Edwin Marion Cox

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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 writer incidentally translates many of 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though her poems in the original were known to a few Englishmen in Elizabethan and Jacobean times, this knowledge appears to have been superficial with a large proportion of it infected with the Ovidian version of the alleged episode in connection with Phaon, for references to this and to the Leucadian rock legend, with a few doubtful biographical details from late classical sources comprise all that we have in English up to, as we shall see later, the appearance of John Hall’s translation of Longinus in 1652. ”

“ 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 ”

“ This legend with its Ovidian handling seems to have been of perennial interest in the earlier days of classical studies in England, but as far as Burton is concerned Sappho as a writer of poetry might never have existed, and his remarks are only of incidental interest. ”

“ Two years after their appearance in the “Spectator,” the versions by Ambrose Philips were included in a volume of collected translations, described on the title-page as follows: “The works of Anacreon and Sappho done from the Greek by Several Hands, with their Lives prefixed. To which is added the Prize of Wisdom,” etc. “Also Bion’s Idyllium upon the Death of Adonis, by the Earl of Winchelsea. Printed for E. Curll at the Dial and Bible in Fleet Street and A. Bettesworth at the Red Lion on London Bridge 1713. Price 2s. Where may be had Mr. Creech’s Translation of Theocritus. Price 2s. ”

“ The italics are in the original and the writer thus shows, as he apparently means the italics to indicate emphasis, that he had a real appreciation for the melodious qualities of the Hymn to Aphrodite, obviously the poem in his mind, although his seventeenth century imagination did not permit him sufficiently to differentiate between the studied salaciousness of Mrs. ”