Edwin Marion Cox

“ Arnold was happily able to shake himself entirely free from the effect of the scandals which he so justly condemns, but, as we have seen, the earlier writers, particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were too easily led astray in this particular. Donne’s works afford an example of how difficult or perhaps impossible it was for even great writers to escape the effects of such scandalous traditions. They were far too ready to accept these stories, and to use them in connection with Sappho as a peg on which to hang some gaudy product of their own licentious imaginations. ”

“ The translation of στρούθοι by “sparrows” does not seem a very happy one in spite of its use by Symonds and some others. It is true that στρούθος means a sparrow or a small bird, but in English the word “sparrow” calls up a vision of the dingy and quarrelsome chatterer of the London squares, and such is certainly not the most poetically appropriate locomotive power for the brilliant car of the foam-born goddess in her flight “ἀιθέρος διὰ μέσσω.” Even others of the sparrow tribe lack dignity, though there may have been a Lesbian bird which seemed suitable to Sappho. ”

“ In 1885, H. T. Wharton published his “Sappho,” a choice example of bookmaking, a careful general bibliography of the subject in all languages, and an appreciation of the poetess and her writings which at once strongly appealed to the book-lover, the classical scholar and the ordinary reader of good books. This edition, a small octavo, is unexceptionable in appearance and construction, and the Greek type used for the original text is dignified, and agreeable to read. ”

“ A consequence of such occurrences as far as Sappho is concerned is that, notwithstanding the esteem in which she was held by writers who came within a measurable distance of her epoch, her writings have practically disappeared, although a large proportion of the works of many Greek writers living not much after her have come down to us with something approaching completeness. For the story of her life we must depend upon the scanty, more or less casual, and sometimes hostile statements of writers who, in most cases, were, in point of time, further away from her than we are from Shakespeare. ”

“ Part X, 1914, of the Egypt Exploration Funds publication, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri contains the latest important Sapphic discovery, apparently an almost complete poem of twenty-four lines which are nearly perfect. The poem has been cleverly emended by Mr. J. M. Edmonds of Cambridge, and it was published with a literal translation in the “Times,” 4 May 1914. Such discoveries keep alive in us the hope that the future may be still kinder to us and that some day the Egyptian sands will give up a considerable proportion of the nine books of lyrics. ”

“ The women of Lesbos of all classes enjoyed a freedom from restraint unknown among the other Greeks, and it may be reasonably assumed that this freedom, so enjoyed by them in earlier ages, had, with the increase in wealth, luxury, and refinement, lost much of its simplicity, and may later have degenerated into a mode of life in which there was much more licence than had ever been known before in any part of the world inhabited by people of the Greek race. ”

“ Donne’s poem, published in 1633 and entitled “Sapho to Philaenis” is an instance. It is as impossible to deny to Donne the possession of poetic instinct, as it is to assume that he had any particular tendency to exploit the indecent, so we must explain such poems as this by his ignorance of Greek and of all that concerned Sappho, except the unpleasant tradition which her name connoted at the time when he wrote. Some modern writers have also been guilty of the same sort of thing. ”

“ Joseph Addison gave us a more or less comprehensive view of the subject. He says that “among the mutilated poets of antiquity there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho,” and he describes her as “not descending to those little points, conceits and turn of wit with which many of our modern lyrics are so miserably infected.” He repeats the legend connecting her with Phaon, and gives a circumstantial repetition of the Leucadian rock story. In the first-mentioned number of the “Spectator,” he introduces a translation by Ambrose Philips, of what he calls the “Ode.” ”

“ The invocation to Aphrodite for aid in securing the affections of a member of the same sex causes some suspicion that the expression of passion contained in it shows an abnormal element, but in endeavouring to reach a decision on this point, it must be remembered that there is no certainty that in the seventh century B.C. the word “Aphrodite” represented the same conception that it does in the twentieth century A.D., and there should not be too much haste in giving judgment upon social and psychological conditions of that early era. ”

“ Arnold rejects the Leucadian rock legend as well as the alleged Phaon episode. His translation of the immortal hymn into English Sapphic metre is easily the best up to the time of its appearance, and is only rivalled by that of J. A. Symonds, first printed in Wharton’s edition of the poetess. The rhythm and the majestic lyrical qualities of the original are preserved in this rendering, but naturally something must be lost by the transfer of such a masterpiece from its original into any language. Arnold also gives translations of nine other fragments, and adds a number of illuminating comments. ”

“ Although this story of Sappho’s alleged love for Phaon, who according to tradition was a boatman endowed with unusual physical beauty, was prevalent in ancient and mediaeval times, and although it helped to inspire the poetical efforts of many writers and has been handed down to very recent times as if it had some authentic foundation, there is no real reason to accept as true the statement that Sappho ever even saw the Leucadian promontory, much less leaped from it as the Phaon legend suggests. ”

“ She is described as “not inferior in fame to the best lyric poets,” but no quotations are given and there is no description of the surviving fragments. The account is very perfunctory, and the unnecessarily manufactured tradition that there was a second and contemporaneous Sappho to serve as a pack-horse for obloquy is mentioned, and as usual the Leucadian rock is brought in with the customary categorical definiteness. The greatness of the poetess seems to be in no way appreciated, and the influence of Ovid is obvious. Longinus soon had another translator. ”

“ This writer incidentally translates many of the shorter fragments usually literally, but does not attempt the two long lyrics. He emphasizes “the amazing power of Greek words as words,” and says that this is shown “in such a way that phrases like ripe fruit clusters seem bursting with a rich juice of passionate meaning.” He notes also the marvellous “verbal economy” of Sappho, and the comprehensiveness and power of such a word as ἰμερόφωνος, Critical appreciation, not translation, is the purpose of this article. ”

“ In the organization of academies or classes which reached a high degree of development in the study and production of such poetry, women often took a prominent part, their position among the Aeolian Greeks being better and less subject to social restraint than was the case anywhere else in the then known civilized world. Terpander and Alcaeus were natives of Lesbos, the latter a contemporary of Sappho, and there were several lesser lights among the lyric poets who were women. ”

“ Time, neglect, and insensate ignorance have combined completely to annihilate the nine books of lyrics known to have been in existence at one period, except for the series of fragments of the works of the poetess, most recently edited and collated by Wharton, her most thorough editor. ”

“ In 1869 Edwin Arnold published his “Poets of Greece,” a book covering much ground in comparatively small space. The portion devoted to Sappho extends from page 118, and she is called that “exquisite poetess . . . whose genius among all feminine votaries of singing stands incontestably highest,” and is referred to as “the purest impersonation of the art of lyric song.” ”

“ This combination of qualities, almost marvellous, is exemplified over and over again in many of the all too truncated fragments with which we must, so far, be satisfied. From the time of her own epoch the works of Sappho have never been entirely forgotten, and since the Renaissance the fragmentary remains of her poems have been eagerly studied by scholars of almost every country. ”

“ The translation consists of seven six-line verses in rhyming couplets, but the mellifluous cadence of the Sapphic metre is entirely lost in an eighteenth century jingle. The rendering itself is very free, and has suffered by thus diverging from the original. Addison gives also a translation of the ode preserved by Longinus, which has the same general characteristics as the first production, and is also from the pen of Philips. ”

“ Almost every important writer of ancient times has suffered to a considerable extent from neglect, ignorance, or insensate destructiveness and bigotry, and if we were called upon to designate the period when reactionary forces had reduced culture, art, and literary appreciation to their lowest point, we should be right in choosing the six black centuries from about A.D. 400 to about A.D. 1000. ”

“ There is at the end a page devoted to what the author calls “Sapphicks,” which resemble the real poetry of Sappho only in having the same number of syllables to the line. There is nothing of the true Sappho in the production, and obviously no appreciation of the greatness of her poetic genius. Ben Jonson in “The Sad Shepherd,” Act II, Scene VI, used the expression, “the dear good Angel of the spring, the nightingale,” which is decidedly reminiscent of Sappho’s Ἤρος ἄγγελος ἰμερόφωνος ἀήδων, with which it is likely that such a good classical scholar as Jonson was familiar. ”

“ It is headed: “Of Loftiness drawn from Circumstances” and the text reads as follows: “when Sapho [sic] would express the disorders of love, she calls to mind all the accidents which are either inherent or consequential to this Passion, but singles out such chiefly, as declare the excessive violence thereof.
Bless’d is the man, thrice bless’d who sits by thee,
Enjoys thy tongue’s soft melting harmony
Sees silent joys sit smiling on thy brow ”

“ In the spelling of Greek proper names, when they are printed in Roman type, the form to which the English reader is accustomed has been adopted. Philological commentary and variant readings have, in nearly all cases, been omitted, as in the present state of the subject Mr. Edmond’s arrangement in his “Lyra Graeca” offers all that the classical student, as distinguished from the general reader, can expect. ”

“ However much such licence might be deplored, if its existence could be proved, it need not therefore be assumed that there was a generally depraved state of society. In the case of Sappho it serves no good purpose to concern ourselves very much with the morality of her sentiments and conduct. ”