Sappho

“ The world 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 literature, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and illimitable grace. ”

“ Yearns thy soul—say whom shall my glamour chaining
Hale thy love's thrall, Sappho?—and who is wronging
⁠Thee with disdaining?
Who avoids thee soon shall be thy pursuer:
Ay, the gift-rejecter the giver shall now be:
Ay, the loveless now shall become the wooer,
⁠Scornful shalt thou be!"
Once again come! Come, and my chains dissever,
Chains of heart-ache! Passionate longings rend me—
Oh fulfil them! Thou in the strife be ever
⁠Near, to defend me! ”

“ At school, friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All loves of after life can never bring its rapture or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorbing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen! ”

“ Sappho to her Girl-friends. She playfully satirizes the foibles of some of them.
(Fragments 34, 77, 76, 61, 71, 48, 86, 83, 47, 129, 32 combined.)
This is my song of maidens dear to me.
Eranna, a slight girl I counted thee,
When first I looked upon thy form and face,
Slim as a reed, and all devoid of grace.
But stately stature, grace and beauty came
Unto thee with the years—O, dost not shame
For this, Eranna, that thy pride hath grown
Therewith? Alas for thee! I have not known
One beauty ever of more scornful mien,
As though thou wert of all earth's daughters queen! ”

“ To a Rich Vulgarian.
(Fragments 35, 67, 81, 72, 68 combined.)
Thou fool—that thou shouldst plume thyself
On rich attire, on jewel-hoard,
On dross of thine ill-gotten pelf,
On carcanet and flashing ring,
On meats and wines that load thy board!
Ay, cup on cup past numbering
Thou drainest with the drunken! Fool,
Who hast not learnt in wisdom's school
That wealth is an accursèd thing
Dislinked from goodness! Only when
These twain are wedded, happiness
True and abiding comes to bless
The fleeting life of dying men. ”

“ Brake from her lips, she knew not why.
But when in the darkness she lay on her bed,
Sleep dusky-eyed, the child of Night,
Who on all eyes presses with fingers light,
Upon Niobe's eyes no sleep-dews shed ”

“ When the roses are faded, the gold turns grey,
And the smoothness is furrowed, as singeth the lay—
"As the hyacinth-flower on the mountain-side that the shepherds tread
Underfoot, and low on the earth its bloom dark-splendid is shed." ”

“ The fame of Sappho, as the greatest poetess of all time, rests mainly on tradition, which for us moderns is confirmed by one complete poem, two incomplete ones, and over 170 fragments, one consisting of six lines, ten of four, seven of three, twenty-seven of two, and the rest of not more than one line, sometimes of only one word. No other poet inherits such great fame on so slight a foundation. ”

“ On such as she can never be,
⁠The young and fair,
And waits to enshroud her clay with glee,
⁠And graveward bear.
XXIII.
"I canna min' my wheel, mither."
(Fragments 90, 88, 89, 87 combined.)
Oh my mother, sweetest mother, I can weave my web no more,
For my soul for my belovèd is with passion flooded o'er!
⁠Aphrodite wills it so.
Hush thee, swallow, cease thy plaining of the ancient sin and wrong,
O thou daughter of Pandion; for the sorrow in thy song
⁠Makes my tears the faster flow.
In a dream I saw the Love-queen with a cloud-veil floating round her ”

“ Readers who know something of the passionate attachments between girls at school and college, of their adoration for each other and their teachers, will not think it strange that we find evidence in these poems of similar links of love between Sappho and some of her girl-students, that we find records of rapturous happiness, of adoring worship, of burning reproaches, passioning and thrilling through these immortal lines. Human nature has not changed in five-and-twenty centuries. ”

“ Strabo, who lived in the time of Augustus and Tiberius, in his Geography, says of the island of Lesbos "Here flourished Sappho, who was something wonderful; never within the memory of man has any woman been known who could in the least degree be compared to her for poetic genius." ”

“ "Her soul seems to have been made up of love and poetry . ”

“ It is recorded by Hesiod that Zeus wedded Leto before Hera his sister became his queen. It is here assumed that the Niobe referred to is not that one whose arrogant boast against Leto drew on her the vengeance of Apollo and Artemis in the slaughter of all her children, but the Niobe of an older legend, who became by Zeus the mother of Argus and Pelasgus. ”

“ An Epithalamium.
(Fragments 91, 92, 99, 106, 104, 103, 100, 105, 101, 102, 96, 109, 93, 94, 97, 95, 133 combined.)
Raise high the beams of the raftered hall,
⁠ (Sing the Hymen-refrain!)
Ye builders, of the bridal-dwelling!
⁠ (Sing the Hymen-refrain!)
Lo, the bridegroom comes, as the War-god tall— [1]
⁠ (Sing the Hymen-refrain!)
Now nay—yet our tallest in stature excelling;
⁠ (Sing the Hymen-refrain!)
For stately he towers above all the throng
As the Lesbian singer towers among
All alien poets, a prince of song.
O happy bridegroom! ”