Sapphira

“ But if any one act otherwise (which may God forbid) , let him take care lest he meet the condemnation of Ananias and Sapphira, and be found guilty of sacrilege, as those were who lied as to the price of the property designated, of whom we read thus in the before-cited passage of the Acts of the Apostles: “But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold land (agrum) , and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. ”

“ The grooms of my brother-officers never learn that Steggles' vacuous expression is the disguise of an intellect subtle, discriminating and alert, so they never trouble to endeavour to forestall him. To find Sapphira is to find Steggles, as he always likes to spread his blanket where she could tread on him if she wanted anything during the night.
From time to time he chooses the occasion of a night's halt on the march to indulge in a bilious attack; but he has no other vice except an inveterate reluctance to leave off polishing my boots when I mount. ”

“ Mary Barber, under the name of Sapphira, occasioned by the encouragement she met with in England to publish her poems by subscription’.
Provincial ladies began to have volumes locally printed, and talent by poverty depressed was studiously unearthed. Mary Leapor, who had a strain of genius, was a domestic servant. Stephen Duck, the inspired Thresher, had his analogue, though not his equal, in Mrs. Yearsley, the Bristol Charwoman. This woman ought to be remembered for the most astounding apostrophe on record. She addressed a poem to the Bristol Channel in which she broke forth with
Hail! ”

“ He ordered some nets to be prepared and painted of the same colours as the bird’s plumage, thinking that we are all easily caught by what is like ourselves. In this he had to help him not only the fowlers by profession, but also his attendants, who excelled in this art. For a man is not a courtier unless he can do everything. After searching as usual for nearly a whole day Prince Saphir began to feel overcome with thirst. He was too tired to go any farther, when happily he discovered a little way off a bubbling fountain of the clearest water. ”

“ A journey of nine days more conducts us to Saphar, the metropolis of Kharibaêl, the rightful sovereign of two contiguous tribes, the Homerites and the Sabaïtai, and, by means of frequent embassies and presents, the friend of the Emperors.
(23) The other city was Saphar, the metropolis of the Homerîtai, i.e. the Himaryi—the Arabs of Yemen, whose power was widely extended, not only in Yemen but in distant countries both to the East and West. Saphar is called Sapphar by Ptolemy (VI. vii.) ”

“ These saphies are prayers, or rather sentences, from the Koran, which the Mohammedan priests write on scraps of paper, and sell to the simple natives, who consider them to possess very extraordinary virtues. Some of the negroes wear them to guard themselves against the bite of snakes or alligators; and on this occasion the saphie is commonly enclosed in a snake’s or alligator’s skin, and tied round the ankle. Others have recourse to them in time of war, to protect their persons against hostile weapons ”

“ Let passion's tingling warmth her being touch!
Come to me, Goddess, come as once of old,
Hearing my voice implore thee from afar,
I drew to earth thy dazzling avatar;
Accord the smile of piercing bliss untold.
Ask me the dear suave question phrased of yore;
"Sappho, who grieveth now thy mad fond heart?
Wouldst win her beauty, she who frowns apart?
Wild as thou lovest, she soon shall love thee more."
O fair Olympian, answer thus, I pray!
Release me from this torment, yield my arms
The transport thirsted of her folded charms,
In glow that welds her heart to mine for aye.
EROS ”

“ Sappho, tell me this,
Was I not sometimes fair? My eyes, my mouth,
My hair that loved the wind, were they not worth
The breath of love upon them? Yet he passed,
And he will pass to-night when all the air
Is blue with twilight; but I shall not see.
I shall have gone forever. Hold my hands,
Hold fast that Death may never come between;
Swear by the gods you will not let me go;
Make songs for Death as you would sing to Love—
But you will not assuage him. He alone
Of all the gods will take no gifts from men.
I am afraid, afraid.
Sappho, lean down. ”

“ About the mainmast were huddled the surviving Spaniards, weaponless and broken in courage, a herd of timid, bewildered sheep.
Sakr-el-Bahr stood forward, his light eyes considering them grimly. They must number close upon a hundred, adventurers in the main who had set out from Cadiz in high hope of finding fortune in the Indies. Their voyage had been a very brief one; their fate they knew—to toil at the oars of the Muslim galleys, or at best, to be taken to Algiers or Tunis and sold there into the slavery of some wealthy Moor. ”

“ Have I not ever urged thy valour on my lord’s notice and wrought like a true friend for thine advancement, Sakr-el-Bahr?”
He laughed outright. “Hast thou so?” quoth he.
“Laugh as thou wilt, but it is true,” she insisted. “Lose me and thy most valuable ally is lost—one who has the ear and favour of her lord. For look, Sakr-el-Bahr, it is what would befall if another came to fill my place, another who might poison Asad’s mind with lies against thee—for surely she cannot love thee, this Frankish girl whom thou hast torn from her home!” ”

“ But Sappho had been dead for two hundred years: the Athenian populace knew little of her except that she had been great and that she had been unhappy; and the descendants of the men who had thronged the theatre to see the Œdipus of Sophokles, sickening with that strange disease which makes the soul crave to batten on the fruits that are its poison, found a rare feast furnished forth in the imaginary history of the one great woman of their race. ”

“ Approximation is all that even genius can hope for in the attempt. An important point to remember in considering the construction and metre of the Sapphic poems is that we may take it for certain that they were always delivered in the form of a recitative or chant, and that they were nearly always accompanied by music on one or more of the stringed instruments for which Lesbos was famous at the time when Sappho lived. ”

“ Leaned with face that smiled in immortal beauty,
Leaned to me and asked, "What misfortune threatened?
Why I had called thee?"
"What my frenzied heart craved in utter yearning,
Whom its wild desire would persuade to passion?
What disdainful charms, madly worshipped, slight thee?
Who wrongs thee, Sappho?"
"She that fain would fly, she shall quickly follow,
She that now rejects, yet with gifts shall woo thee,
She that heeds thee not, soon shall love to madness,
Love thee, the loth one!" ”

“ O Sappho, why art thou ever
Singing with praises the blessed
Queen of the heaven?
Why does the heart in thy bosom
Ever revert in its yearning
Throb to the Goddess?
Why are thy senses unsated
Ever in quest of elusive
Love that is deathless?
Ah, gracious Daughter of Cyprus,
Never can I as a mortal
Tire of thy service.
Thou art the breath of my body,
The blood in my veins, and the glowing
Pulse of my bosom.
Omnipotent, burning, resistless,
Thou art the passion that shaking
Masters me ever. ”

“ Comparing Samprati with Aśoka in respect of the propagation of the faith in non-Áryan countries the Áchárya writes: ‘In Páṭaliputra flourished the great king Samprati son of Kunála lord of Bharata with its three continents, the great Arhanta who established viháras for Sramaṇas even in non-Áryan countries.’7 It would appear from this that after Aśoka the Mauryan empire may have been divided into two, Daśaratha ruling Eastern India, and Samprati, whom Jaina records specially mention as king of Ujjain, ruling Western India, where the Jain sect is specially strong. ”

“ 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! ”

“ A vase of the fifth century B.C., found in Girgenti, gives us representations of Alcæus and Sappho, and on these Sappho is taller than Alcæus, and exceedingly beautiful. We have also a portrait of Sappho on the coins of the Mytilenæans; and here again the face is exquisite in feature, and suggests a tall woman. If it has any defect, it is that it is rather masculine. At first one might hesitate to believe that it is the face of a woman, but there can be no doubt as to its beauty. On the other hand, no ancient writer speaks of Aspasia as beautiful. ”

“ Sabaco was an able and energetic prince, who could by no means tolerate the presence of a rival Pharaoh in the provinces which Piônkhi had conquered. He declared war, and, being doubtless supported in his undertaking by all the petty kings and great feudal nobles whose jealousy was aroused by the unlooked-for prosperity of the Saite monarch, he defeated Bocchoris and took him prisoner. Tafnakhti had formerly recognised the Ethiopian supremacy, and Bocchoris, when he succeeded to his father’s dominions, had himself probably sought investiture at the hands of the King of Napata. ”

“ With Marzak following at her heels, she swept like a fury into the darkened room where Asad took his ease.
"What is this I hear, O my lord?" she cried, in tone and manner more the European shrew than the submissive Eastern slave. "Is Sakr-el-Bahr to go upon this expedition against the treasure-galley of Spain?"
Reclining on his divan he looked her up and down with a languid eye. "Dost know of any better fitted to succeed?" quoth he.
"I know of one whom it is my lord's duty to prefer to that foreign adventurer. One who is entirely faithful and entirely to be trusted. ”

“ Back, thro' the years, fleets the sea-bird's wing:
Sappho, of old time, once,—ah, hark!
So did he love her of old and sing!
Listen, he flies to her, back thro' the dark!
Sappho, of old time, once.... Yea, Spring
Calls him home to her, hark!
Sappho, long since, in the years far sped,
Sappho, I loved thee! Did I not seem
Fosterling only of earth? I have fled,
Fled to thee, sister. Time is a dream!
Shelley is here with us! Death lies dead! ”

“ A Muslim," was the still more surprising information.
"A Muslim woman, here? Impossible!"
But even as he spoke a dark figure glided like a shadow across the threshold on to the terrace. She was in black from head to foot, including the veil that shrouded her, a veil of the proportions of a mantle, serving to dissemble her very shape.
Ali swung upon her in a rage. "Did I not bid thee wait below, thou daughter of shame?" he stormed. "She has followed me up, my lord, to thrust herself in here upon you. Shall I drive her forth?"
"Let her be," said Sakr-el-Bahr. And he waved Ali away. "Leave us!" ”

“ It was not long before woman began to figure prominently in the new history. Sapor I., son of Ardeshir, or the Sassanian Artaxerxes, as he is called, finding difficulty in bringing the province of Hatra under his sway, receives an overture from the daughter of Manizen, the ruler of Hatra, an ambitious young woman,--without moral scruples,--with intimation that if she were made Queen of Persia she would promise to betray her father's forces into Sapor's hands. The compact was faithfully carried out by the damsel ”

“ The fame of a chief, it is well known, is often increased by the number of his wives. His lodge was now thronged with visitors. Some came to consult him; some to gain his favour. All this gave Ampata Sapa no uneasiness, for the Red People like to have visitors, and to show hospitality. The first thing that caused a jar in her mind, was the rumour that her husband was about to take a new wife. This was like a poison in her veins; for she had a big heart. She was much attached to her husband, and she could not bear the idea of sharing his affections with another. ”

“ Now to their homes are they gone in the city,
Pensive to dream limb-relaxed while the languid
Slaves come and lift from the tresses they loosen,
Flowers that have faded.
Thou alone, Sappho, art sole with the silence,
Sole with night and dreams that are darkness, weaving
Thoughts that are sighs from the heart and their meaning
Vague as the shadow;
When the great silence shall come to thee, sad one,
Men that forget shall remember thy music,
Murmur thy name that shall steal on their passion
Soft as the sleep wind.
THE REPROACH
Kypris, hear my prayer to thee and the Nereids! ”

“ The slaves departed again, and presently, in the black gap of the doorway between the Nubians, a third figure appeared unheralded. It was Sakr-el-Bahr.
He stood a moment at gaze, his attitude haughty, his face expressionless; then slowly he advanced. He was dressed in a short white caftan that descended to his knees, and was caught about his waist in a shimmering girdle of gold that quivered like fire in the glow of the torches as he moved. His arms from the elbow and his legs from the knee were bare, and his feet were shod with gold-embroidered red Turkish slippers. ”

“ The tradition of Sappho's Æolian grave, preserved in the Anthology, indicates strongly that she died a peaceful death on her own island. "Sappho," says Edwin Arnold, "loved, and loved more than once, 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, worse steeps than Leucate down which the heart may fall; and colder seas of despair than the Adriatic in which to engulf it." ”