Part 4

'Now the ode [Greek: Eis Erômenan]--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-Despréaux 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--[Greek: hekôn aekonti ge thymô]. I tried then to write some paraphrase of the fragments which the Fates and the Christians have spared us. I have not said, as 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 touching 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 disfigure the page with a footnote 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 expression 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 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 fruitless 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 invincible immortality in the memories and the mouths of men.' No one who wishes to understand Sappho can afford to neglect a study of the poem thus annotated by its author. As Professor F. T. Palgrave justly says, 'Sappho is truly pictorial in the ancient sense: the image always simply presented; the sentiment left to our sensibility.'

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 centuries after her time (404-340 B.C.). The comedy of that period was devoted to satirising classes 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 licence 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. 23)--[Greek: mê dein onomasti kômôdein]--though the practice continued under 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, Antiph[)a]nes, D[=i]ph[)i]lus, Ephippus, and Timocles, but very little is known of their contents. 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 contemptible character. The same writer refers to that by Diphilus for his use of the name of a kind of cup ([Greek: metaniptris]) which was used to drink out of when men had washed their hands after dinner, and for his having represented Archilochus and Hipponax (cf. p. 9) as lovers of Sappho. Of that by Antiphanes (cf. p. 26), who was the most celebrated and the most prolific 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 ([Greek: griphos]), satirising a subtlety his grosser audience could not understand.

Besides these, Antiphanes and Plato (the Comic writer, not the philosopher) each wrote a 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. Menander wrote a play called _Leucadia_, and Antiphanes one called _Leucadius_. Antiphanes' play furnishes 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, commenting on Vergil's _Aeneid_, iii. 274, gives a précis of Turpilius' Latin paraphrase of it, which is mentioned above, p. 16.

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 representation on the Athenian stage. The most celebrated, however, and one of considerable beauty, is by John Lilly, '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. Lilly 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 reference to the Leucadian leap. 'When Phao cometh,' he makes Sapho soliloquise, '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 unspotted, 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 late M. Charles Gounod was entitled _Sapho_. The libretto was by M. Emile Augier. It was first given at the Académie, April 16, 1851; and in Italian, as _Saffo_, 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 Staël wrote a drama called _Sapho_, but it has been long forgotten. Alphonse Daudet's novel, _Sapho_, _moeurs Parisiennes,_ of which a version dramatised 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 sobriquet of the heroine. The most artistically finished tragedy of the German dramatist Grillparzer 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.

About forty years ago, however, Messrs. Thomas Constable & Co., of Edinburgh, had issued an earlier translation of the play by L. C. C. [_i.e._ Lucy Caroline Cumming]; and there are some others.

The Queen of Roumania, under her _nom de guerre_ of 'Carmen Sylva,' is the most distinguished among living poets who have idealised the life of Sappho. But her poem under that title, published in her _Stürme_, 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.

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 Damophyla (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 dulci_, which Volger compares to her fr. 90. Horace looked forward to hearing her in Hades singing plaintively to the girls of her own country (_Carm._ ii. 13, 14[6]), 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 instance. The absence of rough breathings, the throwing back of the accent, and the use of the digamma ([Greek: W]) and of many forms and words unknown to ordinary Attic Greek, all testify to this. Three idyls ascribed to Theocr[)i]tus (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 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 [Greek: melê] 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 understand.'

What Melic poetry like Sappho's actually was is best comprehended in the light of Plato's definition of _melos_, that it is 'compounded out of three things, speech, music, and rhythm.'

Aristox[)e]nus, 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 diatonic 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 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 meritis_ 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_:--

[Illustration]

together with a technical description of its construction.

Sappho is said by Athenaeus, quoting Menaechmus and Aristoxenus, to have been the first of the Greek poets to use the P[=e]ktis ([Greek: pêktis]), 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 Mag[)a]dis, but in this he was plainly wrong, for Mr. William 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 the strings into two parts, in the ratio of 2 to 1, 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 Bar[=o]mos or Barmos, and the Sarb[)i]tos or Barb[)i]tos, 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 probably not invented by her; it was only called Sapphic because of her frequent use of it. Its strophe is made up thus:

- v - = - v v - v - = - v - = - v v - v - = - v - = - v v - v - = - v v - =

Professor Robinson Ellis, in the preface to his translation of Catullus, gives some examples of Elizabethan renderings of the Sapphic stanza 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, those 'grains of golden sand which the torrent of Time has carried down to us,' as Professor F. T. Palgrave says, there is no need for me to panegyrise the poetess whom the whole world has been long since contented 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

1

[Greek: Poikilothron', athanat' Aphrodita,] [Greek: pai Dios, doloploke, lissomai se] [Greek: mê m' asaisi mêt' oniaisi damna,] [Greek: potnia, thymon;] [Greek: alla tuid' elth', aipota katerôta] [Greek: tas emas audôs aioisa pêlui] [Greek: eklyes, patros de domon lipoisa] [Greek: chrysion êlthes] [Greek: arm' ypozeuxaisa; kaloi de s' agon] [Greek: ôkees strouthoi peri gas melainas] [Greek: pykna dineuntes pter' ap' ôranô aithe-] [Greek: ras dia messô.] [Greek: aipsa d' exikonto; ty d', ô makaira,] [Greek: meidiasais' athanatô prosôpô,] [Greek: êre', otti dêute pepontha kôtti] [Greek: dêute kalêmi,] [Greek: kôtti moi malista thelô genesthai] [Greek: mainola thymô; tina dêute Peithô] [Greek: mais agên es san philotata, tis s', ô] [Greek: Psapph', adikêei?] [Greek: kai gar ai pheugei, tacheôs diôxei,] [Greek: ai de dôra mê deket' alla dôsei,] [Greek: ai de mê philei, tacheôs philêsei] [Greek: kôuk etheloisa.] [Greek: elthe moi kai nyn, chalepan de lyson] [Greek: ek merimnan, ossa de moi telessai] [Greek: thymos imerrei, teleson; sy d' auta] [Greek: symmachos esso.]

_Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne, daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee break not my spirit with anguish and distress, O Queen. But come hither, if ever before thou didst hear my voice afar, and listen, and leaving thy father's golden house camest 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 countenance, didst ask What now is befallen me, and Why now I call, and What I in my mad heart most desire to see. 'What Beauty now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee, Sappho? For even if she flies she shall soon follow, and if she rejects gifts shall yet give, and if she loves not shall soon love, however loth.' Come, I pray thee, now too, and release me from cruel cares; and all that my heart desires to accomplish, accomplish thou, and be thyself my ally._

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, O 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 I 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?

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.

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.

When wilt thou work this change? Now, Venus free, Now ease my mind of so much misery; 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 starry 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-- 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.

HYMN TO APHRODITE.

Golden-throned beyond the sky, Jove-born immortality: Hear and heal a suppliant's pain: Let not love be love in vain!

Come, as once to Love's imploring Accents of a maid's adoring, Wafted 'neath the golden dome Bore thee from thy father's home;

When far off thy coming glowed, Whirling down th' aethereal road, On thy dove-drawn progress glancing, 'Mid the light of wings advancing;

And at once the radiant hue Of immortal smiles I knew; Heard the voice of reassurance Ask the tale of love's endurance:--

'Why such prayer? And who for thee, Sappho, should be touch'd by me; Passion-charmed in frenzy strong-- Who hath wrought my Sappho wrong?

'--Soon for flight pursuit wilt find, Proffer'd gifts for gifts declined; Soon, thro' long reluctance earn'd, Love refused be Love return'd.'

--To thy suppliant so returning, Consummate a maiden's yearning: Love, from deep despair set free, Championing to victory! F. T. PALGRAVE, 1854.