was
Archidice became celebrated throughout Greece,
though less talked about than the former. As
for Charaxus, after ransoming Rhodopis he
returned to Mitylene, where Sappho ridiculed
him bitterly in an ode."
Miscellaneous. 1 59
And Strabo :
" It is said that the tomb of the courtesan was
erected by her lovers : Sappho the lyric poet calls
her Doricha. She was beloved by Sappho's
brother Charaxus, who traded to the port of
Naucratis with Lesbian wine. Others call her
Rhodopis."
And another writer (Appendix Prov., iv. 51)
says :
" The beautiful courtesan Rhodopis, whom
Sappho and Herodotus commemorate, was of
Naucratis in Egypt."
139-
Athenaeus says :
' The beautiful Sappho in several places cele-
brates her brother, Larichus, as cup-bearer to the
Mitylenaeans in the town-hail."
The Scholiast on the Iliad, xx. 234, says :
" It was the custom, as Sappho also says, for
v,-,ll-born and beautiful youths to pour out wine.''
160 Sappho.
140.
Palaephatus, probably an Alexandrian Greek,
says :
" Phaon gained his livelihood by a boat and
the sea ; the sea was crossed by a ferry ; and no
complaint was made by any one, since he was
just, and only took from those who had means.
He was a wonder among the Lesbians for his
character. The goddess they call Aphrodite
4 the goddess ' commends the man, and having
put on the appearance of a woman now grown
old, asks Phaon about sailing ; he was swift to
wait on her and carry her across and demand
nothing. What thereupon does the goddess do ?
They say she transformed the man and restored
him to youth and beauty. This is that Phaon,
her love for whom Sappho several times made
into a song."
The story is repeated by many writers. Cf.
fr. 29.
141.
[Fr. 141 now appears as fr. 57 A. q. r.J
Miscellaneous. 161
142.
Pausanias says :
" Yet that gold does not contract rust the
Lesbian poetess is a witness, and gold itself
shows it."
And the Scholiast on Pindar, Pyth., iv. 407 :
" But gold is indestructible ; and so says
Sappho,
Aibq naig 6 xpuooc;, Keivov ou OHQ ou5e K'K; bdirret,
Gold is son of 'Zeus ; no moth nor worm devours it."
Sappho's own phrase is lost.
143-
Aulus Gellius, about 160 A.D., writes:
" Homer says Niobe had six sons and six
daughters, Euripides seven of each, Sappho nine,
Bacchylides and Pindar ten."
Cf. fr. 31, the only line extant from the ode
here referred to.
M
1 62 Sappho.
144.
Servius, commenting on Vergil, Aeneid, vi. 21,
says :
"Some would have it believed that Theseus
rescued along with himself seven boys and seven
maidens, as Plato says in his Phaedo, and Sappho
in her lyrics, and Bacchylides in his dithyrambics,
and Euripides in his Hercules"
No such passage from Sappho has been pre
served.
145.
Servius, commenting on Vergil, Edog., vi. 42,
says :
" Prometheus, son of lapetus and Clymene,
after he had created man, is said to have
ascended to heaven by help of Minerva, and
having applied a small torch [or perhaps 'wand']
to the sun's wheel, he stole fire and showed it to
men. The Gods being angered hereby sent two
evils upon the earth, fevers and disease [the text
is here obviously corrupt ; it ought to be 'women
and disease' or 'fevers and women'], as Sappho
and Hesiod tell."
Miscellaneous. 163
146.
Philostratus says :
" Sappho loves the Rose, and always crowns
it with some praise, likening beautiful maidens
to it."
This remark seems to have led some of the
earlier collectors of Sappho's fragments to include
the " pleasing song in commendation of the
Rose " quoted by Achilles Tatius in his love-
story Clitophon and Lcucippe, but there is no
reason to attribute it to Sappho. Mr. J. A.
Symonds (1883) thus translates it :
THE PRAISE OF ROSES.
If Zeus had willed it so
That o'er the flowers one flower should reign
a queen,
I know, ah well I know
The rose, the rose, that ro.yal flower had been !
She is of earth the gem,
Of flowers the diadem ;
And with her flush
The meadows blush ;
1 64 Sappho.
Nay, she is beauty's self that brightens
In Summer, when the warm air lightens !
Her breath's the breath of Love,
Wherewith he lures the dove
Of the fair Cyprian queen ;
Her petals are a screen
Of pink and quivering green,
For Cupid when he sleeps,
Or for mild Zephyrus, who laughs and weeps.
147,
Himerius says :
" These gifts of yours must now be likened to
those of the leader of the Muses himself, as
Sappho and Pindar, in an ode, adorn him with
golden hair and lyres, and attend him with a
team of swans to Helicon while he dances with
Muses and Graces ; or as poets inspired by the
Muses crown the Bacchanal (for thus the lyre
calls him, meaning Dionysos), when Spring has
just flashed out for the first time, with Spring
flowers and ivy-clusters, and lead him, now to
the topmost heights of Caucasus and vales of
Lydia, now to the cliffs of Parnassus and the
rock of Delphi, while he leaps and gives his
female followers the note for the Evian tune."
Miscellaneous. 165
148.
Eustathius says :
" There is, we see, a vagabond friendship, as
Sappho would say, KU/\OV &HMOGIOV, a public
blessing."
This appears to have been said against Rho-
dopis. Cf. fr. 138.
149.
The Lexicon Seguerianum defines
""AKOKOQ one who has no experience of ill, not,
one who is good-natured. So Sappho uses the
word."
ISO.
The Etymologicum Magnum defines
'Ajuajuatuc a vine trained on long poles, and says
Sappho makes the plural ajuajuu&eQ. So Choe-
roboscus, late in the sixth century A.D., says
" the occurrence of the genitive aMMaubo<;
[the usual form being ojuajuaSuoc;] in Sappho is
strange."
1 66 SappJw.
151.
The Etymologiatm Magnum says of 'Ajuupa,
a trench for watering meadows, " because it is
raised by a water-bucket, SJUH being a mason's
instrument " that it is a word Sappho seems
to have used ; and Orion, about the fifth century
A.D., also explains the word similarly, and says
Sappho used it.
152.
Apollonius says :
" And in this way metaplasms of words [t.e,
tenses or cases formed from non-existent presents
or nominatives] arise, like epuodpjucn-eq [chariot-
drawing], AITO [cloths], and in Sappho TO aCa,
Dawn"
And the Etymologicum Magnum says :
"We find napa THV auav [during the morning]
in Aeolic, for ' during the day.' "
Miscellaneous. 167
153-
The Etymologicum Magnum says :
" AUCOQ or HCOQ, that is, the day ; thus we read
in Aeolic. Sappho has
rroTVia aucoq,
Queen Dawn"
154.
Athenaeus says :
" The pdpw,uo<; \baromos\ and oappmx; \sar-
lntos\, both of which are mentioned by Sappho
and Anacreon, and the Magadis and the Triangles
and the Sambucae, are all ancient instruments."
Athenaeus in another place, apparently more
correctly, gives the name of the first as pdpjuoc;
\barmos\.
What these instruments precisely were is un-
known. Cf. p. 45.
1 68 Sappho.
Pollux says :
" Sappho used the word Peu&oq for a woman's
dress, a kimbertcon, a kind of short transparent
frock."
I 5 6.
Phrynichus the grammarian, about 180 A.D.,
says :
" Sappho calls a woman's dressing-case, where
she keeps her scents and such things, TRUTH."
157-
Hesychius, about 370 A.D., says Sappho
called Zeus"EKT<op, Hector, i.e. "holding fast."
Miscellaneous. 1 69
158.
A Parisian MS. edited by Cramer says :
" Among the Aeolians 6 is used for ?, as when
Sappho says ?ot<rrov for 'b\.u.$a\ov,fordable"
159-
A Scholiast on Homer quotes arctj-oiHv, may
I lead, from Sappho.
1 60.
Eustathius, commenting on the Iliad, quotes
the grammarian Aristophanes [about 260 B.C.]
as saying that Sappho calls a wind that is as
if twisted up and descending, a cyclone, ave,uov
KcrrapH a it. ind rushing from above.
Nauck would restore the epithet to verse 2 of
fr. 42.
1 70 SappJto.
i6i.
Choeroboscus says :
" Sappho makes the accusative of
danger Kivbuv."
Another writer, in the Codex Marc., says :
" Sappho makes the accusative Kiv&uva."
162.
Joannes Alexandrinus, about the seventh cen-
tury A.D., says :
"The acute accent falls either on the last
syllable or the last but one or the last but
two, but never on the last but three ; the accent
of /V\H&eia \Medeia the sorceress, wife of Jason] in
Sappho is allowed by supposing the ei to form a
diphthong."
163.
An unknown author, in Antiattidsta^ says :
" Sappho, in her second book, calls
myrrh
Miscellaneous. 1 7 r
164.
A treatise on grammar edited by Cramer
says :
" The genitive plural of Mousa is Mcoadcov
among the Laconians, Moiadcov of the Muses
in Sappho."
16:
Phrynicus quotes :
Nirpov natron (carbonate of soda) as the form
" an Aeolian would use, such as Sappho, with a
v; but," he goes on, "an Athenian would spell
it with a ,\, Arrpov."
1 66.
A Scholiast on Homer, Iliad,, iii. 219, says:
" Sappho said iroAut6pi6i of much knowledge as
the dative of rroAui'&pu;."
Sappho.
167.
Photius, in his Lexicon, about the ninth century
A.D., says :
" 0a\|/oc; is a wood with which they dye wool
and hair yellow, which Sappho calls ZKUSIKOV
tuAov Scythian wood"
And the Scholiast on Theocritus, Idyl ii. 88,
says :
" 6dvoq is a kind of wood which is also called
5Ku6upiov or Scythian wood, as Sappho says ;
and in this they dip fleeces and make them of a
quince-yellow, and dye their hair yellow; among
us it is called xpuaoiuAov gold-ivood."
Ahrens thinks that here the Scholiast quoted
Sappho, and he thus restores the verses :
- w - ZKl}6lKOV
TO) 3aTrroi3i re THpia
TTotetai 6e juaAiva
av6i06oioi re rag
Scythian wood, in which they dip fleeces and
make them quince-coloured, and dye their hair
yellow.
Thapsus may have been box-wood, but it is
quite uncertain.
Miscellaneous. 1/3
1 68.
The Etymologicum Magnum says :
" The Aeolians say Tioisiv o96aAjuoic>iv ivith
u>hat eyes .... [using rioiai for TWI, the dative
plural of TIQ] as Sappho does."
169.
Orion of Thebes, the grammarian, about 450
A.D., says :
"In Sappho x -^ VH is X^VH a tortoise;"
which is better written x e ^ vct > r rather yt\uva,
as other writers imply.
I/O.
Pollux says :
" Bowls with a boss in the middle are called
3\uvei6ju<pa\oi, circular-bottomed, from their
shape, xP ua "M<pct;\oi, gold-bottomed, from the
material, like Sappho's xP uGa<3T P"rc^ot, with
golden ankles"
174
Sappho.
Some few other fragments are attributed to
Sappho, but Bergk admits none as genuine.
Above is to be seen every word which he con-
sidered hers. An account of some which have
recently been brought to light is given on the
succeeding pages.
THE FAYUM FRAGMENTS.
[N the Egyptian Museum at Berlin
there are some ancient manuscripts
which were bought in the Summer of
1879, and which are believed to
have come from Medinet-el-Fayum in Central
Egypt, near the ancient Arsinoe or Crocodilo-
polis. A tiny scrap of parchment among these
was deciphered by Professor F. Blass of Kiel,
and described by him with much minuteness in
the Rheinisches Museum for 1880, vol. xxxv., pp.
287-290. Through the kindness of Dr. Erman,
the Director of the Museum, and Professor of
Egyptian Archeology in the University, I have
been favoured with photographs of each side of
this piece of parchment, exactly the size of the
original. These have been reproduced in fac-
simile by the Autotype Company upon the
accompanying plate. Some of the minutiae
of the manuscript are lost in the copy, but it
1 76 Sappho.
gives a fair general idea of the precious relic, and
exhibits the manner in which it has been torn
and perforated and defaced. It also shows some
of the difficulties with which those who decipher
ancient manuscripts have to contend. Few, at
the first glance, would guess how much could be
made out of so little.
The letters on each side of the parchment are
clearly written, punctuated, and accented. They
appear to belong to the eighth century A.D., so
that the writing is at least a thousand years old.
The actual letters are these, those which are not
decipherable with certainty being marked off by
brackets :
(A.) &OOOHV (B.) 6e9u,uojLi
iiTcovjuevr' en juiTTa,unov
aAoov KaoAcov (j 6uva,uai
AOIQ. MJTTKK; re ja
5. n' ovei&o<; 5. aaKevH,uoi
oibinaaiq. em T (a q) avriAojunHv
ia(v)uoaio. TO jttp Aovrrpoaamov
M) OVOUK' OUTIO (iu
10. M (H& 10. ... (pog
The two fragments, distinguished by Blass as A.
and B., occur, the one on the front, the other on
the back of the scrap of parchment. They were
edited by Bergk, in the fourth (posthumous)
Tlie Fay urn Fragments. 177
edition of his Poetae Lyrici Graeci, 1882, vol. iii.,
pp. 704, 705. Blass ascribed the verses to
Sappho, and he is still of opinion that they are
hers, from the metre, the dialect, and " the
colour of the diction," to use his own expression
in a letter to me. Indeed every word of them
makes one feel that no poet or poetess save
Sappho could have so exquisitely combined
simplicity and beauty. Bergk however prints
them as of uncertain origin, fragmenta adespota
(56 A., 56 B). He agrees with Blass that they
are in the Lesbian dialect and the Sapphic metre,
but he thinks that they may have been written
by Alcaeus. Bergk's decision partly rests upon
the statement of Suidas, that Horapollo, the
Greek grammarian, who first taught at Alexandria
and afterwards at Constantinople, in the reign of
Theodosius, about 400 A.D., wrote a commentary
on Alcaeus ; but he gives no reason for believing
that these Fayum manuscripts necessarily come
from Alexandria : their history is very uncertain.
Blass thinks that the greater fame, especially in
later times, of Sappho, strongly favours his own
view. To my mind there is little doubt that
we have herein none but her very words.
A restoration of such imperfect fragments
must needs be guess-work. Bergk has, however,
attempted it in part, and he has accepted the
N
178 Sappho.
emendations of Blass in lines 3-5 of fragment A.
Biicheler, one of the editors of the Rheinisches
Museum, has also expressed his views with regard
to some of the lines ; but they are not endorsed
by the authority of Bergk. According to the
latter distinguished scholar, fragment A may
have run thus :
i. w w oKijuoiq xP lv
OUK CtTTU&OXjHV
- K\UTO)V JU6V T*
- KCtACOV KOa\Ci>V V w - w - w
9iAoig, AUTTHC re Me KanopirrrHg
5. eiQ eju' oveiboq.
fi Key oiOHjaiq, eni T' alf*
SKupiav aaaio- TO fap VOHJUO
rcJajuov OUK OUTOJ MaAaKOcppov,
TOiq 6lUKHTUl.
IO. w JUH&' w - vw - w - w
In which case it might have had this mean-
ing :
Thou seemest not to care to return my favour ;
and indeed thou didst fly away from famous
. ... of the fair and noble ..... to thy
friends, and painest me, and easiest reproach at
me. Truly thou mayst swell, and sate thyself \\\\h
milking a goat of Scyros. For my mood is not
so soft-hearted to those soever to whom // is dis-
posed unfriendly ..... nor .....
The words which are here italicised are those
The Fayum Fragments. 179
which alone are extant in full in the manuscript ;
the others are only plausible guesses, though
some of them are indicated by the existence of
accents and portions of letters.
Bergk's ingenious restoration of lines 6 and 7
is founded on a fragment of Alcaeus (fr. no),
wherein Chrysippus explains cut iKupict, a goat of
Scyros, as a proverb of those who spoil kindness
(tni TCOV roc euepfeoiaq dvarpenovTcov), as a goat up-
sets her milking-pail (eneiSH noAAdiac TO affeia
ovarpenei H ate). Blass would, however, complete
the phrase thus :
en! T (u re AwfJa
Kdpci) inv aocuo,
And with the outrage sate thy heart.
Disappointing as this is, the restoration of
fragment B is yet more hopeless. Authorities
are agreed as to the position of the words in the
Sapphic stanza, thus :
w w ww 0e Bujuov
w w w w ,Ul TTajUTTGtV
w w v> w ouvajuui
V W W
5. w ^ wwac Kev H juoi
- w w ^ w avTiAa.uiTHv
w w w Kci) Aov npoaconov
w ^ w
w w ^ w au) fxpota6eiq
10. -w v wv erai) poq.
i So Sappho.
The only additions hazarded by Bergk, or
accepted by him from Blass, are given on the
left of the biackets. Bergk says that buvauai (as
if w ; cf. fr. 13) is an old form of the con-
junction for buvoojucu. He reads line 5, ag KEV H juoi,
comparing Theocritus, 29, 20, 3<; KCV epHq, "as
long as thou lovest : " Bergk and Blass alike con-
sider H as a later form of H. The words may
mean :
soul altogether
/ should be able
tts long indeed as to me to flash
back fair face
stained orer f/iend.
But in the absence of any context the very
meaning of the separate words is uncertain.
Bergk thinks that the fragments belong to
different poems, unless we read fragment A.
after fragment B ; there is nothing on the
parchment to indicate sequence.
In fragment B it will be seen that a space
occurs in each place where the last (or Adonic)
verses of each Sapphic stanza would have been,
as if they had been written more to the left in
the manuscript ; they probably therefore ranged
with the Ions lines of which we have onlv some
TJic Fay in > i Fragments.
181
of the last syllables preserved. Indenting the
shorter verses is a modern fashion ; the ancient
way was to begin each one at the same distance
from the margin.
SAPPHO TO PHAON.
A TRANSLATION OF OVID'S HEROIC EPISTLE, XV.
BY ALEXANDER POPE, 1707.
AY, lovely youth that dost my heart
command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's
hand?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost as to thy love ?
Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose,
The lute neglected and the lyric Muse :
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tuned my heart to elegies of woe.
I burn, I burn, as when through ripened corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne.
Phaon to Aetna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Aetna's fires.
184 SappJio to Phaon.
No more my soul a charm in music finds ;
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds :
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please ;
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
T^o more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of my guilty love i 1
All other loves are lost in only thine,
Ah, youth ungrateful to a flame like mine !
Whom would not all those blooming charms
surprise,
Those heavenly looks and dear deluding eyes ?
The harp and bow would you like Phoebus bear,
A brighter Phoebus Phaon might appear :
Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,
Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare :
Yet Phoebus loved, and Bacchus felt the flame ;
One Daphne warmed and one the Cretan dame;
Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me
Than e'en those gods contend in charms with
thee.
The Muses teach me all their softest lays,
And the wide world resounds with Sappho's
praise.
1 Line 19, "quas non sine crimine amavi," which Pope
translates thus, is read in almost all old texts " quas hie
sine crimine amavi " = whom here I blamelessly loved;
and even if the former reading be adopted, it must be
remembered that critnen means "an accusation" more
often than it does " a crime."
SappJio to Phaon. 185
Though great Alcaeus more sublimely sings,
And strikes with bolder rage the sounding
strings,
No less renown attends the moving lyre
Which Venus tunes and all her Loves inspire.
To me what Nature has in charms denied
Is well by wit's more lasting flames supplied.
Though short my stature, yet my name extends
To heaven itself and earth's remotest ends :
Brown as I am, an Aethiopian dame
Inspired young Perseus with a generous flame :
Turtles and doves of different hue unite,
And glossy jet is paired with shining white.
If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign
But such as merit, such as equal thine,
By none, alas, by none thou canst be moved ;
Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved.
Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ ;
Once in her arms you centred all your joy :
No time the dear remembrance can remove,
For oh how vast a memory has love !
My music then you could for ever hear,
And all my words were music to your ear :
You stopt with kisses my enchanting tongue,
And found my kisses sweeter than my song.
In all I pleased, but most in what was best ;
And the last joy was dearer than the rest :
Then with each word, each glance, each motion
fired,
1 86 Sappho to Phaon.
You still enjoyed, and yet you still desired,
Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,
And in tumultuous raptures died away.
The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame :
Why was I born, ye gods, a Lesbian dame ?
But ah, beware Sicilian nymphs, nor boast
That wandering heart which I so lately lost :
Nor be with all those tempting words abused :
Those tempting words were all to Sappho used.
And you that rule Sicilia's happy plains,
Have pity, Venus, on your poet's pains.
Shall fortune still in one sad tenor run
And still increase the woes so soon begun ?
Inured to sorrow from my tender years,
My parent's ashes drank my early tears :
My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame,
Ignobly burned in a destructive flame :
An infant daughter late my griefs increased,
And all a mother's cares distract my breast.
Alas, what more could Fate itself impose,
But thee, the last and greatest of my woes ?
No more my robes in waving purple flow,
Nor on my hand the sparkling diamonds glow ;
No more my locks in ringlets curled diffuse
The costly sweetness of Arabian dews ;
Nor braids of gold the varied tresses bind
That fly disordered with the wanton wind.
For whom should Sappho use such arts as these?
Sappho to Phaon. 187
He's gone whom only she desired to please !
Cupid's light darts my tender bosom move;
Still is there cause for Sappho still to love ;
So 'from my birth the Sisters fixed my doom,
And gave to Venus all my life to come :
Or, while my Muse in melting notes complains,
My yielding heart keeps measure to my strains.
By charms like thine, which all my soul have won,
Who might not ah, who would not be undone?
For those, Aurora Cephalus might scorn,
And with fresh blushes paint the conscious morn :
For those, might Cynthia lengthen Phaon's sleep,
And bid Endymion nightly tend his sheep :
Venus for those had rapt thee to the skies,
But Mars on thee might look with Venus' eyes.
O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy !
O useful time for lovers to employ !
Pride of thy age, and glory of thy race,
Come to these arms and melt in this embrace !
The vows you never will return, receive ;
And take at least the love you will not give.
See, while I write, my words are lost in tears :
The less my sense, the more my love appears.
Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu :
At least, to feign was never hard to you.
" Farewell, my Lesbian love," you might have
said;
Or coldly thus, " Farewell, O Lesbian maid."
1 88 Sappho to Phaon.
No tear did you, no parting kiss receive,
Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.
No lover's gift your Sappho could confer ;
And wrongs and woes were all you left with her.
No charge I gave you, and no charge could give
But this " Be mindful of our loves, and live.''
Now by the Nine, those powers adored by me,
And Love, the god that ever waits on thee ;
When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew)
That you were fled and all my joys with you,
Like some sad statue, speechless, pale I stood ;
Grief chilled my breast and stopt my freezing
blood ;
No sigh to rise, no tear had power to flow,
Fixed in a stupid lethargy of woe.
But when its way the impetuous passion found,
I rend my tresses and my breasts I wound ;
I rave, then weep ; I curse, and then complain ;
Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again.
Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame
Whose first-born infant feeds the funeral flame.
My scornful brother with a smile appears,
Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears ;
His hated image ever haunts my eyes ;
"And why this grief? thy daughter lives,'' he
cries.
Stung with my love and furious with despair,
All torn my garments and my bosom bare,
SappJio to PJiaon. 1^9
My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim ;
Such inconsistent things are love and shame.
'Tis thou art all my care and my delight,
My daily longing and my dream by night.
night, more pleasing than the brightest day,
When fancy gives what absence takes away,
And, dressed in all its visionary charms,
Restores my fair deserter to my arms !
Then round your neck in wanton wreath I twine ;
Then you, methinks, as fondly circle mine :
A thousand tender words I hear and speak ;
A thousand melting kisses give and take :
Then fiercer joys ; I blush to mention these,
Yet, while I blush, confess how much they please.
But when with day the sweet delusions fly,
And all things wake to life and joy, but 1 ;
As if once more forsaken, I complain,
And close my eyes to dream of you again :
Then frantic rise ; and, like some fury, rove
Through lonely plains, and through the silent
grove,
As if the silent grove and lonely plains,
That knew my pleasures, could relieve my pains.
1 view the grotto, once the scene of love,
The rocks around, the hanging roofs above,
That charmed me more, with native moss o'er-
grown,
Than Phrygian marble or the Parian stone :
190 SappJio to PJiaon.
I find the shades that veiled our joys before ;
But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more.
Here the pressed herbs with bending tops betray
Where oft entwined in amorous folds we lay ;
I kiss that earth which once was pressed by you,
And all with tears the withering herbs bedew.
For thee the fading trees appear to mourn,
And birds defer their songs till thy return :
Night shades the groves, and all in silence lie,
All but the mournful Philomel and I :
With mournful Philomel I join my strain ;
Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain,
A spring there is whose silver waters show,
Clear as a glass, the shining sands below :
A flowery lotos spreads its arms above,
Shades all the banks and seems itself a grove ;
Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,
Watched by the sylvan genius of the place :
Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood,
Before my sight a watery virgin .stood :
She stood and cried, "O you that love in vain,
Fly hence and seek the fair Leucadian main :
There stands a rock from whose impending
steep
Apollo's fane surveys the rolling deep ;
There injured lovers, leaping from above,
Their flames extinguish and forget to love.
Deucalion once with hopeless fury burned ;
Sappho to Phaon. 191
In vain he loved, relentless Pyrrha scorned.
But when from hence he plunged into the main
.Deucalion scorned, and Pyrrha loved in vain.
Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw
Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps
below."
She spoke, and vanished with the voice : I
rise,
And silent tears fall trickling from my eyes.
I go, ye nymphs, those rocks and seas to prove :
How much I fear, but ah, how much I love !
I go, ye nymphs, where furious love inspires ;
Let female fears submit to female fires :
To rocks and seas I fly from Phaon's hate,
And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate.
Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow,
And softly lay me on the waves below.
And thou, kind Love, my sinking limbs sustain,
Spread thy soft wings and waft me o'er the main,
Nor let a lover's death the guiltless flood profane.
On Phoebus' shrine my harp I'll then bestow,
And this inscription shall be placed below :
" Here she who sung, to him that did inspire,
Sappho to Phoebus consecrates her lyre :
What suits with Sappho, Phoebus, suits with thee ;
The gift, the giver, and the god agree."
But why, alas, relentless youth, ah, why
To distant seas must tender Sappho fly ?
1 92 SappJio to PJiaon.
Thy charms than those may far more powerful be,
And Phoebus' self is less a god to me.
Ah, canst thou doom me to the rocks and sea,
O far more faithless and more hard than they ?
Ah, canst thou rather see this tender breast
Dashed on these rocks that to thy bosom pressed?
This breast, which once, in vain ! you liked so
well ;
Where the Loves played, and where the Muses
dwell.
Alas, the Muses now no more inspire ;
Untuned my lute, and silent is my lyre :
My languid numbers have forgot to flow,
And fancy sinks beneath the weight of woe.
Ye Lesbian virgins and ye Lesbian dames,
Themes of my verse and objects of my flames,
No more your groves with my glad songs shall
ring ;
No more these hands shall touch the trembling
string :
My Phaon's fled, and I those arts resign :
(Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine !)
Return, fair youth, return, and bring along
Joy to my soul and vigour to my song.
Absent from thee, the poet's flame expires ;
But ah, how fiercely burn the lover's fires !
Gods, can no prayers, no sighs, no numbers move
One savage heart, or teach it how to love ?
Sappho to Phaon. 193
The winds my prayers, my sighs, my numbers
bear;
The flying winds have lost them all in air.
Or when, alas, shall more auspicious gales
To these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails ?
If you return, ah, why these long delays ?
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
O launch the bark, nor fear the watery plain :
Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.
O launch thy bark, secure of prosperous gales :
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails.
If you will fly (yet ah, what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me ?)
If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah, let me seek it from the raging seas :
To raging seas unpitied I'll remove ;
And either cease to live or cease to love.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The following list comprises most of the books and
articles in Sapphic literature which I have consulted. I
have added a few to which I have had reference, but
which I have not succeeded in seeing : many of them are
mere curiosities. I could have still further extended the
bibliography, if I had taken more on trust. I have not
generally thought it necessary to quote well-known his-
tories of Greece and Greek literature.
Addison, John : The Works of Anacreon translated into
English Verse ; with Notes explanatory and poetical.
To which are added the Odes, Fragments, and
Epigrams of Sappho. With the original Greek
placed opposite to the Translation. 8vo, London,
1735-
Addison, Joseph : Spectator, No. 223, Nov. 15, 1711 ;
and No. 233, Nov. 27, 1711.
Ahrens, Heinrich Ludolf : De Graecae Linguae Uia-
lectis, Sapphus fragmenta, pp. 256-274 of Lib. I. 8vo,
Gottingen, 1839.
1 96 Bibliography.
Ahrens, Heinrich Ludolf: Conjectural in Alcaus
und Sappho, Rheinisches Museum, 1842, pp. 388-
401.
Anacreontis Carmina. cum Sapphonis et Alcaei fragmen-
tis. Glasgow, 1744, 1757, 1761, and 1783.
Anacreontis et Sapphonis Carmina. Cum virorum doc-
torum notis et emendationibus, in usum juventutis
Academiae Salfordiensis, Com. Lancastriae. 8vo,
London, 1754.
Andreas, Elias : Anacreontis Teii antiquissimi poe'tae
Lyrici Odae, ab Helia Andrea Latinae factae. i6mo,
Lutetiae, 1556.
Andreas, Elias : Anacreontis, Sapphus, et Erinnae
Carmina interpretibus Henrico Stephano et Elia
Andrea. 64010, Edinburgh, 1766.
Arnold, Dr. Bernhard : Sappho. Vortrag, gehalten
zu Munchen am 25 Marz 1870- Aus Sammlung ge-
nieinverstoendlicher Vortrege heraus v. Rud. Virchow
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Arnold, Edwin, M.A., C.S.I. : The Poets of Greece
[pp. 105-118]. 8vo, London, 1869.
Baxter, William : see Vossius, Isaac (1695).
Baxter, William : Anacreontis Teii Carmina Graece e
reeensione Guilielmi Baxteri cum ejusdem Henr.
item Stephani atque Tanegvidi Fabri notis acces-
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et Theocriti Anacreonticum in mortuum Adonin.
Iterum edidit varietatemque lectionibus cum suis
animadversionibus et Anacreontis fragmenta adjecit
Joh. Frider. Fischerus. 8vo, Leipzig, 1776.
Beau, Gabriel : La Grece Poetique. Anacreon
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I2mo, Paris, 1884.
Bibliography. 1 97
Bentley, Richard, D.D. : inGraevius' Callimachi Frag-
menta, 8vo, Utrecht, 1697, ad fr. 417, de Sapphus
fragm. 118.
Bergk, Theodor : De aliquot fragmentis Sapphonis et
Alcaei, in Rheinisches Museum fiir Philologie, 8vo.
Bonn, 1835, PP- 209-231.
Bergk, Theodor : Anthologia Lyrica. 8vo, Leipzig,
1854, pp. 261-273 ( text only).
Bergk, Theodor : Poetae Lyrici Graeci, ed. 4, vol. 3,
pp. 82-140. 8vo, Leipzig, 1882.
Bibliotheque Universelle des Dames ; alias Bibliotheque
de Mesdemoiselles Eulalie, Felicite, Sophie, Emilie
De Marcilly. Melanges. Tom. viii., pp. 95-130.
24010, Paris, 1787.
Bland, Rev. Robert : see Merivale, J. H.
Blass, Friedrich, of Kiel : Zu den Griechischen
Lyrikern. Rhein. Mus., vol. xxix., 1874: Sappho,
pp. 149-151.
Blass, Friedrich, of Kiel : Neue Fragmente ....
der Sappho. Rhein Mas., vol. xxxv. 1880; pp.
287-290.
Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London : Cam-
bridge Museum Criticum, vol. i., pp. 1-31, 250-252,
421, 422. 8vo, 1826.
Blomfield, Charles James : see Gaisford.
Blum, Johann Christian : in Olearius' De Poetriis
Graecis. 4to, Leipzig, 1712.
Eoetticher, K. : Zwei Hermenbildnisse der Sappho ;
with a photograph. Archaologische Zeitung, 4to,
Berlin, 1872, pp. 83-86.
Born, Friedrich Gottlieb, Ph. D. : Anacreontis et
Sapphus [pp. 219-227] Carmina Graece recensuit
notisque illustravit ex optimis interpretibus, quibus
et suas adjecit. 8vo, Leipzig, 1789.
198 Bibliography.
Bothe, Fridericus Henricus : Anacreontica Graece re-
censuit notisque criticis instruxit. Sorrcpouc; Aeivyuva,
pp. 77-81. i6mo, Leipzig, 1805.
Braun, G. C. : Die Fiagmente der Sappho, iibersetzt
von G. C. B[raun]. 8vo, Wetzlar, 1815.
Brockhausen, R. : Sappho's Lieder in deutschen Versen
nach gebildet. Lemgo, 1827.
Brunck, Richard Fran?ois Philippe : Analecta vet-
erum poetarum Graecorum : i., pp. 54-57 ; ii., p. 8,
Svo, Strasburg, 1772.
Brunck, Richard Francois Philippe : Anacreontis
Carmina : accedunt quaedam e lyricorum reliquiis
pp. 82-86. Ed. 2, I2mo, Strasburg, 1786.
Brunck, Richard Frangois Philippe: see Weise, G. H.
(1844).
Burger, Eduard : Anacreonund andere lyrische Dichter
Griechenlands in deutschen Reimen. 32mo, Stutt-
gart, 1855.
Bustelli, Giuseppe : Vita e Frammenti di Saffo de
Mitilene. Discorso e versione (prinia intera). Pp.
104. Svo, Bologna, 1863.
Cappone, Francesco Antonio : Liriche Parafrasi di
D. Francesco Antonio Cappone, Academico ozioso.
Supra tutte 1'Ode d'Anacreonte, e sopra alcune altre
Poesie di diversi Lirici Poeti Greci. Secundo la
preposta version Latina de' 1'or piii celebri Traduttori.
Pp. 190-200. 241110, Venice, 1670.
Comparetti, Professor Domenico : Saffo e Faone
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Scienze, I^ttere ed Arti, anno xi., seconda serie,
vol. i., fasc. ii., pp. 253-288. Svo, Florence, Febr.
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Bibliography. 199
Comparetti, Professor Domenico : Sulla Epistola
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Coup in : see Girodet de Roussy.
Courtier, P.-L. : Daphnis et Chloe, traduit par P.-L.
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de Sapho, traduites de Grec en Franyois, avec des
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Dacier, Anne Lefevre : Les Poesies d'Anacreon et de
Sapho traduites de Grec en Frar^ois, avec des Re-
marques par Mademoiselle Le Fevre, pp. 387-429.
121110, Lyons, 1696.
1 Anne Lefevre, daughter of Tanneguy Lefevre [Tanaquillus
Faber], born at Saumur about 1654, married Andre Dacier in 1683,
and died a the Louvre, 1720.
2OO Bibliography.
Dacier, Anne Lefevre : Les Poesies d'Anacreon et de
Sapho traduites de Grec en Franfois, avec des Re-
marques, par Madame Dacier. Nouvelle edition
augmentee des Notes Latines de Mr. le Fevre.
I2mo, Amsterdam, 1699.
Dacier, Anne Lefevre : Les Poesies d'Anacreon et de
Sapho traduites de Grec en Fra^ois, avec des Re-
marques, par Madame Dacier. Nouvelle edition,
augmentee des Notes Latines de Mr. le Fevre, et de
laTraduction en vers Fran9ois de Mr. de la Fosse.
8vo, Amsterdam, 1716.
Degen, J. F. : Anacreon und Sappho's Lieder nebst
and. lyr. Gedichtent, Text und Ubers. Altemburg,
1787.
Die Gedichte Anakreons und der Sappho Oden aus clem
Griechischen iibersetz, und mit Ammerkungen be-
gleitet, pp. 205-216. 8vo, Carlsruhe, 1760.
Discours sur la Poesie lyrique, avec les modeles du genre
tires de Pindare, d'Anacreon, de Sappho [pp. 137-
140], de Malherbe, etc. 24010, Paris, 1761.
Du Bois, Edward : The Wreath ; composed of Se-
lections from Sappho, etc accompanied by
a prose translation, with notes. 8vo, London,
1799-
Dubois-Guchan, E.-P. : La Pleiade Grecque : Tra-
ductions contenant Les Odes et Fragments d'Ana-
creon, Les Poesies de Sappho, etc., pp. 71-88. 8vo,
Paris, 1873.
Egerton, The Honourable Francis Henry : A Frag-
ment of an Ode of Sappho, from Longinus : also,
an ode of Sappho from Dionysius Halicarn. Pp. 26.
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mina. Notas et Animadversiones addidit Tanaquillus
.Faber ; in quibus multa Veterum emendantur. 24ino,
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Faber, Tanaquillus : see Baxter, William (1776).
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