In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provencal trouba dours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art upon the beauty of color, the
voluptuous
charms of the flesh.
Universal Anthology - v03
In the daytime they hid themselves, and rested in the most pri vate places they could find; but at night they sallied out into the roads, and killed all the Helotes they could meet with.
Nay, sometimes by day, they fell upon them in the fields and murdered the ablest and strongest of them.
Thucydides re lates in his history of the Peloponnesian war, that the Spartans selected such of them as were distinguished for their courage, to the number of two thousand or more, declared them free, crowned them with garlands, and conducted them to the temples of the gods ; but soon after they all disappeared ; and no one could, either then or since, give account in what manner they were destroyed.
Aristotle particularly says, that the Ephori, as soon as they were invested in their office, declared war against the Helotes, that they might be massacred under pretense of law.
120 A MARTIAL ODE.
In other respects they treated them with great inhumanity: sometimes they made them drink till they were intoxicated, and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young men what drunkenness was. They ordered them, too, to sing mean songs, and to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel and graceful. Those who say that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of states.
A MARTIAL ODE. By TYRTilUS.
[Ttbt^us, Greek elegiac poet, was a native of Attica, and lived about b. c. 700. The Lacedaemonians applied to the Athenians for a commander to lead them in the second Messenian war. They were presented with Tyrtaeus. The war lyrics which he composed so animated the flagging spirits of the Spartan troops that they renewed the contest, and ultimately secured a complete triumph to their arms. }
(Thomas Campbell's Translation. )
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land !
But oh ! what ills await the wretch that yields, A recreant outcast from his country's fields ! The mother whom he loves shall quit her home, An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe ;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face, They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed ! dishonoring manhood's form, All ills shall cleave to him : affliction's storm Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years, Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name, And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life blood where we stand, To save our children : — fight ye side by side, And serried close, ye men of youthful pride, Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
A MARTIAL ODE.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears ;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
(Polwhele's Translation. )
If, fighting for his dear paternal soil, The soldier in the front of battle fall ;
Tis not in fickle fortune to despoil
His store of fame, that shines the charge of alL
But oppressed by penury, he rove
Far from his native town and fertile plain,
And lead the sharer of his fondest love,
In youth too tender, with her infant train
And if his aged mother — his shrunk sire Join the sad group so many bitter ill
Against the houseless family conspire,
And all the measure of the wretched fill.
Pale, shivering want, companion of his way, He meets the luster of no pitying eye
To hunger and dire infamy prey —
Dark hatred scowls, and scorn quick passes by.
Alas no traits of beauty or of birth — No blush now lingers in his sunken face Dies every feeling (as he roams o'er earth)
Of shame transmitted to wandering race.
But be ours to guard this hallowed spot, To shield the tender offspring and the wife
Here steadily await our destined lot,
And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life.
;
! it
if,
a
a
;
;
;
;
a
122 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Anecdotes and Aphorisms op EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
By DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
[Diogenes, of Laerte In Alicia, wrote — probably about a. d. 200-250 — a book of biographies of Greek philosophers, from which, scrappy and confused as it is, nearly all our knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy is derived. There are reasons for thinking that the extant book is not the original, but a clumsy compilation from it. ]
Thales.
Being asked why he did not become a father, he answered that it was because he was fond of children. When his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, " It is not yet time," and after wards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, " It is no longer time. "
He thanked fortune for three things : first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast ; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.
It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself ; on which the old woman said to him, " Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven ? " [For a better form of this, see Bacon's "Apothegms. "]
He said also that there was no difference between life and death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you die ? " "Because," said he, "it does make no difference. "
Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he.
An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he had not committed adultery. " Perjury," said he, " is no worse than adultery. "
When the question was put to"him how a man might most easily endure misfortune, he said, If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still. "
When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, " If we never do ourselves what we blame in
others. " " The apothegm,
Know thyself," is his.
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 123
Solon.
Laws are like cobwebs : if anything small or weak falls into them, they hold it fast ; if of any size, it breaks the meshes and escapes.
Kings' favorites are like the pebbles used in calculating : the masters make them count for more or less as they will.
When asked how public wrongs could be prevented, he answered, " If those not injured feel as much resentment as those who are. "
Wealth gluts men, and satiety makes them insolent.
Maxims of conduct : Consider your honor as a gentleman of more weight than an oath. Never lie. Attend to serious affairs. Do not be hasty either in making friends or discard ing them. [See Hesiod. ] Wield authority only after you have learned to obey it. Do not give agreeable advice, but good advice. Be guided by reason. Keep out of bad com pany. Honor the gods and your parents.
When lamenting his dead son, some one told him, "Your weeping does no good. " He replied, "That is why I weep — because it does no good. "
Cedxo.
He said to his brother, angry at not being made an Ephor while he (Chilo) was one, " It is because I know how to bear injustice, and you do not. "
Educated men differ from ignorant ones in the rationality of their hopes.
The three hardest things are to keep secrets, to make good use of leisure, and to be able to bear injustice.
Rule your tongue, especially at banquets, and do not speak ill of neighbors.
Threaten no one : that is a woman's trick.
Visit your friends more promptly in adversity than in pros perity.
Do not speak evil of the dead.
Watch yourself.
Choose punishment rather than dishonest gain : the former
is painful but once, the latter all one's life.
Do not deride any one in misfortune.
If you are powerful, be also kind, so that others may respect
rather than fear you.
124 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Learn to order your own household well. Do not let your tongue outrun your sense. Restrain anger. Do not wish im possibilities. Do not hasten too fast on your road. Obey the laws.
Gold is tested by hard stones ; men are tested by gold. Security, then destruction.
He said the one action of his of which he doubted the jus
tice, was voting as a juryman against a friend according to law, but inducing another to vote for and acquit him.
PlTtACUS.
Power shows the man.
The best course is to do well what one is doing at the moment.
It is the part of wise men to provide that perilous junctures shall not arise ; of brave men, to make the best of them when arisen.
Do not tell your designs beforehand: you will be laughed at if you fail.
Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but your enemies.
Watch your chance.
Alcaeus, his contemporary, appears to have loved him. He says Pittacus was splay-footed, dragged his feet in walking, and had scars on them ; put on airs without cause ; was fat, weak-eyed, dirty, and lazy. As another authority says he ground corn for exercise, the poet may have exaggerated.
Bias.
The hardest thing is to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity.
He said he would rather be umpire between his enemies than his friends, " For out of two friends I am sure to make one enemy; while out of two enemies I stand to make one friend. "
Men should live as though they were to live a long time and a short one both [for fear evil results of conduct would bring a long punishment, for fear there would be little time to
work or amend].
Men should love each other as if they might yet come to
hate each other.
Choose your course deliberately, then pursue it firmly.
THE LEGEND OP ARION. 125
THE LEGEND OF ARION. By HERODOTUS.
(Translated by Canon Rawlinson. )
[Herodotus : A celebrated Greek historian, sumamed " The Father of History " ; born between b. c. 490 and b. c. 480, at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. While his country was being oppressed by the tyrant Lygdamis, he withdrew to Samos, and subsequently traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Having later assisted in the expulsion of Lygdamis, he took part in the coloni zation of Thurii in southern Italy, and gave public readings from his writings. He died about b. c. 426. His monumental work, "The Histories," consists of nine books, named from the nine Muses, and treats of the history of the Greeks and barbarians from the Persian invasion of Greece down to b. c. 479, as well as to some extent of the history, traditions, geography, manners, and customs of other nations which came in contact with Greece. It marks the beginning of historical writing among the Greeks. ]
Periander was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said to have happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it its name, and to recite in it at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
He had lived for many years at the court of Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money. But they refused ; and required him either to kill himself outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself.
126
THE LEGEND OF ARION.
Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel; while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his harp, and standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dol phin, they say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician's dress, and told all that had happened to him.
Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him, and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians gave; and there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion's at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a dolphin.
[The story was apparently invented from the statue, which was one of Apollo. There is extant a short hymn in which the writer thanks the dolphins for preserving him from death at sea : it is ascribed to Arion, and if his, as Mure thinks, the legend is only a legitimate decoration of the statements in the poem ; though these were doubt less meant figuratively, to express having been saved from ship wreck, —the dolphins, which sport around vessels at sea in calm weather, being considered as guardian sub-deities of seafarers, and " to be saved by the dolphins " being a current term for escaping from perils of the sea. The poem is generally thought apocryphal ; but after all, some one must have written and under this interpre tation as likely to have been Arion as another. The same may be said of the statue was doubtless personal offering in grati tude for having got safe to land, and why should not the poet have made the offering?
; it
it is
a
it,
ARION. 127
ARION.
By GEORGE ELIOT.
[George Eliot, pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Evans Cross : A famous English novelist ; born in Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. After the death of her father (1840) she settled in London, where she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851). In 1864 she formed a union with George Henry Lewes, and after his death married, in 1880, John Walter Cross. " Scenes of Clerical Life" first established her reputation as a writer, and was followed by the novels "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Marner," "Rom- ola," "Felix Holt," "Middlemarch," and "Daniel Deronda. " Among her other works may be mentioned " The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and the poems "Agatha," " The Legend of Jubal," and "Armgart. "]
Arion, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll
Like forest fires, and sing Olympian suffering,
Had carried his diviner lore From Corinth to the sister shore
Where Greece could largelier be, Branching o'er Italy.
Then, weighted with his glorious name And bags of gold, aboard he came
'Mid harsh seafaring men To Corinth bound again.
The sailors eyed the bags and thought : "The gold is good, the man is naught—
And who shall track the wave That opens for his grave ? "
With brawny arms and cruel eyes They press around him where he lies
In sleep beside his lyre, Hearing the Muses quire.
He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death Breaking the dream that filled his breath
With the inspiration strong Of yet unchanted song.
" Take, take my gold and let me live ! " He prayed as kings do when they give
Their all with royal will, Holding born kingship stilL
ARION.
To rob the living they refuse,
One death or other he must choose,
Either the watery pall Or wounds and burial.
" My solemn robe then let me don, Give me high space to stand upon,
That dying I may pour A song unsung before. "
It pleased them well to grant this prayer, To hear for naught how it might fare
With men who paid their gold For what a poet sold.
In flowing stole, his eyes aglow
With inward fire, he neared the prow
And took his godlike stand, The cithara in hand.
The wolfish men all shrank aloof, And feared this singer might be proof
Against their murderous power, After his lyric hour.
But he, in liberty of song, Fearless of death or other wrong,
With full spondaic toll
Poured forth his mighty soul :
Poured forth the strain his dream had taught, A nome with lofty passion fraught
Such as makes battles won On fields of Marathon.
The last long vowels trembled then As awe within those wolfish men : They said, with mutual stare,
Some god was present there.
But lo ! Arion leaped on high, Ready, his descant done, to die ;
Cotasking, "Is it well? " Like a pierced eagle fell.
SAPPHO AND THE ^OLIAN STOCK. 129
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. By J. A. SYMONDS.
[John Addington Stmonds, English man of letters, was born October 5, 1840 ; graduated at Balliol College, Oxford. He wrote " Introduction to the Study of Dante" (1872) ; "Studies of the Greek Poets" (1873-1876) ; "The Renaissance in Italy " (six volumes, 1875-1886) ; " Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama" (1884); "Life of Michelangelo" (1892); several vol umes of poetry ; translated Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography ; etc. He died April 18, 1893, at Rome. ]
Fob a certain space of time, the JSolians occupied the very foreground of Greek literature, and blazed out with a brilliance of lyrical splendor that has never been surpassed. There seems to have been something passionate and intense in their temper ament, which made the emotions of the Dorian and the Ionian feeble by comparison. Lesbos, the centre of . <Eolian culture, was the island of overmastering passions: the personality of the Greek race burned there with a fierce and steady flame of con centrated feeling. The energies which the Ionians divided between pleasure, politics, trade, legislation, science, and the arts, and which the Dorians turned to war and statecraft and social economy, were restrained by the ^Eolians within the sphere of individual emotions, ready to burst forth volcanically. Nowhere in any age of Greek history, or in any part of Hellas, did the love of physical beauty, the sensibility to radiant scenes of nature, the consuming fervor of personal feeling, assume such grand proportions and receive so illustrious an expression as they did in Lesbos.
At first this passion blossomed into the most exquisite lyrical poetry that the world has known: this was the flower time of the -<Eolians, their brief and brilliant spring. But the fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. Lesbos became a byword for cor ruption. The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeousness of art, burning their envelope of words and images, remained a mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in human life could be expected.
In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provencal trouba dours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art upon the beauty of color, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic
passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as VOL. m. — 9
130 SAPPHO AND THE iEOLIAN STOCK.
its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
Several circumstances contributed to aid the development of lyric poetry in Lesbos. The customs of the iEolians permitted more social and domestic freedom than was common in Greece. ^Eolian women were not confined to the harem like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history — until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. They formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the arts of beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by public opinion, and pas sionate for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emo tions, and indulged their wildest passions.
All the luxuries and elegances of life which that climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal: exquisite gardens, where the rose and hyacinth spread perfume ; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maidenhair; pine-tree-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of the tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sun and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months ; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory ; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these the Lesbian poets lived, and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. Nor was a brief but biting winter wanting to give tone to their nerves, and, by contrast with the summer, to prevent the palling of so much luxury on sated senses. The voluptuousness of ^Eolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion, tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness. All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion.
The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss
Sappho
Photogravure from the painting by Alma Tadema
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. 131
of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments pre served in Bergk's "Collection" — the line, for example, which Ben Jonson fancifully translated, "the dear glad angel of the spring, the nightingale" — that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been. Among the ancients Sappho enjoyed a unique renown. She was called "The Poetess," as Homer was called "The Poet. " Aristotle quoted without question a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plato in the "Phaedrus" mentioned her as the tenth muse. Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death till he had learned it. Strabo speaks of her genius with religious awe. Longinus cites her love ode as a specimen of poetical sublimity. The epigrammatists call her Child of Aphrodite and Eros, nursling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas, peer of Muses, companion of Apollo. Nowhere is a hint whispered that her poetry was aught but perfect. As far as we can judge, these praises were strictly just. Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring. Even Archilochus seems commonplace when compared with her exquisite rarity of phrase.
About her life — her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcaeus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff — we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythol ogy and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worth while to rake up once again the old materials for hypo thetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring pas sion in Sappho's own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas. The reality casts all fiction into the shade; for nowhere, except, perhaps, in some Persian or Provencal love songs, can be found more ardent expressions of overmas tering emotion. Whether addressing the maidens, whom even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget; or em bodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty, which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of noblest poets, robbing their eyes of sleep and giving them the bitterness of tears to drink —these dazzling fragments,
Which still, like sparkles of Greek fire, Burn on through time and ne'er expire,
132 SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK.
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance, dia monds, topazes, and blazing rubies, in which the fire of the soul is crystalized forever.
Bt HENRY T. WHARTON.
Sappho, the one great woman poet of the world, who called herself Psappha in her own iEolic dialect, is said to have been at the zenith of her fame about the year 610 B. C. During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to prophesy (628 B. C. ), Daniel was carried away to Babylon (606 B. C. ), Nebuchadnezzar be sieged and captured Jerusalem (587 B. C. ), Solon was legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
Two centuries have sufficed to obscure most of the events in the life of Shakspere; it can hardly be expected that the lapse of twenty-five centuries should have left many authentic records of the history of Sappho. Little even of that internal evidence upon which biography may rely can be gathered from her extant poems, in such fragmentary form have they come down to us. Save for the quotations of grammarians and lexicographers, no word of hers would have survived. Yet her writings seem to have been preserved intact till at least the third century of our era ; for Athenaeus, who wrote about that time, applies to himself the words of the Athenian comic poet Epicrates in his "Anti Lais" (about 360 B. C. ), saying that he, too,
Had learned by heart completely all the songs Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang.
Scaliger says, although there does not seem to exist any confirmatory evidence, that the works of Sappho and other lyric poets were burnt at Constantinople and at Rome in the year 1073, in the popedom of Gregory VII. Cardan says the burning took place under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 a. d. And Petrus Alcydrius says that he heard when a boy that very many of the works of the Greek poets were burnt by order of the Byzantine emperors, and the poems of Gregory Nazianzen circulated in their stead. Bishop Blomfield thinks they must all have been destroyed at an early date, because neither Alcaeus nor Sappho was annotated by any of the later gram marians. " Few, indeed, but those roses," as the poet Meleager said, and the precious verses that the zeal of anti-paganism has spared to us.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 133
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
(From the collection of Henry T. Wharton ; the prose translations by him. ) I.
Hymn to Aphrodite.
Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne [Poikildthron, sometimes printed PoikUdphron, various-minded], 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, earnest with chariot yoked, and fair, fleet sparrows drew thee, flap ping 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 weak 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 live; 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, accom plish thou, and be thyself my ally.
(Translation of J. H. Merivale. )
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,
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
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 this, dread goddess ? Oh, Come then once more to ease my woe ; Grant all, and thy great self bestow,
My shield and guide !
(Translation of J. A. Symonds. )
Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite, Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee, Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish !
But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listenedst to my crying, And from thy father's palace down descending,
Camest with golden
Chariot yoked : the fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering, Pinion on pinion, thorough middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.
Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady, Smiling with clear undying eyes didst ask me What was the woe that troubled me, and wherefore
I had cried to thee :
What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul ; and whom now must I persuade, thou askedst, Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee ?
Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee ; Yea, if he take not gifts he soon shall give them ; Yea, if he love not, soon shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.
Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow Free me, and all things that my soul desires to Have done, do for me, queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally !
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 135
(Translation of Francis T. Palgrave. )
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' ethereal 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 touched by me ; Passion-charmed in frenzy strong,
Who hath wrought my Sappho wrong ?
" Soon for flight pursuit wilt find Proffered gifts for gifts declined ; Soon, through long resistance earned, Love refused be love returned. "
To thy suppliant so returning, Consummate a maiden's yearning ; Love, from deep despair set free, Championing to Victory !
n.
To Anactoria.
That man seems to me peer of gods who sits in thy presence and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling
I am paler than grass, and seem in my mad ness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one
seizes all my body ; so poor —
136
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
(Translation by W. E. Gladstone of Catullus' imitation. )
Him rival to the gods I place, Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,
Who listens and who looks on thee ;
Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight Doth all my sense consign to death ;
For when thou dawnest on my sight,
Ah, wretched ! flits my laboring breath.
My tongue is palsied. Subtly hid,
Fire creeps me through from limb to limb ;
My loud ears tingle all unbid ;
Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim.
m.
The stars about the bright moon in their turn hide their bright faces when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver.
rv.
And round about the [breeze? ] murmurs cool through apple boughs, and slumber streams from quivering leaves.
v.
For they whom I benefit injure me most
VL
When anger spreads through the breast, guard thy tongue from barking idly.
(Translation of "Michael Field. ")
When through thy breast wild wrath doth spread And work thy inmost being harm,
Leave thou the fiery word unsaid, Guard thee, be calm.
VII.
Hadst thou felt desire for things good or noble, and had not thy tongue framed some evil speech, shame had not filled thine eyes, but thou hadst spoken honestly about it.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
137
[Aristotle, in his " Rhetoric," says : " Base things dishonor those who do or write them," as Sappho showed when Alcaeus said: "Violet-weaving, pure, softly smiling Sappho, I would say some thing, but shame restrains me," and she answered him in the words of the present fragment.
Blass believes that these verses also are Sappho's, not Alcaeus'. Certainly they were quoted as Sappho's by Anna Comnena about 1110 a. d. , as well as by another writer whom Blass refers to. —
Whabton. ]
The Loves of Sappho and Alceus. (Anonymous translation in Edinburgh Review. )
Alcaeus — I fain would speak, I fain would tell, Sappho —But shame and fear my utterance quell.
If aught of good, if aught of fair,
Thy tongue were laboring to declare,
Nor shame should dash thy glance, nor fear Forbid thy suit to reach my ear.
VIII.
I do not think to touch the sky with my two arms.
rx.
And I flutter like a child after her mother.
x.
Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale.
XI.
Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, — fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
XII.
Now Eros shakes my soul, — a wind on the mountain falling on the oaks.
XIII.
The moon has set, and the Pleiades ; it is midnight, the time is going by, and I sleep alone.
■
138 FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
Xrv.
Thus at times with tender feet the Cretan women dance in measure round the fair altar, trampling the fine, soft bloom of the grass.
IT.
And dark-eyed Sleep, child of Night
XVI.
Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea; what shall we do? Beat your breasts, maidens, and rend your hands.
xvir.
But thou shalt ever lie, dead, nor shall there be any remem brance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria; but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting among the shadowy dead.
(Translation of William Cory. )
Woman dead, lie there. No record of thee
Shall there ever be,
Since thou dost not share Roses in Pieria grown.
In the deathful cave,
With the feeble troop
Of the folk that droop,
Lurk and flit and crave, Woman severed and far-flown.
(Paraphrase of A. C. Swinburne. )
Thee, too, the years shall cover : thou shalt be As the rose born of one same blood with thee, As a song sung, as a word said, and fall Flower-wise, and be not any more at all,
Nor any memory of thee anywhere ;
For never thou hast bound above thine hair The high Pierian flowers, whose graft outgrows All summer kinship of the mortal rose
And color of deciduous days, nor shed
Reflex and flush of heaven about thine head.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 139
XVIII.
What country girl bewitches thy heart, who knows not how to draw her dress about her ankles?
XIX.
But if thou lovest us, choose another and a younger bedfellow ; for I will not brook to live with thee — old woman with young man.
xx.
Do thou, Dica, set garlands round thy lovely hair, twining shoots of dill together with soft bands; for those who have fair flowers may best stand first, even in the favor of goddesses, who turn their face away from those who lack garlands.
(Translation of C. D. Tonge. )
But place those garlands on thy lovely hair, Twining the tender sprouts of anise green With skillful hand ; for offerings and flowers Are pleasing to the gods, who hate all those Who come before them with uncrowned heads.
XXI.
I love delicacy, and for me Love has the sun's splendor and beauty.
XXII.
I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, — Cleis, the beloved, above whom I [prize] nor all Lydia nor
lovely [Lesbos].
XXIII.
Sweet mother, I cannot weave my web, broken as I am by long ing for a boy, at soft Aphrodite's will.
(Paraphrase of Moore. )
As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid
In lovesick languor hung her head,
Unknowing where her fingers strayed, She weeping turned away and said :
140
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
" Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain ; I cannot weave as once I wove, So wildered is my heart and brain
With thinking of that youth I love. "
XXIV.
As the sweet apple blushes on the end of the bough, the very end of the bough, which the gatherers overlooked — nay, overlooked not, but could not reach.
(Translation of Francis T. Palgrave. )
O fair — O sweet!
As the sweet apple blooms high on the bough,
High as the highest, forgot of the gatherers, So thou : —
Yet not so : nor forgot of the gatherers ; High o'er their reach in the golden air ;
O sweet — O fair!
xxv.
120 A MARTIAL ODE.
In other respects they treated them with great inhumanity: sometimes they made them drink till they were intoxicated, and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young men what drunkenness was. They ordered them, too, to sing mean songs, and to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel and graceful. Those who say that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of states.
A MARTIAL ODE. By TYRTilUS.
[Ttbt^us, Greek elegiac poet, was a native of Attica, and lived about b. c. 700. The Lacedaemonians applied to the Athenians for a commander to lead them in the second Messenian war. They were presented with Tyrtaeus. The war lyrics which he composed so animated the flagging spirits of the Spartan troops that they renewed the contest, and ultimately secured a complete triumph to their arms. }
(Thomas Campbell's Translation. )
How glorious fall the valiant, sword in hand, In front of battle for their native land !
But oh ! what ills await the wretch that yields, A recreant outcast from his country's fields ! The mother whom he loves shall quit her home, An aged father at his side shall roam;
His little ones shall weeping with him go,
And a young wife participate his woe ;
While scorned and scowled upon by every face, They pine for food, and beg from place to place.
Stain of his breed ! dishonoring manhood's form, All ills shall cleave to him : affliction's storm Shall blind him wandering in the vale of years, Till, lost to all but ignominious fears,
He shall not blush to leave a recreant's name, And children, like himself, inured to shame.
But we will combat for our fathers' land,
And we will drain the life blood where we stand, To save our children : — fight ye side by side, And serried close, ye men of youthful pride, Disdaining fear, and deeming light the cost
Of life itself in glorious battle lost.
A MARTIAL ODE.
Leave not our sires to stem the unequal fight,
Whose limbs are nerved no more with buoyant might; Nor, lagging backward, let the younger breast
Permit the man of age (a sight unblest)
To welter in the combat's foremost thrust,
His hoary head dishevelled in the dust,
And venerable bosom bleeding bare.
But youth's fair form, though fallen, is ever fair,
And beautiful in death the boy appears,
The hero boy, that dies in blooming years:
In man's regret he lives, and woman's tears ;
More sacred than in life, and lovelier far,
For having perished in the front of war.
(Polwhele's Translation. )
If, fighting for his dear paternal soil, The soldier in the front of battle fall ;
Tis not in fickle fortune to despoil
His store of fame, that shines the charge of alL
But oppressed by penury, he rove
Far from his native town and fertile plain,
And lead the sharer of his fondest love,
In youth too tender, with her infant train
And if his aged mother — his shrunk sire Join the sad group so many bitter ill
Against the houseless family conspire,
And all the measure of the wretched fill.
Pale, shivering want, companion of his way, He meets the luster of no pitying eye
To hunger and dire infamy prey —
Dark hatred scowls, and scorn quick passes by.
Alas no traits of beauty or of birth — No blush now lingers in his sunken face Dies every feeling (as he roams o'er earth)
Of shame transmitted to wandering race.
But be ours to guard this hallowed spot, To shield the tender offspring and the wife
Here steadily await our destined lot,
And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life.
;
! it
if,
a
a
;
;
;
;
a
122 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Anecdotes and Aphorisms op EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
By DIOGENES LAERTIUS.
[Diogenes, of Laerte In Alicia, wrote — probably about a. d. 200-250 — a book of biographies of Greek philosophers, from which, scrappy and confused as it is, nearly all our knowledge of the history of ancient philosophy is derived. There are reasons for thinking that the extant book is not the original, but a clumsy compilation from it. ]
Thales.
Being asked why he did not become a father, he answered that it was because he was fond of children. When his mother exhorted him to marry, he said, " It is not yet time," and after wards, when he was past his youth, and she was again pressing him earnestly, he said, " It is no longer time. "
He thanked fortune for three things : first of all, that he had been born a man and not a beast ; secondly, that he was a man and not a woman ; and thirdly, that he was a Greek and not a barbarian.
It is said that once he was led out of his house by an old woman for the purpose of observing the stars, and he fell into a ditch and bewailed himself ; on which the old woman said to him, " Do you, O Thales, who cannot see what is under your feet, think that you shall understand what is in heaven ? " [For a better form of this, see Bacon's "Apothegms. "]
He said also that there was no difference between life and death. " Why, then," said some one to him, " do not you die ? " "Because," said he, "it does make no difference. "
Another man asked him whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the Gods. "No, not even if he thinks wrong," said he.
An adulterer inquired of him whether he should swear that he had not committed adultery. " Perjury," said he, " is no worse than adultery. "
When the question was put to"him how a man might most easily endure misfortune, he said, If he saw his enemies more unfortunate still. "
When asked how men might live most virtuously and most justly, he said, " If we never do ourselves what we blame in
others. " " The apothegm,
Know thyself," is his.
EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 123
Solon.
Laws are like cobwebs : if anything small or weak falls into them, they hold it fast ; if of any size, it breaks the meshes and escapes.
Kings' favorites are like the pebbles used in calculating : the masters make them count for more or less as they will.
When asked how public wrongs could be prevented, he answered, " If those not injured feel as much resentment as those who are. "
Wealth gluts men, and satiety makes them insolent.
Maxims of conduct : Consider your honor as a gentleman of more weight than an oath. Never lie. Attend to serious affairs. Do not be hasty either in making friends or discard ing them. [See Hesiod. ] Wield authority only after you have learned to obey it. Do not give agreeable advice, but good advice. Be guided by reason. Keep out of bad com pany. Honor the gods and your parents.
When lamenting his dead son, some one told him, "Your weeping does no good. " He replied, "That is why I weep — because it does no good. "
Cedxo.
He said to his brother, angry at not being made an Ephor while he (Chilo) was one, " It is because I know how to bear injustice, and you do not. "
Educated men differ from ignorant ones in the rationality of their hopes.
The three hardest things are to keep secrets, to make good use of leisure, and to be able to bear injustice.
Rule your tongue, especially at banquets, and do not speak ill of neighbors.
Threaten no one : that is a woman's trick.
Visit your friends more promptly in adversity than in pros perity.
Do not speak evil of the dead.
Watch yourself.
Choose punishment rather than dishonest gain : the former
is painful but once, the latter all one's life.
Do not deride any one in misfortune.
If you are powerful, be also kind, so that others may respect
rather than fear you.
124 EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS.
Learn to order your own household well. Do not let your tongue outrun your sense. Restrain anger. Do not wish im possibilities. Do not hasten too fast on your road. Obey the laws.
Gold is tested by hard stones ; men are tested by gold. Security, then destruction.
He said the one action of his of which he doubted the jus
tice, was voting as a juryman against a friend according to law, but inducing another to vote for and acquit him.
PlTtACUS.
Power shows the man.
The best course is to do well what one is doing at the moment.
It is the part of wise men to provide that perilous junctures shall not arise ; of brave men, to make the best of them when arisen.
Do not tell your designs beforehand: you will be laughed at if you fail.
Forbear to speak evil not only of your friends, but your enemies.
Watch your chance.
Alcaeus, his contemporary, appears to have loved him. He says Pittacus was splay-footed, dragged his feet in walking, and had scars on them ; put on airs without cause ; was fat, weak-eyed, dirty, and lazy. As another authority says he ground corn for exercise, the poet may have exaggerated.
Bias.
The hardest thing is to bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity.
He said he would rather be umpire between his enemies than his friends, " For out of two friends I am sure to make one enemy; while out of two enemies I stand to make one friend. "
Men should live as though they were to live a long time and a short one both [for fear evil results of conduct would bring a long punishment, for fear there would be little time to
work or amend].
Men should love each other as if they might yet come to
hate each other.
Choose your course deliberately, then pursue it firmly.
THE LEGEND OP ARION. 125
THE LEGEND OF ARION. By HERODOTUS.
(Translated by Canon Rawlinson. )
[Herodotus : A celebrated Greek historian, sumamed " The Father of History " ; born between b. c. 490 and b. c. 480, at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor. While his country was being oppressed by the tyrant Lygdamis, he withdrew to Samos, and subsequently traveled extensively in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Having later assisted in the expulsion of Lygdamis, he took part in the coloni zation of Thurii in southern Italy, and gave public readings from his writings. He died about b. c. 426. His monumental work, "The Histories," consists of nine books, named from the nine Muses, and treats of the history of the Greeks and barbarians from the Persian invasion of Greece down to b. c. 479, as well as to some extent of the history, traditions, geography, manners, and customs of other nations which came in contact with Greece. It marks the beginning of historical writing among the Greeks. ]
Periander was son of Cypselus, and tyrant of Corinth. In his time a very wonderful thing is said to have happened. The Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of the matter. They relate that Arion of Methymna, who as a player on the harp was second to no man living at that time, and who was, so far as we know, the first to invent the dithyrambic measure, to give it its name, and to recite in it at Corinth, was carried to Taenarum on the back of a dolphin.
He had lived for many years at the court of Periander, when a longing came upon him to sail across to Italy and Sicily. Having made rich profits in those parts, he wanted to recross the seas to Corinth. He therefore hired a vessel, the crew of which were Corinthians, thinking that there was no people in whom he could more safely confide; and going on board, he set sail from Tarentum. The sailors, however, when they reached the open sea, formed a plot to throw him overboard and seize upon his riches. Discovering their design, he fell on his knees, beseeching them to spare his life, and making them welcome to his money. But they refused ; and required him either to kill himself outright, if he wished for a grave on the dry land, or without loss of time to leap overboard into the sea. In this strait Arion begged them, since such was their pleasure, to allow him to mount upon the quarter-deck, dressed in his full costume, and there to play and sing, promising that as soon as his song was ended, he would destroy himself.
126
THE LEGEND OF ARION.
Delighted at the prospect of hearing the very best harper in the world, they consented, and withdrew from the stern to the middle of the vessel; while Arion dressed himself in the full costume of his calling, took his harp, and standing on the quarter-deck, chanted the Orthian. His strain ended, he flung himself, fully attired as he was, headlong into the sea. The Corinthians then sailed on to Corinth. As for Arion, a dol phin, they say, took him upon his back and carried him to Taenarum, where he went ashore, and thence proceeded to Corinth in his musician's dress, and told all that had happened to him.
Periander, however, disbelieved the story, and put Arion in ward, to prevent his leaving Corinth, while he watched anxiously for the return of the mariners. On their arrival he summoned them before him, and asked them if they could give him any tidings of Arion. They returned for answer that he was alive and in good health in Italy, and that they had left him at Tarentum, where he was doing well. Thereupon Arion appeared before them, just as he was when he jumped from the vessel: the men, astonished and detected in falsehood, could no longer deny their guilt. Such is the account which the Corinthians and Lesbians gave; and there is to this day at Taenarum an offering of Arion's at the shrine, which is a small figure in bronze, representing a man seated upon a dolphin.
[The story was apparently invented from the statue, which was one of Apollo. There is extant a short hymn in which the writer thanks the dolphins for preserving him from death at sea : it is ascribed to Arion, and if his, as Mure thinks, the legend is only a legitimate decoration of the statements in the poem ; though these were doubt less meant figuratively, to express having been saved from ship wreck, —the dolphins, which sport around vessels at sea in calm weather, being considered as guardian sub-deities of seafarers, and " to be saved by the dolphins " being a current term for escaping from perils of the sea. The poem is generally thought apocryphal ; but after all, some one must have written and under this interpre tation as likely to have been Arion as another. The same may be said of the statue was doubtless personal offering in grati tude for having got safe to land, and why should not the poet have made the offering?
; it
it is
a
it,
ARION. 127
ARION.
By GEORGE ELIOT.
[George Eliot, pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Evans Cross : A famous English novelist ; born in Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. After the death of her father (1840) she settled in London, where she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851). In 1864 she formed a union with George Henry Lewes, and after his death married, in 1880, John Walter Cross. " Scenes of Clerical Life" first established her reputation as a writer, and was followed by the novels "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Silas Marner," "Rom- ola," "Felix Holt," "Middlemarch," and "Daniel Deronda. " Among her other works may be mentioned " The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and the poems "Agatha," " The Legend of Jubal," and "Armgart. "]
Arion, whose melodic soul Taught the dithyramb to roll
Like forest fires, and sing Olympian suffering,
Had carried his diviner lore From Corinth to the sister shore
Where Greece could largelier be, Branching o'er Italy.
Then, weighted with his glorious name And bags of gold, aboard he came
'Mid harsh seafaring men To Corinth bound again.
The sailors eyed the bags and thought : "The gold is good, the man is naught—
And who shall track the wave That opens for his grave ? "
With brawny arms and cruel eyes They press around him where he lies
In sleep beside his lyre, Hearing the Muses quire.
He waked and saw this wolf-faced Death Breaking the dream that filled his breath
With the inspiration strong Of yet unchanted song.
" Take, take my gold and let me live ! " He prayed as kings do when they give
Their all with royal will, Holding born kingship stilL
ARION.
To rob the living they refuse,
One death or other he must choose,
Either the watery pall Or wounds and burial.
" My solemn robe then let me don, Give me high space to stand upon,
That dying I may pour A song unsung before. "
It pleased them well to grant this prayer, To hear for naught how it might fare
With men who paid their gold For what a poet sold.
In flowing stole, his eyes aglow
With inward fire, he neared the prow
And took his godlike stand, The cithara in hand.
The wolfish men all shrank aloof, And feared this singer might be proof
Against their murderous power, After his lyric hour.
But he, in liberty of song, Fearless of death or other wrong,
With full spondaic toll
Poured forth his mighty soul :
Poured forth the strain his dream had taught, A nome with lofty passion fraught
Such as makes battles won On fields of Marathon.
The last long vowels trembled then As awe within those wolfish men : They said, with mutual stare,
Some god was present there.
But lo ! Arion leaped on high, Ready, his descant done, to die ;
Cotasking, "Is it well? " Like a pierced eagle fell.
SAPPHO AND THE ^OLIAN STOCK. 129
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. By J. A. SYMONDS.
[John Addington Stmonds, English man of letters, was born October 5, 1840 ; graduated at Balliol College, Oxford. He wrote " Introduction to the Study of Dante" (1872) ; "Studies of the Greek Poets" (1873-1876) ; "The Renaissance in Italy " (six volumes, 1875-1886) ; " Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama" (1884); "Life of Michelangelo" (1892); several vol umes of poetry ; translated Benvenuto Cellini's autobiography ; etc. He died April 18, 1893, at Rome. ]
Fob a certain space of time, the JSolians occupied the very foreground of Greek literature, and blazed out with a brilliance of lyrical splendor that has never been surpassed. There seems to have been something passionate and intense in their temper ament, which made the emotions of the Dorian and the Ionian feeble by comparison. Lesbos, the centre of . <Eolian culture, was the island of overmastering passions: the personality of the Greek race burned there with a fierce and steady flame of con centrated feeling. The energies which the Ionians divided between pleasure, politics, trade, legislation, science, and the arts, and which the Dorians turned to war and statecraft and social economy, were restrained by the ^Eolians within the sphere of individual emotions, ready to burst forth volcanically. Nowhere in any age of Greek history, or in any part of Hellas, did the love of physical beauty, the sensibility to radiant scenes of nature, the consuming fervor of personal feeling, assume such grand proportions and receive so illustrious an expression as they did in Lesbos.
At first this passion blossomed into the most exquisite lyrical poetry that the world has known: this was the flower time of the -<Eolians, their brief and brilliant spring. But the fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. Lesbos became a byword for cor ruption. The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeousness of art, burning their envelope of words and images, remained a mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in human life could be expected.
In this the Lesbian poets were not unlike the Provencal trouba dours, who made a literature of love, or the Venetian painters, who based their art upon the beauty of color, the voluptuous charms of the flesh. In each case the motive of enthusiastic
passion sufficed to produce a dazzling result. But as soon as VOL. m. — 9
130 SAPPHO AND THE iEOLIAN STOCK.
its freshness was exhausted there was nothing left for art to live on, and mere decadence to sensuality ensued.
Several circumstances contributed to aid the development of lyric poetry in Lesbos. The customs of the iEolians permitted more social and domestic freedom than was common in Greece. ^Eolian women were not confined to the harem like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history — until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. They formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the arts of beauty, and sought to refine metrical forms and diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by public opinion, and pas sionate for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emo tions, and indulged their wildest passions.
All the luxuries and elegances of life which that climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal: exquisite gardens, where the rose and hyacinth spread perfume ; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maidenhair; pine-tree-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of the tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sun and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months ; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory ; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these the Lesbian poets lived, and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and lights of that luxurious land distilled in verse. Nor was a brief but biting winter wanting to give tone to their nerves, and, by contrast with the summer, to prevent the palling of so much luxury on sated senses. The voluptuousness of ^Eolian poetry is not like that of Persian or Arabian art. It is Greek in its self-restraint, proportion, tact. We find nothing burdensome in its sweetness. All is so rhythmically and sublimely ordered in the poems of Sappho that supreme art lends solemnity and grandeur to the expression of unmitigated passion.
The world has suffered no greater literary loss than the loss
Sappho
Photogravure from the painting by Alma Tadema
SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK. 131
of Sappho's poems. So perfect are the smallest fragments pre served in Bergk's "Collection" — the line, for example, which Ben Jonson fancifully translated, "the dear glad angel of the spring, the nightingale" — that we muse in a sad rapture of astonishment to think what the complete poems must have been. Among the ancients Sappho enjoyed a unique renown. She was called "The Poetess," as Homer was called "The Poet. " Aristotle quoted without question a judgment that placed her in the same rank as Homer and Archilochus. Plato in the "Phaedrus" mentioned her as the tenth muse. Solon, hearing one of her poems, prayed that he might not see death till he had learned it. Strabo speaks of her genius with religious awe. Longinus cites her love ode as a specimen of poetical sublimity. The epigrammatists call her Child of Aphrodite and Eros, nursling of the Graces and Persuasion, pride of Hellas, peer of Muses, companion of Apollo. Nowhere is a hint whispered that her poetry was aught but perfect. As far as we can judge, these praises were strictly just. Of all the poets of the world, of all the illustrious artists of all literatures, Sappho is the one whose every word has a peculiar and unmistakable perfume, a seal of absolute perfection and inimitable grace. In her art she was unerring. Even Archilochus seems commonplace when compared with her exquisite rarity of phrase.
About her life — her brother Charaxus, her daughter Cleis, her rejection of Alcaeus and her suit to Phaon, her love for Atthis and Anactoria, her leap from the Leucadian cliff — we know so very little, and that little is so confused with mythol ogy and turbid with the scandal of the comic poets, that it is not worth while to rake up once again the old materials for hypo thetical conclusions. There is enough of heart-devouring pas sion in Sappho's own verse without the legends of Phaon and the cliff of Leucas. The reality casts all fiction into the shade; for nowhere, except, perhaps, in some Persian or Provencal love songs, can be found more ardent expressions of overmas tering emotion. Whether addressing the maidens, whom even in Elysium, as Horace says, Sappho could not forget; or em bodying the profounder yearnings of an intense soul after beauty, which has never on earth existed, but which inflames the hearts of noblest poets, robbing their eyes of sleep and giving them the bitterness of tears to drink —these dazzling fragments,
Which still, like sparkles of Greek fire, Burn on through time and ne'er expire,
132 SAPPHO AND THE . EOLIAN STOCK.
are the ultimate and finished forms of passionate utterance, dia monds, topazes, and blazing rubies, in which the fire of the soul is crystalized forever.
Bt HENRY T. WHARTON.
Sappho, the one great woman poet of the world, who called herself Psappha in her own iEolic dialect, is said to have been at the zenith of her fame about the year 610 B. C. During her lifetime Jeremiah first began to prophesy (628 B. C. ), Daniel was carried away to Babylon (606 B. C. ), Nebuchadnezzar be sieged and captured Jerusalem (587 B. C. ), Solon was legislating at Athens, and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king, is said to have been reigning over Rome. She lived before the birth of Gautama, the founder of Buddhism.
Two centuries have sufficed to obscure most of the events in the life of Shakspere; it can hardly be expected that the lapse of twenty-five centuries should have left many authentic records of the history of Sappho. Little even of that internal evidence upon which biography may rely can be gathered from her extant poems, in such fragmentary form have they come down to us. Save for the quotations of grammarians and lexicographers, no word of hers would have survived. Yet her writings seem to have been preserved intact till at least the third century of our era ; for Athenaeus, who wrote about that time, applies to himself the words of the Athenian comic poet Epicrates in his "Anti Lais" (about 360 B. C. ), saying that he, too,
Had learned by heart completely all the songs Breathing of love which sweetest Sappho sang.
Scaliger says, although there does not seem to exist any confirmatory evidence, that the works of Sappho and other lyric poets were burnt at Constantinople and at Rome in the year 1073, in the popedom of Gregory VII. Cardan says the burning took place under Gregory Nazianzen, about 380 a. d. And Petrus Alcydrius says that he heard when a boy that very many of the works of the Greek poets were burnt by order of the Byzantine emperors, and the poems of Gregory Nazianzen circulated in their stead. Bishop Blomfield thinks they must all have been destroyed at an early date, because neither Alcaeus nor Sappho was annotated by any of the later gram marians. " Few, indeed, but those roses," as the poet Meleager said, and the precious verses that the zeal of anti-paganism has spared to us.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 133
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
(From the collection of Henry T. Wharton ; the prose translations by him. ) I.
Hymn to Aphrodite.
Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne [Poikildthron, sometimes printed PoikUdphron, various-minded], 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, earnest with chariot yoked, and fair, fleet sparrows drew thee, flap ping 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 weak 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 live; 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, accom plish thou, and be thyself my ally.
(Translation of J. H. Merivale. )
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,
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
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 this, dread goddess ? Oh, Come then once more to ease my woe ; Grant all, and thy great self bestow,
My shield and guide !
(Translation of J. A. Symonds. )
Glittering-throned, undying Aphrodite, Wile-weaving daughter of high Zeus, I pray thee, Tame not my soul with heavy woe, dread mistress,
Nay, nor with anguish !
But hither come, if ever erst of old time
Thou didst incline, and listenedst to my crying, And from thy father's palace down descending,
Camest with golden
Chariot yoked : the fair swift-flying sparrows
Over dark earth with multitudinous fluttering, Pinion on pinion, thorough middle ether
Down from heaven hurried.
Quickly they came like light, and thou, blest lady, Smiling with clear undying eyes didst ask me What was the woe that troubled me, and wherefore
I had cried to thee :
What thing I longed for to appease my frantic
Soul ; and whom now must I persuade, thou askedst, Whom must entangle to thy love, and who now,
Sappho, hath wronged thee ?
Yea, for if now he shun, he soon shall chase thee ; Yea, if he take not gifts he soon shall give them ; Yea, if he love not, soon shall he begin to
Love thee, unwilling.
Come to me now too, and from tyrannous sorrow Free me, and all things that my soul desires to Have done, do for me, queen, and let thyself too
Be my great ally !
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 135
(Translation of Francis T. Palgrave. )
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' ethereal 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 touched by me ; Passion-charmed in frenzy strong,
Who hath wrought my Sappho wrong ?
" Soon for flight pursuit wilt find Proffered gifts for gifts declined ; Soon, through long resistance earned, Love refused be love returned. "
To thy suppliant so returning, Consummate a maiden's yearning ; Love, from deep despair set free, Championing to Victory !
n.
To Anactoria.
That man seems to me peer of gods who sits in thy presence and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed makes my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling
I am paler than grass, and seem in my mad ness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one
seizes all my body ; so poor —
136
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
(Translation by W. E. Gladstone of Catullus' imitation. )
Him rival to the gods I place, Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,
Who listens and who looks on thee ;
Thee smiling soft. Yet this delight Doth all my sense consign to death ;
For when thou dawnest on my sight,
Ah, wretched ! flits my laboring breath.
My tongue is palsied. Subtly hid,
Fire creeps me through from limb to limb ;
My loud ears tingle all unbid ;
Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim.
m.
The stars about the bright moon in their turn hide their bright faces when she at about her full lights up all earth with silver.
rv.
And round about the [breeze? ] murmurs cool through apple boughs, and slumber streams from quivering leaves.
v.
For they whom I benefit injure me most
VL
When anger spreads through the breast, guard thy tongue from barking idly.
(Translation of "Michael Field. ")
When through thy breast wild wrath doth spread And work thy inmost being harm,
Leave thou the fiery word unsaid, Guard thee, be calm.
VII.
Hadst thou felt desire for things good or noble, and had not thy tongue framed some evil speech, shame had not filled thine eyes, but thou hadst spoken honestly about it.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
137
[Aristotle, in his " Rhetoric," says : " Base things dishonor those who do or write them," as Sappho showed when Alcaeus said: "Violet-weaving, pure, softly smiling Sappho, I would say some thing, but shame restrains me," and she answered him in the words of the present fragment.
Blass believes that these verses also are Sappho's, not Alcaeus'. Certainly they were quoted as Sappho's by Anna Comnena about 1110 a. d. , as well as by another writer whom Blass refers to. —
Whabton. ]
The Loves of Sappho and Alceus. (Anonymous translation in Edinburgh Review. )
Alcaeus — I fain would speak, I fain would tell, Sappho —But shame and fear my utterance quell.
If aught of good, if aught of fair,
Thy tongue were laboring to declare,
Nor shame should dash thy glance, nor fear Forbid thy suit to reach my ear.
VIII.
I do not think to touch the sky with my two arms.
rx.
And I flutter like a child after her mother.
x.
Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale.
XI.
Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, — fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
XII.
Now Eros shakes my soul, — a wind on the mountain falling on the oaks.
XIII.
The moon has set, and the Pleiades ; it is midnight, the time is going by, and I sleep alone.
■
138 FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
Xrv.
Thus at times with tender feet the Cretan women dance in measure round the fair altar, trampling the fine, soft bloom of the grass.
IT.
And dark-eyed Sleep, child of Night
XVI.
Delicate Adonis is dying, Cytherea; what shall we do? Beat your breasts, maidens, and rend your hands.
xvir.
But thou shalt ever lie, dead, nor shall there be any remem brance of thee then or thereafter, for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria; but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades, flitting among the shadowy dead.
(Translation of William Cory. )
Woman dead, lie there. No record of thee
Shall there ever be,
Since thou dost not share Roses in Pieria grown.
In the deathful cave,
With the feeble troop
Of the folk that droop,
Lurk and flit and crave, Woman severed and far-flown.
(Paraphrase of A. C. Swinburne. )
Thee, too, the years shall cover : thou shalt be As the rose born of one same blood with thee, As a song sung, as a word said, and fall Flower-wise, and be not any more at all,
Nor any memory of thee anywhere ;
For never thou hast bound above thine hair The high Pierian flowers, whose graft outgrows All summer kinship of the mortal rose
And color of deciduous days, nor shed
Reflex and flush of heaven about thine head.
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO. 139
XVIII.
What country girl bewitches thy heart, who knows not how to draw her dress about her ankles?
XIX.
But if thou lovest us, choose another and a younger bedfellow ; for I will not brook to live with thee — old woman with young man.
xx.
Do thou, Dica, set garlands round thy lovely hair, twining shoots of dill together with soft bands; for those who have fair flowers may best stand first, even in the favor of goddesses, who turn their face away from those who lack garlands.
(Translation of C. D. Tonge. )
But place those garlands on thy lovely hair, Twining the tender sprouts of anise green With skillful hand ; for offerings and flowers Are pleasing to the gods, who hate all those Who come before them with uncrowned heads.
XXI.
I love delicacy, and for me Love has the sun's splendor and beauty.
XXII.
I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, — Cleis, the beloved, above whom I [prize] nor all Lydia nor
lovely [Lesbos].
XXIII.
Sweet mother, I cannot weave my web, broken as I am by long ing for a boy, at soft Aphrodite's will.
(Paraphrase of Moore. )
As o'er her loom the Lesbian maid
In lovesick languor hung her head,
Unknowing where her fingers strayed, She weeping turned away and said :
140
FRAGMENTS OF SAPPHO.
" Oh, my sweet mother, 'tis in vain ; I cannot weave as once I wove, So wildered is my heart and brain
With thinking of that youth I love. "
XXIV.
As the sweet apple blushes on the end of the bough, the very end of the bough, which the gatherers overlooked — nay, overlooked not, but could not reach.
(Translation of Francis T. Palgrave. )
O fair — O sweet!
As the sweet apple blooms high on the bough,
High as the highest, forgot of the gatherers, So thou : —
Yet not so : nor forgot of the gatherers ; High o'er their reach in the golden air ;
O sweet — O fair!
xxv.
