[As o’er her loom the Lesbian maidIn love-sick languor hung her head,Unknowing where her fingers strayed,She weeping turned away, and said,]‘Oh, my sweet mother, ’tis in vain,I cannot weave, as once I wove,So wildered is my heart and brainWith thinking of that youth I love.’
[As o’er her loom the Lesbian maidIn love-sick languor hung her head,Unknowing where her fingers strayed,She weeping turned away, and said,]‘Oh, my sweet mother, ’tis in vain,I cannot weave, as once I wove,So wildered is my heart and brainWith thinking of that youth I love.’
[As o’er her loom the Lesbian maidIn love-sick languor hung her head,Unknowing where her fingers strayed,She weeping turned away, and said,]
[As o’er her loom the Lesbian maid
In love-sick languor hung her head,
Unknowing where her fingers strayed,
She weeping turned away, and said,]
‘Oh, my sweet mother, ’tis in vain,I cannot weave, as once I wove,So wildered is my heart and brainWith thinking of that youth I love.’
‘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.’
Many fragments deal with the Greek myths. Sappho is one of the first to tell the story of Adonis, who has his analogy in Phaon. “Woe for Adonis” (E. 25); “Woe for him of the four months’ sojourn, Woe for Adonis” (E. 136 uncertain restoration). Another fragment is presumed to be Sappho’s and, probably, to be part of a song sung at the Mytilenaean spring-festival of the marriage of Adonis and Aphrodite, of whose counterpart at Alexandria we have an example in the fifteenth idyl of Theocritus, so well translated by Matthew Arnold:
Maidens.Sweet Adonis lies a-dying, Cytherea; what’s to do?Cytherea.Beat your breasts and rend your garments, maids, is my behest to you.(Edmonds)
Maidens.Sweet Adonis lies a-dying, Cytherea; what’s to do?Cytherea.Beat your breasts and rend your garments, maids, is my behest to you.(Edmonds)
Maidens.Sweet Adonis lies a-dying, Cytherea; what’s to do?
Cytherea.Beat your breasts and rend your garments, maids, is my behest to you.
(Edmonds)
O’Hara, Bliss Carman, and many another have expanded this lament for Adonis which we know so well from Bion’sLament for Adonisand from Shelley’sAdonais. I quote the poet laureate of Canada:
What shall we do, Aphrodite?Lovely Adonis is dying.Ah but we mourn him!Will he return when the AutumnPurples the earth, and the sunlightSleeps in the vineyard?Will he return when the WinterHuddles the sheep, and OrionGoes to his hunting?Ah, for thy beauty, AdonisWith the soft springs and the South wind,Love and desire!(Bliss Carman)
What shall we do, Aphrodite?Lovely Adonis is dying.Ah but we mourn him!Will he return when the AutumnPurples the earth, and the sunlightSleeps in the vineyard?Will he return when the WinterHuddles the sheep, and OrionGoes to his hunting?Ah, for thy beauty, AdonisWith the soft springs and the South wind,Love and desire!(Bliss Carman)
What shall we do, Aphrodite?Lovely Adonis is dying.Ah but we mourn him!
What shall we do, Aphrodite?
Lovely Adonis is dying.
Ah but we mourn him!
Will he return when the AutumnPurples the earth, and the sunlightSleeps in the vineyard?
Will he return when the Autumn
Purples the earth, and the sunlight
Sleeps in the vineyard?
Will he return when the WinterHuddles the sheep, and OrionGoes to his hunting?
Will he return when the Winter
Huddles the sheep, and Orion
Goes to his hunting?
Ah, for thy beauty, AdonisWith the soft springs and the South wind,Love and desire!
Ah, for thy beauty, Adonis
With the soft springs and the South wind,
Love and desire!
(Bliss Carman)
Sappho’s knowledge of literature and legend is also not little. She is well acquainted with Homer, who very much influenced Sappho’s language. She knows Helen (E. 38) and her daughter Hermione (E. 44); “Hermione was never such as you are, and just it is to liken you rather to Helen than to a mortal maid.” Or take this complete letter to Anactoria (E. 38), who has eloped with a soldier to Sardis, as beautiful a poem as any of Sappho’s, if not spoiled in the last stanza by the wrong restoration of some scholars. The news of its discovery caused Mr. Osborn to leap out of bed and say he would fight for Sappho to the last with a pen dipt in poison. It reminds one ofThe Song of Solomon I. 9, “I have compared thee, O mylove, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots,” or VI. 10, “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?” Osborn, Mark Telfair, Marion Mills Miller, T. E. R., and others178have given poetic versions in Sapphics of this new poem. Another rendering seems superfluous, but I could not resist the pleasure of adding it, even though in the main less happy than its predecessors. In some of the lines the love of far-off Sappho’s meaning has lured me astray from the nearer English anapaest:
‘Fairest of sights on the dull black earth,’ some say,‘Is a host of horse in battle array.’‘A phalanx on foot,’ another will cry,‘Or a navy full sail athwart the sky.’‘But nay! ’Tis the lover’s beloved,’ I weenAnd easy the proof and plain to be seen;For the sum of all beauty had Helen surveyed,Yet of him, as fairest, her choice she made,Who all the honor of Troy’s towers destroyed.No thought of child or parent dear alloyedHer love. Its distant dearness led her far astray;For ever ’tis easy to bend a woman’s way,If only she hold lightly what is near.See to it thou, Anactoria dear,That, parted, we thy memory still shall shareOf her whose silent footfall’s music fairSounds sweeter, and whose face sheds beams more brightThan the noisy flash of the chariot-fight,Or tramp of footmen on their glittering wayWhen Lydia’s force deploys in full display.Too well we know ’tis not for man to gainHis heart’s desire,—yet sweeter the pain,Longing for love we once have shared,Than forgetting how happily then we fared.(D. M. R.)
‘Fairest of sights on the dull black earth,’ some say,‘Is a host of horse in battle array.’‘A phalanx on foot,’ another will cry,‘Or a navy full sail athwart the sky.’‘But nay! ’Tis the lover’s beloved,’ I weenAnd easy the proof and plain to be seen;For the sum of all beauty had Helen surveyed,Yet of him, as fairest, her choice she made,Who all the honor of Troy’s towers destroyed.No thought of child or parent dear alloyedHer love. Its distant dearness led her far astray;For ever ’tis easy to bend a woman’s way,If only she hold lightly what is near.See to it thou, Anactoria dear,That, parted, we thy memory still shall shareOf her whose silent footfall’s music fairSounds sweeter, and whose face sheds beams more brightThan the noisy flash of the chariot-fight,Or tramp of footmen on their glittering wayWhen Lydia’s force deploys in full display.Too well we know ’tis not for man to gainHis heart’s desire,—yet sweeter the pain,Longing for love we once have shared,Than forgetting how happily then we fared.(D. M. R.)
‘Fairest of sights on the dull black earth,’ some say,‘Is a host of horse in battle array.’‘A phalanx on foot,’ another will cry,‘Or a navy full sail athwart the sky.’
‘Fairest of sights on the dull black earth,’ some say,
‘Is a host of horse in battle array.’
‘A phalanx on foot,’ another will cry,
‘Or a navy full sail athwart the sky.’
‘But nay! ’Tis the lover’s beloved,’ I weenAnd easy the proof and plain to be seen;For the sum of all beauty had Helen surveyed,Yet of him, as fairest, her choice she made,
‘But nay! ’Tis the lover’s beloved,’ I ween
And easy the proof and plain to be seen;
For the sum of all beauty had Helen surveyed,
Yet of him, as fairest, her choice she made,
Who all the honor of Troy’s towers destroyed.No thought of child or parent dear alloyedHer love. Its distant dearness led her far astray;For ever ’tis easy to bend a woman’s way,
Who all the honor of Troy’s towers destroyed.
No thought of child or parent dear alloyed
Her love. Its distant dearness led her far astray;
For ever ’tis easy to bend a woman’s way,
If only she hold lightly what is near.See to it thou, Anactoria dear,That, parted, we thy memory still shall shareOf her whose silent footfall’s music fair
If only she hold lightly what is near.
See to it thou, Anactoria dear,
That, parted, we thy memory still shall share
Of her whose silent footfall’s music fair
Sounds sweeter, and whose face sheds beams more brightThan the noisy flash of the chariot-fight,Or tramp of footmen on their glittering wayWhen Lydia’s force deploys in full display.
Sounds sweeter, and whose face sheds beams more bright
Than the noisy flash of the chariot-fight,
Or tramp of footmen on their glittering way
When Lydia’s force deploys in full display.
Too well we know ’tis not for man to gainHis heart’s desire,—yet sweeter the pain,Longing for love we once have shared,Than forgetting how happily then we fared.
Too well we know ’tis not for man to gain
His heart’s desire,—yet sweeter the pain,
Longing for love we once have shared,
Than forgetting how happily then we fared.
(D. M. R.)
Agamemnon is mentioned in one of the new fragments (tentatively restored E. 85), which is an especially beautiful dialogue between Sappho and her dumpling pupil Gongyla, which might be calledIntimations of Immortality:
INTIMATION OF COMING DEATHSAPPHOMy coming death I plainly now foresee;Long to the end of life it cannot be.GONGYLAHow dost thou such a sad event divine?Unto thy dear ones pray reveal the sign.SAPPHOIn dream to me Death’s angel, Hermes, cameWithin my chamber; calling me by name,‘Come,’ said he, and he touched me with his wand.And I, of life and strife no longer fond,Replied: ‘I go with gladness, for I swearBy blessed Cypris that no more I careTo live, since love is passing from me. FainAm I to die despite my other gainIn wealth and honor. Only do I pleadTo field Elysian, whither thou didst leadAtrides Agamemnon and the flowerOf the Achaeans, take me in my hour,And set me in that dewy vale to bloom,Perchance again with beauty and perfumeThat love invite, although with kindlier fate—Not of ignoble souls, but of the great.’(Adaptation byMarion Mills Miller)
INTIMATION OF COMING DEATH
SAPPHOMy coming death I plainly now foresee;Long to the end of life it cannot be.GONGYLAHow dost thou such a sad event divine?Unto thy dear ones pray reveal the sign.SAPPHOIn dream to me Death’s angel, Hermes, cameWithin my chamber; calling me by name,‘Come,’ said he, and he touched me with his wand.And I, of life and strife no longer fond,Replied: ‘I go with gladness, for I swearBy blessed Cypris that no more I careTo live, since love is passing from me. FainAm I to die despite my other gainIn wealth and honor. Only do I pleadTo field Elysian, whither thou didst leadAtrides Agamemnon and the flowerOf the Achaeans, take me in my hour,And set me in that dewy vale to bloom,Perchance again with beauty and perfumeThat love invite, although with kindlier fate—Not of ignoble souls, but of the great.’(Adaptation byMarion Mills Miller)
SAPPHOMy coming death I plainly now foresee;Long to the end of life it cannot be.
SAPPHO
My coming death I plainly now foresee;
Long to the end of life it cannot be.
GONGYLAHow dost thou such a sad event divine?Unto thy dear ones pray reveal the sign.
GONGYLA
How dost thou such a sad event divine?
Unto thy dear ones pray reveal the sign.
SAPPHOIn dream to me Death’s angel, Hermes, cameWithin my chamber; calling me by name,‘Come,’ said he, and he touched me with his wand.And I, of life and strife no longer fond,Replied: ‘I go with gladness, for I swearBy blessed Cypris that no more I careTo live, since love is passing from me. FainAm I to die despite my other gainIn wealth and honor. Only do I pleadTo field Elysian, whither thou didst leadAtrides Agamemnon and the flowerOf the Achaeans, take me in my hour,And set me in that dewy vale to bloom,Perchance again with beauty and perfumeThat love invite, although with kindlier fate—Not of ignoble souls, but of the great.’
SAPPHO
In dream to me Death’s angel, Hermes, came
Within my chamber; calling me by name,
‘Come,’ said he, and he touched me with his wand.
And I, of life and strife no longer fond,
Replied: ‘I go with gladness, for I swear
By blessed Cypris that no more I care
To live, since love is passing from me. Fain
Am I to die despite my other gain
In wealth and honor. Only do I plead
To field Elysian, whither thou didst lead
Atrides Agamemnon and the flower
Of the Achaeans, take me in my hour,
And set me in that dewy vale to bloom,
Perchance again with beauty and perfume
That love invite, although with kindlier fate—
Not of ignoble souls, but of the great.’
(Adaptation byMarion Mills Miller)
Sappho knows the story of Leda and the egg. Edmonds (E. 97) reads a new text: “They say that once upon a time Leda found hidden an egg of hyacinthine hue.” But I prefer the older, better version, which O’Hara renders:
Once on a timeThey say that Leda foundBeneath the thymeAn egg upon the ground.
Once on a timeThey say that Leda foundBeneath the thymeAn egg upon the ground.
Once on a time
They say that Leda found
Beneath the thyme
An egg upon the ground.
Sappho makes a sarcastic reference to Leto and Niobe as very dear comrades (E. 140), and gives Niobe nine children of either sex (E. 168). She knows the love of the Moon for Endymion in the cave on Mt. Latmus (E. 167); she wrote about Theseus (E. 169), Prometheus (E. 170), Medea (E. 185), and Philomela and Procne, “the heavenly swallow, Pandion’s daughter” (E. 122). Perhaps Sappho pictured the story of Hero and Leander (cf. p. 31). Stebbing changes the sex of Hero and makes a long poem onChampion, Athlete, and Harpist:
“Hero” of Gyaros; Hellas cannot forget his name.The lovely, gallant youth, a paragon in women’s eyes.
“Hero” of Gyaros; Hellas cannot forget his name.The lovely, gallant youth, a paragon in women’s eyes.
“Hero” of Gyaros; Hellas cannot forget his name.
The lovely, gallant youth, a paragon in women’s eyes.
The divinities in Sappho are primarily Aphrodite, Peitho, Ares, Hecate, Hera, Hermes, Hephaestus, and the Muses. There is much reverence in the beautiful Hymn to Hera, the latter half of which Edmonds (E. 40) has so very tentatively restored on the hypothesis that this was written in Syracuse before Sappho embarked to return to Mytilene on hearing of the amnesty of Pittacus.
Sappho was not only the poet of ardent love, as we have seen, but the greatest composer of wedding-songs of antiquity, and much of such poetry in later days is nothing but a translationor a transfusion of Sappho. HerEpithalamiawere written for actual wedding ceremonies, but I cannot agree with a great German critic who says that they were not literary productions. I do not mean to say that she published these songs, for I believe that they were not collected into a ninth book until later days. We have already quoted what may be an introductory poem to the Epithalamies; perhaps even some of the other fragments which we have mentioned, such as that perfect weaving-song, which may reflect the awakening of love in the heart of the bride, and certainly the verses on theEvening Star(p. 64) belong to her Epithalamies. The wonderful new poem (E. 66) with its Homeric genitives and datives and its Homeric forms of words on theMarriage of Hector and Andromachecould be used as a wedding-song at any wedding:
HOME-COMING OF HECTOR WITH HIS BRIDE(Recitation for “The Wedding Day”)Sustained by sturdy limbs a herald cameSwiftly to folk of Ida. Quick as flameThe rumor ran, ere he the tidings told,Through wide-wayed Ilium that Hector boldAnd his fair bride Andromache, so dearAlready to the town for fame as peerIn beauty of the woman that with hateThey passed upon the street with eyes avert(The Grecian Helen, whom, as seers assert,Her name had doomed to be the torch of Troy—‘Destroyer’), and more dear because the joyShe was of Priam’s most beloved son,Were at the landing. All the people runOut of the gates; the young men yoke their steedsTo chariots, and each his charges speeds,With harness jingling, to be first, and bringHector and Hector’s bride to Priam king.And so like gods to Ilium they cameAttended by the people’s wild acclaim,Nor knew that even then across the seaSailed swift Achilles, born their bane to be:To drag dead Hector round the walls of Troy,And doom to slavery his wife and boy.(Marion Mills Miller)
HOME-COMING OF HECTOR WITH HIS BRIDE
(Recitation for “The Wedding Day”)
Sustained by sturdy limbs a herald cameSwiftly to folk of Ida. Quick as flameThe rumor ran, ere he the tidings told,Through wide-wayed Ilium that Hector boldAnd his fair bride Andromache, so dearAlready to the town for fame as peerIn beauty of the woman that with hateThey passed upon the street with eyes avert(The Grecian Helen, whom, as seers assert,Her name had doomed to be the torch of Troy—‘Destroyer’), and more dear because the joyShe was of Priam’s most beloved son,Were at the landing. All the people runOut of the gates; the young men yoke their steedsTo chariots, and each his charges speeds,With harness jingling, to be first, and bringHector and Hector’s bride to Priam king.And so like gods to Ilium they cameAttended by the people’s wild acclaim,Nor knew that even then across the seaSailed swift Achilles, born their bane to be:To drag dead Hector round the walls of Troy,And doom to slavery his wife and boy.(Marion Mills Miller)
Sustained by sturdy limbs a herald cameSwiftly to folk of Ida. Quick as flameThe rumor ran, ere he the tidings told,Through wide-wayed Ilium that Hector boldAnd his fair bride Andromache, so dearAlready to the town for fame as peerIn beauty of the woman that with hateThey passed upon the street with eyes avert(The Grecian Helen, whom, as seers assert,Her name had doomed to be the torch of Troy—‘Destroyer’), and more dear because the joyShe was of Priam’s most beloved son,Were at the landing. All the people runOut of the gates; the young men yoke their steedsTo chariots, and each his charges speeds,With harness jingling, to be first, and bringHector and Hector’s bride to Priam king.
Sustained by sturdy limbs a herald came
Swiftly to folk of Ida. Quick as flame
The rumor ran, ere he the tidings told,
Through wide-wayed Ilium that Hector bold
And his fair bride Andromache, so dear
Already to the town for fame as peer
In beauty of the woman that with hate
They passed upon the street with eyes avert
(The Grecian Helen, whom, as seers assert,
Her name had doomed to be the torch of Troy—
‘Destroyer’), and more dear because the joy
She was of Priam’s most beloved son,
Were at the landing. All the people run
Out of the gates; the young men yoke their steeds
To chariots, and each his charges speeds,
With harness jingling, to be first, and bring
Hector and Hector’s bride to Priam king.
And so like gods to Ilium they cameAttended by the people’s wild acclaim,Nor knew that even then across the seaSailed swift Achilles, born their bane to be:To drag dead Hector round the walls of Troy,And doom to slavery his wife and boy.
And so like gods to Ilium they came
Attended by the people’s wild acclaim,
Nor knew that even then across the sea
Sailed swift Achilles, born their bane to be:
To drag dead Hector round the walls of Troy,
And doom to slavery his wife and boy.
(Marion Mills Miller)
I do not feel that this poem was cold and superficial as Miss De Courten and some other critics say, for to me it is a dignified and simple epic narrative, like the messengers’ speeches in Greek tragedy, introduced into the midst of lyrics. It is almost perfect and well worthy of Sappho. It makes us realize that Sappho’sactivity was broader than we had supposed and brings her nearer to her predecessors and successors. It is a unique example, hitherto unknown, of a lyric narrative with epic intonations, throwing new light on the history of the ancient wedding-songs.96
A rhetorician of the fourth centuryA.D., Himerius,97has an interesting passage which bears on Sappho’s wedding-songs and helps us interpret the fragments which are preserved:
“So it is time for us, my children, since we are summoning our Muses to marriage-dance and marriage-love, to relax the graveness of our music, so that we may the better trip it with the maidens in honour of Aphrodite. How hard it is to find a tune gentle enough to please the Goddess, we may judge from the poets themselves, most of whom, though past masters in love-poetry, went as bravely to the description of Hera as any boy or girl, but when it came to the rites of Aphrodite, left the song for the lyre and the making of the epithalamy entirely to Sappho, who when the contests are over enters the chamber, weaves the bower, makes the bride-bed, gathers the maidens into the bride-chamber, and brings Aphrodite in her Grace-drawn car with a bevy of Loves to be her playfellows; and her she adorns with hyacinths about the hair, leaving all but what is parted by the brow to float free upon the wayward breeze, and them she decks with gold on wing and tress and makes to go on before the car and wave their torches on high.”(Edmonds)
“So it is time for us, my children, since we are summoning our Muses to marriage-dance and marriage-love, to relax the graveness of our music, so that we may the better trip it with the maidens in honour of Aphrodite. How hard it is to find a tune gentle enough to please the Goddess, we may judge from the poets themselves, most of whom, though past masters in love-poetry, went as bravely to the description of Hera as any boy or girl, but when it came to the rites of Aphrodite, left the song for the lyre and the making of the epithalamy entirely to Sappho, who when the contests are over enters the chamber, weaves the bower, makes the bride-bed, gathers the maidens into the bride-chamber, and brings Aphrodite in her Grace-drawn car with a bevy of Loves to be her playfellows; and her she adorns with hyacinths about the hair, leaving all but what is parted by the brow to float free upon the wayward breeze, and them she decks with gold on wing and tress and makes to go on before the car and wave their torches on high.”
(Edmonds)
Himerius refers to the mock contests which were a part of the wedding ceremonies. There was always anagonor sham fight, as in Greek comedy, running through the hymenaeal, to be succeeded in many cases by a real fight afterwards. The wedding echoed with noise which suggested the conflicts of prehistoric days when brides were captives of bow and spear, and all sorts of characters figured in this drama of real life. There was place for satire and ridicule as well as for praise. Even in recent years I have witnessed in a neighboring island, “Scio’s rocky isle,” the semblance of predatory warfare which the Chians keep up during their bridal ceremonies. And in 1902 I attended a three days’ Turkish wedding at Chiblak, near the site of ancient Troy. On that occasion the frequent shooting and fighting, which resulted even in injuries to Turks and Greeks, made the noisy ceremony seem like a battle. In Sappho’s day, as to-day in the Orient, a wedding was not a brief benedictory reading by a clergyman. It was a long-drawn celebration, a prolonged process rather than a precise pronouncement, with torchlight processions, dance, and song.98All these features emerge very clearly in Sappho, where we can trace the whole ceremonyfrom the weaving of the bridal bower (pastas= portico or bower in Himerius as cited above) to the aubade song of the next morning. Here is the charming song, sung, in the same metre as the famousLinus Song, by the bridesmaids as they led the bride to the bridegroom’s bed, proud of their island and of their Sappho:99
Up with the rafters high,Ho for the wedding!Raise them high, ye joiners,Ho for the wedding!The bridegroom’s as tall as Ares,Ho for the wedding!Far taller than a tall man,Ho for the wedding!Towering as the Lesbian poetHo for the wedding!Over the poets of other lands,Ho for the wedding!(Edmonds148)
Up with the rafters high,Ho for the wedding!Raise them high, ye joiners,Ho for the wedding!The bridegroom’s as tall as Ares,Ho for the wedding!Far taller than a tall man,Ho for the wedding!Towering as the Lesbian poetHo for the wedding!Over the poets of other lands,Ho for the wedding!(Edmonds148)
Up with the rafters high,
Ho for the wedding!
Raise them high, ye joiners,
Ho for the wedding!
The bridegroom’s as tall as Ares,
Ho for the wedding!
Far taller than a tall man,
Ho for the wedding!
Towering as the Lesbian poet
Ho for the wedding!
Over the poets of other lands,
Ho for the wedding!
(Edmonds148)
Then follows a kind of lyrical marriage drama, the bridesmaids representing the tribe of the bride, the youths the clan of the bridegroom, in this respect foreshadowing Catullus’ double choir. The maidens answer the young men’s praise by chiding Hesperus, the evening star, whose coming heralds the union. The youngmen in turn reply with the famous words already quoted, to which the sequel probably was “even so bring home the bride to the bridegroom.” We think of Edmund Spenser’sProthalamionandEpithalamionwhich have many of the motives of the Greek epithalamium, with their reference to Hesper, with their beautiful descriptions of bride and bridegroom. I quote the lines about Hymen, which is Sappho’s Greek refrain, rendered by the word “wedding” in Edmonds’ version:
Hymen, iö Hymen, they do shout;That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrillDoth reach, and all the firmament doth fill.
Hymen, iö Hymen, they do shout;That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrillDoth reach, and all the firmament doth fill.
Hymen, iö Hymen, they do shout;
That even to the heavens theyr shouting shrill
Doth reach, and all the firmament doth fill.
The men praise marriage bliss; the maidens, virginity (E. 152, “I shall be ever-maiden,” E. 159, “Can it be that I still long for my virginity?”). The bride says, “Maidenhead, maidenhead, whither away?” and the reply is, “Where I must stay, bride, where I must stay” (E. 164)100; a wonderful example of the way in which Sappho treats abstractions and inanimate things (cf. also E. 80, “Up, my lute divine and make thyself a thing of speech”). Sappho is the first to use such a personification101and it recalls Théophile Gautier in his reverse applicationinMademoiselle de Maupin. At least it is difficult to think of the young Gautier independently conceiving the striking figure that is so characteristic of the genius of the Lesbian poetess. This is the Frenchman’s passage. It describes the fair heroine going out into the world dressed in masculine habiliments to test men’s fidelity in love:
“And, as I rode away down the alley of chestnut trees, all the puerilities of my girlhood ran along by the roadside, blowing me farewell kisses from the tips of their tapering fingers. And one little spirit in white, in a clear, silvery voice, cried: ‘Madeleine, where are you going? I am your virginity, dear, but you look so fierce in your boots and hose, with your plumed hat and long sword, that I am not sure whether I should go with you.’“I replied: ‘Go home, sweet thing, if you are afraid. Water my flowers and care for my doves. But in sooth you are wrong. You would be safer with me in these garments of stout cloth than in airy gauze. My boots prevent it being seen that I have a little tempting foot; this sword is my defense against dishonor; and the feather waving in my hat is to frighten away all the nightingales who would come and sing false love into my ear.’”
“And, as I rode away down the alley of chestnut trees, all the puerilities of my girlhood ran along by the roadside, blowing me farewell kisses from the tips of their tapering fingers. And one little spirit in white, in a clear, silvery voice, cried: ‘Madeleine, where are you going? I am your virginity, dear, but you look so fierce in your boots and hose, with your plumed hat and long sword, that I am not sure whether I should go with you.’
“I replied: ‘Go home, sweet thing, if you are afraid. Water my flowers and care for my doves. But in sooth you are wrong. You would be safer with me in these garments of stout cloth than in airy gauze. My boots prevent it being seen that I have a little tempting foot; this sword is my defense against dishonor; and the feather waving in my hat is to frighten away all the nightingales who would come and sing false love into my ear.’”
In amoebean or antiphonic hexameter verses (E. 150 and 151), as exquisite as Heine’sDu bist wie eine Blume, the maidens liken the virginstate to the unplucked pippin, the married woman to the hyacinth or columbine, with which Aphrodite is also adorned in the passage from Himerius. As Tucker says: “a band of girls mock the men with failure to win some dainty maiden, and the men reply with a taunt at the neglected bloom of the unprofitable virgin. Say the maids (Pl. 9):
On the top of the topmost sprayThe pippin blushes red,Forgot by the gatherers—nay!Was it ‘forgot’ we said?’Twas too far overhead!
On the top of the topmost sprayThe pippin blushes red,Forgot by the gatherers—nay!Was it ‘forgot’ we said?’Twas too far overhead!
On the top of the topmost spray
The pippin blushes red,
Forgot by the gatherers—nay!
Was it ‘forgot’ we said?
’Twas too far overhead!
Reply the men:
The hyacinth so sweetOn the hills where the herdsmen goIs trampled ’neath their feet,And its purple bloom laid low;
The hyacinth so sweetOn the hills where the herdsmen goIs trampled ’neath their feet,And its purple bloom laid low;
The hyacinth so sweet
On the hills where the herdsmen go
Is trampled ’neath their feet,
And its purple bloom laid low;
and there unhappily the record deserts us.” These lovely lines are about as well known as anything of Sappho’s, owing to Rossetti’s adaptation in hisOne Girl, a title altered in 1881 toBeauty, which the reader can find in Wharton. In modern times, Maurice Thompson, Gamaliel Bradford, and others have been influencedby them, though often an un-Sapphic touch not in Sappho’s verses is given, as in Bradford’sTopmost Bough:
Don’t you love me now,After I have set youOn love’s topmost bough;God, then I’ll forget you.
Don’t you love me now,After I have set youOn love’s topmost bough;God, then I’ll forget you.
Don’t you love me now,
After I have set you
On love’s topmost bough;
God, then I’ll forget you.
The bridegroom now bears off the bride while the chorus of youths praise the bride and the chorus of maidens the bridegroom:
What may I best compare,Dear groom, with thee?A slender sapling, ereIt is a tree.(Edmonds)
What may I best compare,Dear groom, with thee?A slender sapling, ereIt is a tree.(Edmonds)
What may I best compare,
Dear groom, with thee?
A slender sapling, ere
It is a tree.
(Edmonds)
But as to-day the bridegroom disappears in the society column of the newspaper behind the splendor of the elaborate description of the bride’s gown, so in Sappho the praise of the bride is far sweeter than that of the bridegroom. Recall the lines of Rossetti and these verses in the metre of one of Catullus’epithalamia:
Bride, thy shape is all delightAnd thine eyes shine soft and bright,O’er thy fair cheek desire is shedAnd honor showered on thy headFrom the Lady of Love in heaven.(Edmonds)
Bride, thy shape is all delightAnd thine eyes shine soft and bright,O’er thy fair cheek desire is shedAnd honor showered on thy headFrom the Lady of Love in heaven.(Edmonds)
Bride, thy shape is all delight
And thine eyes shine soft and bright,
O’er thy fair cheek desire is shed
And honor showered on thy head
From the Lady of Love in heaven.
(Edmonds)
Congratulations were offered also to the bridegroom:
No other maiden lives to-day,Bridegroom, such as thine.(Edmonds)
No other maiden lives to-day,Bridegroom, such as thine.(Edmonds)
No other maiden lives to-day,
Bridegroom, such as thine.
(Edmonds)
Himerius seems to be quoting such a song of greeting to bride and bridegroom: “Bride that teemest with rosy desires, bride the fairest ornament of the Queen of Paphos, hie thee to bed, hie thee to the couch whereon thou must sweetly sport in gentle wise with thy bridegroom. And may the Star of Eve lead thee full willingly to the place where thou shalt marvel at the silver-thronèd Lady of Wedlock” (Edmonds). Himerius also tells us that Sappho “brings Aphrodite in her Grace-drawn car with a bevy of Loves” to the wedding. And the joy of the earthly festival is repeated far up among the clouds of Olympus where the celestial feast is described (E. 146) in verses the lilt of which Professor Gildersleeve has thus reproduced in his unpublished version:
The mixing howl yonderWas filled with ambrosia,And Hermes ’gan ladleThe drink to the gods all;The gods all upliftedTheir beakers and pour’d outLibations and utter’dFair wishes for bridegroom,[For fair bride fair wishes.]
The mixing howl yonderWas filled with ambrosia,And Hermes ’gan ladleThe drink to the gods all;The gods all upliftedTheir beakers and pour’d outLibations and utter’dFair wishes for bridegroom,[For fair bride fair wishes.]
The mixing howl yonder
Was filled with ambrosia,
And Hermes ’gan ladle
The drink to the gods all;
The gods all uplifted
Their beakers and pour’d out
Libations and utter’d
Fair wishes for bridegroom,
[For fair bride fair wishes.]
Stebbing in hisFriends of Manhas the Gods descend to the modest hall wherein the marriage feast is spread.
All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend....By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands,Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.
All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend....By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands,Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.
All the High Gods from Olympus, to bless the Two, descend.
...
By an ample bowl Hermes, deftest of cupbearers, stands,
Crowning the Gods’ goblets from the full flagon in his hands.
The function of what we Americans used to call the first groomsman, in the primitive times of wife-stealing, was to protect the bridegroom from pursuit and the name “best man” perpetuates the tradition. In the Greek wedding, where the passing and closing of the door was so essential a part of the ritual, he was the door-keeper, andthere was much bantering and chaffing at his personal appearance on the part of the maidens, who made much use of the same jokes which have since been applied to the feet of maidens of Chicago. The feet of the porter were put in the laughing stocks somewhat after this fashion (E. 154):
Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter,Full five ox-hides were used for his shoe-soles,Ten stout cobblers were needed to make them,(D. M. R.)
Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter,Full five ox-hides were used for his shoe-soles,Ten stout cobblers were needed to make them,(D. M. R.)
Full seven fathoms stretch the feet of the porter,
Full five ox-hides were used for his shoe-soles,
Ten stout cobblers were needed to make them,
(D. M. R.)
to which Edmonds would make the ingenious but doubtful addition based on Synesius “[and his father lived in other ways an honest life, but claimed to be better born than Cecrops].” The door is shut and the mocking subsides, as all chant for the groom, “Happy bridegroom, the marriage is accomplished, as you prayed it should be, and the maiden you prayed for is yours” (E. 155); and for the bride they sing, “O beauteous one, O lovely one, thine it is to sport with the rose-ankled Graces and Aphrodite the golden” (E. 157). If Edmonds’ tentative restoration of the end of the first book of 1320 verses is correct, “the maidens spend all the night at this door, singing of the love that isbetween thee, thrice happy bridegroom, and a bride whose breast is sweet as violets. But get thee up and go when the dawn shall come, and may great Hermes lead thy feet where thou shalt find just so much ill-luck as we shall see sleep to-night” (E. 47). Evidently the maidens saw little sleep that night, but finally silence falls and in the early dawn is heard the last song of the serenaders: “Farewell the bride, farewell the bridegroom” (E. 160, 162).
This chapter should not close without a mention of the epigrams. Many have been attributed to Sappho, but three especially (E. 143, 144, 145) have been included in most of the translations. They are, however, written in normal epic language without any essential traces of Sappho’s Aeolic dialect. One, which Wilamowitz would date as late as 400B.C., according to Edmonds was inscribed on the base of a statue of a nameless infant, dedicated to Artemis in gratitude for her birth by her priestess-mother. I prefer the older interpretation:
Maidens, that pass my tomb with laughter sweet,A voice unresting echoes at your feet;Pause, and if any would my story seek,Dumb as I am, these graven words will speak;‘Once in the vanished years it chanced to pleaseArista, daughter of Hermocleides,To dedicate my life in virgin blissTo thee, revered of women, Artemis!O Goddess, deign to bless my grandsire’s line,For Saon was a temple priest of thine;And grant, O Queen, in thy benefic grace,Unending fame and fortune to his race.’(O’Hara’s adaptation)
Maidens, that pass my tomb with laughter sweet,A voice unresting echoes at your feet;Pause, and if any would my story seek,Dumb as I am, these graven words will speak;‘Once in the vanished years it chanced to pleaseArista, daughter of Hermocleides,To dedicate my life in virgin blissTo thee, revered of women, Artemis!O Goddess, deign to bless my grandsire’s line,For Saon was a temple priest of thine;And grant, O Queen, in thy benefic grace,Unending fame and fortune to his race.’(O’Hara’s adaptation)
Maidens, that pass my tomb with laughter sweet,
A voice unresting echoes at your feet;
Pause, and if any would my story seek,
Dumb as I am, these graven words will speak;
‘Once in the vanished years it chanced to please
Arista, daughter of Hermocleides,
To dedicate my life in virgin bliss
To thee, revered of women, Artemis!
O Goddess, deign to bless my grandsire’s line,
For Saon was a temple priest of thine;
And grant, O Queen, in thy benefic grace,
Unending fame and fortune to his race.’
(O’Hara’s adaptation)
The epigram on the fisherman (E. 145) is most unlike Sappho. Fawkes, Elton, Neaves, and many a modern poet have put it into verse:102
Above the lowly grave of Pelagon,Ill-fated fisher lad, Meniscus’ son,His father placed as sign of storm and strifeThe weel and oar, memorial of his life.(O’Hara)
Above the lowly grave of Pelagon,Ill-fated fisher lad, Meniscus’ son,His father placed as sign of storm and strifeThe weel and oar, memorial of his life.(O’Hara)
Above the lowly grave of Pelagon,
Ill-fated fisher lad, Meniscus’ son,
His father placed as sign of storm and strife
The weel and oar, memorial of his life.
(O’Hara)
The two elegiac couplets onThe Dust of Timas, who died before her wedding day, are rather flat and hardly worthy of Sappho’s genius (E. 144); but if Edmonds’ restoration of one of Sappho’s fragments as referring to Timas is correct (p. 60 above), it may be genuine and in that case one of the very few surviving early metrical epitaphs. I give you the recent rendering by one of ourbest modern American poets, Edwin Arlington Robinson:
This dust was Timas; and they sayThat almost on her wedding dayShe found her bridal home to beThe dark house of Persephone.And many maidens, knowing thenThat she would not come back again,Unbound their curls; and all in tears,They cut them off with sharpened shears.
This dust was Timas; and they sayThat almost on her wedding dayShe found her bridal home to beThe dark house of Persephone.And many maidens, knowing thenThat she would not come back again,Unbound their curls; and all in tears,They cut them off with sharpened shears.
This dust was Timas; and they say
That almost on her wedding day
She found her bridal home to be
The dark house of Persephone.
And many maidens, knowing then
That she would not come back again,
Unbound their curls; and all in tears,
They cut them off with sharpened shears.
The high regard of the ancients and moderns for Sappho appears especially in art. In olden days she was honored in town-hall and library. Many a statue and bust of her was erected and she was one of the few historical characters who were painted on Greek vases, which even quote her verses. She was sculptured also in terra-cotta and bronze.103It is well established104that her image was engraved on coins of Eresus and Mytilene,—a unique honor in early Greek days. Many (Pl. 10, 11) in the British Museum, in Paris, and elsewhere105bear representations sometimes of her head on the obverse with the lyre on the reverse, and sometimes her full figure standing or sitting. They differ much in the manner of the arrangement of her coiffure, some even showing the hair covered by a kerchief, a fashion still prevalent in modern Lesbus. They may be traced back to different types. Those which bear her name date from Roman Imperial times. In general Furtwängler106is right in contendingthat it was not the custom to honor distinguished persons in such a manner before the days of Alexander. But the beautiful head which appears on early Greek coins of Mytilene of the fifth and fourth centuriesB.C.may easily be Sappho and not her patron Aphrodite, even in cases where the type is adapted to that of the goddess of love. The lyre on the reverse and the individual features which resemble some of the busts of Sappho point that way. The beautiful face on the old coins was copied from some statue, perhaps one that was even earlier than that of Silanion. Farnell well says:107“the later hero cults of Homer at Smyrna, Sappho at Lesbus, and Aristotle at Stageira reveal the deep conviction of the Hellenic spirit that science and art are divine powers.” If the head on these Mytilenaean coins is really Sappho, it is a silent but eloquent testimony to the reverence her name acquired after her death and to the perfection of her living work.
The oldest possible representation of Sappho with which I am acquainted is an archaic terra-cotta relief from Melos in the British Museum.108It dates only a few years after Sappho’s time, and though not inscribed it may represent Sappho and Alcaeus. Sappho appears as aslender lady of average height (not of short stature as Ovid says), dressed in a long Ionic woven tunic and wearing sandals. She sits with lyre in left hand and plectrum in right, and the bearded Alcaeus stands before her with bowl in left and extending his right hand. He seems to be expressing with a smile his admiration of her new poetry, so different from his own archaic measure. There is probably no reference, as in the case of the Munich vase from Sicily,109to the famous lines which we have quoted (p. 27). On this vase the names Sapho (so spelt) and Alcaeus are painted beside the tall and stately figures who appear with lyre and plectrum. Sappho seems to be rebuking with almost a pouting expression her fellow-townsman Alcaeus, who bows his head as she speaks to him the famous lines. This pictorial translation of her verses and other representations show her great popularity in Athens in the fifth centuryB.C.This Munichpsycteror cooling mixing-bowl (Pl. 12) for wine may date as late as 460B.C.and has been attributed to a fictitious lady painter of the Free Style by Hauser, but his attribution has not been generally accepted.110Furtwängler was probably right in connecting the vase with the Brygus painter.My learned friend, the great Oxford expert on vases, Mr. J. D. Beazley writes me that very likely it was not by the Brygus painter himself, but surely in his manner. On an earlier vase, now in the Czartoryski collection in Cracow (Pl. 13), dating from the end of the sixth or the beginning of the fifth centuryB.C., according to Beazley a vase roughly related in style to the Nicoxenus painter, a contemporary of Euthymides, we have the earliest certain representation of Sappho.111She is a tall, draped figure with smiling countenance, walking to right and holding a seven-stringed lyre in her left hand and a plectrum in her right. She appears on only this one black-figured vase, which would seem to indicate that she did not become popular in Athens till long after her death, when red-figured vases were the vogue. The story of Solon adds testimony to the same effect, and probably acorpusor collection of her writings used by the later Alexandrian editions was in the book-stalls at Athens even in the last years of the sixth century. Otherwise it is difficult to account for her frequent portrayal on Attic red-figured vases. The lost Middleton vase,112(Pl. 14), probably of the South Italian (Lucanian) Style, shows Sappho, whose name is now thus spelt,seated on a four-legged stool while a nude winged Eros hastens towards her with a wreath. The painter probably knew the poems of Sappho which pictured Eros as bitter-sweet, and Sappho’s other word-pictures of the sorrows of love, for he has labelled Eros “wretched.” One thinks of Horace’squerentem Sappho puellis de popularibus. Mr. Beazley, however, suspects the inscriptiontalas, and thinks thatkalos(beautiful) was written. It is greatly to be hoped that the vase will soon be found again so that we can have a rereading of the letters. On the Michaelis vase in late Polygnotan style,113which is in the Jatta collection at Ruvo in Italy (Pl. 15), we possibly have an apotheosis of Sappho. Aphrodite is painted with a cupid on her right shoulder like the Aphrodite of the Parthenon frieze, judging the contest of Thamyris. Near Apollo are three Muses, and near Thamyris are four. Sappho is evidently leaning for support on Aphrodite, receiving a little dove from a little Eros, and is pictured as a Muse herself, as in Plato’s epigram. On another red-figured vase114in private possession, Sappho is in the midst of her pupils.
Several vases even show knowledge of her writings. The most important is the hydria orwater-jar in Athens (Pl. 16), dating about 430B.C.,115which Mr. Beazley would put in the group of Polygnotus, somewhat in the style of the Hector painter, though not by him. Sappho is seated on a light-backed chair orklismos; she is reading from a papyrus roll, while Nicopolis behind holds a wreath over her head. Two maidens stand in front, one, Callis, holding a lyre. Scholars have long tried to make sense out of the letters on the papyrus, and several, such as Comparetti and Aly, have considered them un-Sapphic; but Edmonds, the great English expert on Sappho, has got a new reading for the last word and thinks this is column 1 of a book entitledWinged Words, a phrase borrowed from Homer. The verses are an introductory poem to Sappho’s works with an invocation to the Gods, after which follows the verse: “The words I begin are words of air, but for all that, good to hear.” I do not feel that the solution is satisfactory or Sapphic, and an examination of the vase itself proves that Edmonds’ reading will not stand; but no one has yet made a better proposal. On another vase, in the Louvre, attributed to Euphronius116we have an echo of Sappho in the words (E. 23), “I long and I yearn.” A beautiful fifth century cylix (Pl. 9) by theerudite and versatile Sotades,117whose wonderful signed terra-cotta horse, mounted by an Amazon, has recently been brought to Boston from Meroe in Egypt, pictures a girl on tiptoe trying to pluck the sweet apple which is reddening on the topmost bough. I have no doubt that Sotades was illustrating Sappho’s song.
Possibly on the so-called Steinhauser terra-cotta fragment118the seated figure is Sappho; she is nude above the waist and holds her lyre in her right hand. She is looking into the air enraptured and sublimely inspired.
Many vases have been interpreted as portraying Sappho and Phaon,119but in every case there is uncertainty about the interpretation. On two beautiful vases (Pl. 4, 5), the hydria in Florence certainly by the Meidias painter himself, and the crater in Palermo of the school of the Meidias painter, the beautiful Phaon is definitely pictured.120The inscription on the latter, “Phaon is beautiful,” leaves no doubt in the matter. But the girl called Chryse or Philomele is perhaps wrongly interpreted as Sappho. These vases are probably older than the comedy onPhaon, by Plato (not to be confused with the philosopher). Phaon is painted as handsome; all the girls are adorning themselves and makinglove to him, but he has had too much attention from the ladies and is sick of them (cf. p. 40 above). On another crater,121in Bologna (Pl. 17), in style not far removed from the vase-painter Polygnotus, Phaon appears seated at the oar in a boat, about to take aboard the tall goddess, who was to give him a perennial antidote against old age.
Before we leave ancient painting we ought to mention a picture of Sappho in a garb as a lutist which the encyclopaedic Pliny assigns to Leon.122We know nothing about him, but he was probably one of the numerous second rate artists of Hellenistic times. An epigram in the Anthology and the Christian Father Tatian123seem to have referred to this portrait. Several Pompeian frescoes, and one from Herculaneum representing a lady with astilusabout to write her thoughts on a tablet, have been named Sappho. Only in the case of one124do I feel that there is any probability at all that Sappho was meant, and in that one Alcaeus appears standing by the side of the seated Lesbian poetess (Pl. 18).
There must have been statues and busts of Sappho, but so many have been called Sappho without definite evidence that it is difficult toknow where to stop. We must always bear in mind that early Greek art in Sappho’s day did not believe in realistic portraiture and that all representations of Sappho are “study heads,” conceptions of later artists. The most famous statue mentioned in literature is that by Silanion, the Greek sculptor of the fourth centuryB.C., who was so noted for his Plato and Corinna.125We learn from Cicero’sOration against Verres126and from Tatian’sComplaint against the Greeks or Pagansthat this bronze statue, on the base of which Cicero was still able to read the epigram, stood in the prytaneum at Syracuse, perhaps a memorial of Sappho’s sojourn in Sicily. Cicero tells us that it was stolen by Verres and praises it highly: “Could this work of Silanion, so perfect, so refined, so finished, be in fitter hands public or private than those of a man so refined and cultured as Verres?... And how sorely this stolen Sappho was missed is almost more than words can tell. Not only was the poetess exquisitely portrayed, but there was a world-famous Greek couplet inscribed upon the base.... For the inscription on the empty base declares to-day what the statue was, thus proclaiming the theft” (Edmonds).
We know from literature of the existence of two other later statues. We have spoken (p. 34) of the epigram of Damocharis which refers to a portrait of Sappho with bright eyes and mixed expression of gaiety and graveness. An epigram by Antipater127(p. 8) is thought to come from a statue at Pergamum and since part of an inscription found at Pergamum128mentions Alcaeus, it is a plausible conjecture that the lost portion contained the name of Sappho. This is probably the same bronze seated statue which in the fifth centuryA.D.stood in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus at Constantinople and which is described by Christodorus in his Greek Anthology:129“She seemed to be weaving a well-hymned song, concentrating her thought on the silent Muses.”
No full-size statue which we can certainly identify as Sappho’s has been preserved. The seated lady in the Vatican holding a volume in her left hand is hardly Sappho, and it is not safe to call the standing lady with lyre in New York in the Metropolitan Museum by her name. It would be interesting to believe, as some do, that the famous maiden of Anzio in the National Museum in Rome was Sappho, but some scholars of repute even go so far as to say thatit is not even a maiden but rather a boy. Others say that a priestess, not a poetess, is portrayed. After repeated examination of the original I have no doubt of her sex and believe the statue to be that of a poetess, but whether of Praxilla or Sappho or some other cannot be definitely stated. We have, however, many Roman busts of different types130which have been conjectured to represent Sappho. One type in all probability is copied from Silanion, as it resembles closely in the features of the face and the arrangement of the hair, especially the little curls in front of the face and in the covering of the head, the portrait of Sappho on the early coins of Mytilene. The best example of this type is the bust in the Villa Albani in Rome (Pl. 19). It has the perfection, refinement, and finish to which Cicero referred, and Sappho is “exquisitely portrayed.” In the Biscari collection at Catania, Sicily, there is a Roman copy of a head meant to be inserted in a bust or statue. It is so poorly finished that it was probably placed in a niche or chapel to be seen from a distance. The oval face is young but placid and cold, a characteristic partly due to the Roman copyist. With its corkscrew curls and in other respects it is similar enough to the busts in the Villa Albani and the GalleriaGeographica of the Vatican to be classed with them. If they represent Sappho, the Sicilian bust also does. If Rizzo is right that this is a muse or nymph, then a copy of Silanion’s statue still remains to be found.
The so-called head of Sappho in the Pitti in Florence is of a different type, more dream-like, and may not be Sappho at all. More likely to represent Sappho are the busts in Oxford (Pl. 20) and the Vatican. Other busts about which there is considerable doubt are in Naples, in the Riccardi Palace, in the Uffizi at Florence, and there is a double herm in Madrid which has been called Sappho and Phaon. Of the so-called Phaon in Madrid, Amelung has recently found in the storerooms of the Vatican a beautiful replica, and he has also discovered there another Sappho bust of the type on coins. In the summer of 1922 I photographed a bust, which is in the Borghese Palace, and I think that it may represent Sappho (Pl. 21). It resembles a colossal head from Smyrna in Constantinople, the bust in Naples, and the double bust in Madrid in its energetic and individualized features, such as the large nose and thick lips, and in the curl on the forehead beneath the middle of the fillet. Rizzo would trace the Naples bust back to about420B.C.and call it an ideal representation of a mortal or perhaps even a courtesan. But Sappho might easily have been represented in the type of a courtesan or even a muse. The large bronze bust in New York which has been published as a portrayal of Sappho can hardly represent the poetess, even if the bronze is genuine and has the sanction of great authorities such as Eisen,131Babelon, and André, since it resembles none of the known portraits of her. The Romans as well as the Greeks were undoubtedly very fond of statues of Sappho, and some day excavators will turn up for us more authenticated portraits. The recently discovered Roman stucco relief which we have already described (p. 42) shows what we may expect from future discoveries. Even such articles of every-day-use as scales have weights in the form of a Sappho head, such as that recently discovered.132
What we have said about the uncertainty of representations of Sappho in ancient sculpture applies equally to the portrait of her on gems. Cipollini has listed and illustrated many ancient and modern gems and miniatures, but even if those called ancient are forgeries or are from Renaissance times, the great number of themshows the unusual influence of Sappho on the glyptic art in precious stones.
After Roman days Sappho was often pictured and sculptured in various ideal ways.133Space fails us to discuss the almost endless works of later art influenced by her name and traditions; and it seems idle to detain the reader with a detailed catalogue. But to leave no doubt that Sappho has had a vast and powerful influence on art of all ages, I may mention some of the more important. During the last sixty years especially, sculpture has paid a frequent and international tribute to her. Now she is represented as sad and pensive, now meditating suicide, now about to make the fatal leap from the Leucadian rock as in Pietro Magni’s Saffo (1866), now even as a corpse on the surface of the sea. Magni’s statue (Pl. 22) was much admired during his lifetime and it reminds one of the Roman stucco relief, since it likewise represents Sappho, lyre in hand and with head wreathed, standing on the edge of the rock. She is holding back her skirts with her left hand and looking seriously at the waters below, with the intention of stepping off at the next moment. In 1878 the illustrious Lombard sculptor, Francesco Confalonieri, influenced it may be by theVatican Agrippina, made a seated statue which represents Sappho in profile with sad and bowed head, clasping her hands on her left side, her lyre abandoned on the floor. France did not approve of this statue because some years before Pradier also had sculptured a draped and dreaming Sappho who was seated on the Leucadian rock with bowed head and hands clasped about her raised crossed left leg, her lyre lying neglected on the rock (Pl. 23). Pradier had also sculptured a standing, draped Sappho with bowed head holding her lyre in her left hand, and supporting her right on an Ionic column on which rest the rolls of her divine poetry.
The great German sculptor Danneker, who was so fond of classical subjects and was the sculptor of the famous Ariadne, chiselled a charming marble statuette of Sappho (1796). The beautiful bas-relief in Greek style in the Vienna Volksgarten, which R. Weyr sculptured for the Grillparzer Monument, represents Sappho’s farewell. She stands in drapery like that of the Erechtheum Caryatids. She is holding a lyre and kissing good-bye to a girl friend who gives her a last embrace. A shepherd kneels nearby and others in the background are recoiling in fear. She herself stands at the edge of thesteps in front of Apollo’s temple, and there is much other Greek architecture in this relief.
In France, Claude Ramey (1801) exhibited a seated statue; Duret (1806), a Sappho writing to Phaon; Beauvallet (1817), a bust; Diebolt (1848), a dying Sappho of noble and poetical expression. Other statues of Sappho were made and exhibited in the Salon by Laurent (1849), Grootaers (1852), Travaux (1852, now in the Louvre), Aizelin (1853, bronze), Loison (1859), Grabowski (1859), Clésinger (1859, three statues, “Sappho singing her last song, Seated on the Leucadian rock,” “The youth of Sappho,” and a polychrome statue), Robinet (1861), Doriot (1872), and Signora Maraini. In America, too, from the days of Story and Hezekiah Augur to the bronze doors of the new Detroit Public Library Sappho has been a subject for sculpture. Many are the busts which are inscribed to-day with the name of Sappho, such as that by A. Gennai in the possession of Mrs. W. B. Hill of Baltimore, or that by Sheldon.
In painting, though not often a subject for the greatest painters, Sappho was represented in Greek and Roman days and ever since right down to the most famous modern picture of her and her pupils by Alma Tadema, of which wehave given a description above (p. 32). Several pictures, such as Titian’sSacred and Profane Love, have been supposed by great critics to represent Sappho, but it is difficult to agree with Poppelreuter that Titian really meant to paint a Naiad counselling Sappho, who is lamenting her love in the forest, to take the Leucadian leap.134In some cases fortunately the painters themselves have labelled them. Raphael is perhaps the greatest painter who pictured her. He brings her significantly in hisParnassus(Pl. 24) into juxtaposition with Petrarch, who dedicated four verses of his tenth eclogue to her (see p. 136). She is represented prominently to the left of the doorway, resting her left arm on it and holding in her left hand a papyrus roll with the name Sappho upon it. Other minor painters who have painted Sappho are Treshain (1683, “The Adventures of Sappho”), Ansiaux (1801), Ducis (1812), Vafflard (1819, “Sappho rescued from the water by a stranger”), Girodet (1828, a series of compositions from her first love affair to the legendary leap), Lafond (1831), Vien (1833, “Sappho playing the lyre,” and “Sappho reciting to Phaon”), Chasseriau (1850), Chautard (1855), Agneni (1857, “Sappho rescued from the water by the Nereids”), Credès (1859),Kauffmann (two beautiful pictures, “Sappho inspired by love” and “Sappho talking with Homer;” these like many of the other pictures were also engraved). Barrias painted a sleeping, nude Sappho, with her lyre by her side, and represents her perhaps repeating the words: “The silver moon is set; The Pleiades are gone; Half the long night is spent, and yet I lie alone” (Merivale). Other painters of Sappho are Fragonard, Gros, Devosge, Bartolazzi, Picou (1863), Loir (1864), Chifflart (1865), Bertrand (1867, “Death of Sappho”), Gastaldi (1873, “Sappho meditating suicide”), Gleyre (“Couch of Sappho”). Hector Leroux in his “School of Sappho” represents her standing in the atrium of a Roman house, with lyre in her left hand, on a platform inscribed with the name of the Lesbian Sappho, evidently giving instruction to her many friends and pupils who stand and sit in various postures in the audience.
This is only a partial list and could easily be extended, but enough has been said to show that a knowledge of the real Sappho and her writings and the legends connected with her will help one to be a sound and intelligent critic of much in the realm of art.
If Sappho’s influence on art has been considerable, her place in literature has been far more remarkable. Nearly every thought in her fragments, which were known before the recent papyrus additions, has been borrowed or adapted by some ancient Greek or Roman poet or some modern poet in English, Italian, French, German, or modern Greek. Even the Spanish, Scandinavians, and Russians (p. 233) know her, though not so well acquainted with her as the authors of other nations. A very remarkable thing is that her writings have in all the ages been almost never unfavorably criticized from a literary point of view, no matter how her character was regarded. We have already, in giving a résumé of Sappho’s writings, cited many an echo, many a translation, many a dilation or dilution, but have seen that the real flavor of Sappho’s Greek cannot be transferred to any other language. In this and succeeding chapters,however, some of the names of writers who owe much to her will be brought together. She herself was original and coined many a new idea, many a new word, and perfected a new form of metre. Just as a modern poet, Tennyson for example, is indebted to his predecessors, Keats, Shelley, Shakespeare, for images and ideas, she was somewhat indebted in language and thought to Homer,135who filled the fancy of the Lesbians and was himself, probably, born at the neighboring Smyrna. She took little from Hesiod, although we find a few echoes of him which I cite in a note.136On the other hand, succeeding poets of the next hundred years seem to have taken little from her. Mimnermus probably knew the second ode, and his lines are included in the Corpus of Theognis.137If the fragment “Gold is Zeus’ child, no moth nor worm devours it (E. 110)” is Sappho’s and not originally written by Pindar himself, then Pindar took that idea from Sappho.138Herodotus tells the story of Rhodopis, and Plato, who would exclude poets from his ideal state, makes Socrates speak in thePhaedrusof the beautiful Sappho as one of the wise ancients, and he calls her the Tenth Muse in his famous epigram.
Aristotle, who refers to her three times, is thefirst one definitely to quote her verses and that twice in theRhetoric(E. 91, 119, andp. 159). Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus, who was also born in Eresus cites her (περὶ λέξεως, Mayer, 1910) as the representative of charm in all its forms. That essential element of charm is emphasized by Plutarch and by Demetrius, the rhetorician of the first centuryA.D., in hisEssay on Style. Another pupil of Aristotle, Chamaeleon (310B.C.), wrote a book about her.
Sappho’s influence was not great in the field of Greek and Roman tragedy. Aeschylus and Sophocles betray no acquaintance with her, but Euripides was considerably affected by her verses on love. When he writes inElectra(l. 67), “I consider you a friend equal to the gods,” he is thinking of the first verse of Sappho’s second song. Plutarch cites Aristoxenus as saying that the tragedians learned the mixed Lydian mode from her. In comedy Aristophanes had a slight acquaintance with her, and he was thinking of Sappho’s first hymn in his suffragette playLysistrata(ll. 723 ff.), where a love-sick devotee of Aphrodite endeavors to escape from the Acropolis on the back of the sparrow, Aphrodite’s bird. Epicrates dealt with Sappho in his comedy,Anti-Laïs, beforethe year 392B.C.; and Athenaeus applies the words of Epicrates to himself: