SAPPHO TO PHAON.[1]

Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sail;

whereas in Ovid, Cupid appears before us in the very act of guiding the vessel, seated as the pilot, and with histenderhand (tenerâ manu) contracting, or letting flow the sail. I need not point out another beauty in the original,—the repetition of the wordIpse.—Bowles.

Richardson has appended this note to the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon in his copy of the quarto of 1717: "Corrected by the first copy, written out elegantly (as all his MSS.) to show friends, with their remarks in the margin; the present reading for the most part the effect of them." The remarks in the margin are mere exclamations, such as "pulchre," "bene," "optime," "recte," "bella paraphrasis," "longe præstas Scrope meo judicio," "minus placet," &c. They are doubtless from the pen of Cromwell, since it appeals from Pope's letter to him on June 10, 1709, that he had jotted down the same phrases on the margin of the translation of Statius. Bowles having quoted the observation of Warton, "that he had seen compositions of youths of sixteen years old far beyond the Pastorals in point of genius and imagination," adds, "I fear not to assert that he never could have seen any compositions of boys of that age so perfect in versification, so copious, yet so nice in expression, so correct, so spirited, and so finished," as the translation of the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon. The remark was made by Bowles in the belief that the version was the production of the poet's fourteenth year. Pope himself records on his manuscript that it was "written first 1707." He was then nineteen, and when the Epistle was published in 1712, in Tonson's Ovid, he was twenty-four.

"Ovid," says Dryden, "often writ too pointedly for his subject, and made his persons speak more eloquently than the violence of their passions would admit." Passion is sometimes highly eloquent; feeling strongly it expresses itself forcibly, and Dryden meant that the characters in Ovid, by their numerous strokes of studied brilliancy, seemed to be carried away less by their emotions than by the ambition to shine. These glittering artifices were formerly called wit, and Dryden complains that Ovid "is frequently witty out of season," but they are not wit in our present sense of the word. Occasionally they are the far-fetched or affected prettinesses which are properlycalled conceits; and more commonly they consist in terse antithesis, and a sparkle of words produced by the balanced repetition of a phrase. They are often as appropriate as they are showy, and if they are among the blemishes they are conspicuous among the beauties of Ovid. His writings are marked by opposite qualities. He is sometimes too artificial in his expression of the passions, and sometimes he is natural, glowing, and pathetic. He abounds in pointed sentences, and is not less distinguished for the easy, spontaneous flow of his language. He is at once prolix and concise, indulging in a single vein of thought till the monotony becomes tedious, and yet enunciating his ideas with sententious brevity. The condensation of the Latin in many places cannot be preserved in the diffuser idioms of our English tongue, but, if we overlook a few weak couplets, Pope has translated the Epistle of Sappho to Phaon with rare felicity, and notwithstanding the inevitable loss of some happy turns of expression, he has managed to retain both the passion and the poetry. Effusions of sentiment were better adapted to his genius than the heroic narrative of the Thebais; and his limpid measure, which neither resembled the numerous and robuster verse of Statius, nor was suited to an epic theme, accorded with the sweetness and uniformity of Ovid's verse, and with the outpourings of grief and tenderness which are the staple of these epistolary strains. There is no ground for the regret of Warton that Pope should have spent a little time in translating portions of Ovid and Statius. It would be as reasonable to lament that he stooped to the preliminary discipline which made him a poet. He has related that he did not take to translation till he found himself unequal to original composition, and, like all who excel in any department, he learnt, by copying his predecessors, to rival them.

Say, lovely youth,[2]that dost my heart command,Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?Must then her name the wretched writer prove,To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose,5The lute neglected, and the lyric muse;[3]Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow.And tuned my heart to elegies of woe.I burn, I burn, as when through ripened cornBy driving winds the spreading flames are borne![4]10Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires,While I consume with more than Ætna's fires![5]No more my soul a charm in music finds;Music has charms alone for peaceful minds.[6]Soft scenes of solitude no more can please,15Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,Once the dear objects of my guilty love;All other loves are lost in only thine,Ah youth ungrateful to a flame like mine!20Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise,Those heav'nly looks, and dear deluding eyes?The harp and bow would you like Phœbus bear,A brighter Phœbus Phaon might appear;Would you with ivy wreathe your flowing hair,25Not Bacchus' self with Phaon could compare:Yet Phœbus loved, and Bacchus felt the flame,One Daphne warmed, and one the Cretan dame;[7]Nymphs that in verse no more could rival me,Than ev'n those gods contend in charms with thee.[8]30The muses teach me all their softest lays,And the wide world resounds with Sappho's praise.Though great Alcæus more sublimely sings,And strikes with bolder rage the sounding strings,No less renown attends the moving lyre,35Which Venus tunes, and all her loves inspire;To me what nature has in charms denied,Is well by wit's more lasting flames supplied.Though short my stature, yet my name extendsTo heav'n itself, and earth's remotest ends.40Brown as I am, an Ethiopian dame[9]Inspired young Perseus with a gen'rous flame;Turtles and doves of diff'ring hues unite,And glossy jet is paired with shining white.If to no charms thou wilt thy heart resign,45But such as merit, such as equal thine,By none, alas! by none thou can'st be moved,Phaon alone by Phaon must be loved!Yet once thy Sappho could thy cares employ,Once in her arms you centered all your joy:50No time the dear remembrance can remove,For oh! how vast a memory has love?[10]My music, then, you could for ever hear,And all my words were music to your ear.You stopped with kisses my enchanting tongue,55And found my kisses sweeter than my song.[11]In all I pleased, but most in what was best;And the last joy was dearer than the rest.[12]Then with each word, each glance, each motion fired,You still enjoyed, and yet you still desired,60Till all dissolving in the trance we lay,And in tumultuous raptures died away.The fair Sicilians now thy soul inflame;Why was I born, ye gods, a Lesbian dame?But ah! beware, Sicilian nymphs! nor boast65That wand'ring heart which I so lately lost;Nor be with all those tempting words abused,Those tempting words were all to Sappho used.And you that rule Sicilia's happy plains,Have pity, Venus,[13]on your poet's pains!70Shall fortune still in one sad tenor run,And still increase the woes so soon begun?Inured to sorrow from my tender years,My parent's ashes drank my early tears;My brother next, neglecting wealth and fame,75Ignobly burned in a destructive flame:[14]An infant daughter late my griefs increased,And all a mother's cares distract my breast.[15]Alas! what more could fate itself impose,But thee, the last and greatest of my woes?80No more my robes in waving purple flow,Nor on my hand the sparkling diamonds glow;No more my locks in ringlets curled diffuseThe costly sweetness of Arabian dews,Nor braids of gold the varied tresses bind,85That fly disordered with the wanton wind:For whom should Sappho use such arts as these?He's gone, whom only she desired to please!Cupid's light darts my tender bosom move,Still is there cause for Sappho still to love:90So from my birth the sisters fixed my doom,And gave to Venus all my life to come;Or, while my muse in melting notes complains,My yielding heart keeps measure to my strains.By charms like thine which all my soul have won,95Who might not—ah! who would not be undone?For those Aurora Cephalus[16]might scorn,And with fresh blushes paint the conscious morn.For those might Cynthia lengthen Phaon's sleep,And bid Endymion[17]nightly tend his sheep.100Venus for those had rapt thee to the skies,But Mars on thee might look with Venus' eyes.O scarce a youth, yet scarce a tender boy!O useful time for lovers to employ!Pride of thy age, and glory of thy race,105Come to these arms, and melt in this embrace!The vows you never will return, receive;And take at least the love you will not give.[18]See, while I write, my words are lost in tears![19]The less my sense, the more my love appears.110Sure 'twas not much to bid one kind adieu,(At least to feign was never hard to you,)[20]Farewell, my Lesbian love, you might have said;Or coldly thus, "Farewell, O Lesbian maid!"No tear did you, no parting kiss receive,115Nor knew I then how much I was to grieve.No lover's gift your Sappho could confer,[21]And wrongs and woes were all you left with her.No charge I gave you, and no charge could give,But this, "Be mindful of our loves, and live."120Now by the Nine, those pow'rs adored by me,And Love, the god that ever waits on thee,When first I heard (from whom I hardly knew)That you were fled, and all my joys with you,Like some sad statue[22], speechless, pale I stood,125Grief chilled my breast, and stopped my freezing blood;No sigh to rise, no tear had pow'r to flow,Fixed in a stupid lethargy of woe:But when its way th' impetuous passion found,I rend my tresses, and my breast I wound;130I rave, then weep; I curse, and then complain;Now swell to rage, now melt in tears again.Not fiercer pangs distract the mournful dame,Whose first-born infant feeds the fun'ral flame.My scornful brother with a smile appears,135Insults my woes, and triumphs in my tears;His hated image ever haunts my eyes;"And why this grief? thy daughter lives," he cries.Stung with my love, and furious with despair,[23]All torn my garments, and my bosom bare,140My woes, thy crimes, I to the world proclaim;Such inconsistent things are love and shame!'Tis thou art all my care and my delight,My daily longing, and my dream by night:[24]Oh night more pleasing than the brightest day,145When fancy gives what absence takes away,And, dressed in all its visionary charms,Restores my fair deserter to my arms!Then round your neck in wanton wreaths I twine,Then you, methinks, as fondly circle mine:150A thousand tender words I hear and speak;A thousand melting kisses give, and take:[25]Then fiercer joys, I blush to mention these,Yet, while I blush, confess how much they please.But when, with day, the sweet delusions fly,155And all things wake to life and joy, but I,As if once more forsaken, I complain,And close my eyes to dream of you again:[26]Then frantic rise, and like some fury roveThrough lonely plains,[27]and through the silent grove,160As if the silent grove, and lonely plains,That knew my pleasures, could relieve my pains.I view the grotto, once the scene of love,The rocks around, the hanging roofs above,That charmed me more, with native moss o'ergrown,165Than Phrygian marble, or the Parian stone;I find the shades that veiled our joys before;But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more.[28]Here the pressed herbs with bending tops betrayWhere oft entwined in am'rous folds we lay;170I kiss that earth which once was pressed by you,And all with tears the with'ring herbs bedew.For thee the fading trees appear to mourn,And birds defer their songs till thy return:Night shades the groves, and all in silence lie,175All but the mournful Philomel and I:With mournful Philomel I join my strain,Of Tereus she, of Phaon I complain.[29]A spring there is, whose silver waters show,Clear as a glass, the shining sands below:180A flow'ry lotos spreads its arms above,Shades all the banks, and seems itself a grove;Eternal greens the mossy margin grace,Watched by the sylvan genius of the place:Here as I lay, and swelled with tears the flood,[30]185Before my sight a wat'ry virgin stood:She stood and cried, "O you that love in vain!Fly hence, and seek the fair Leucadian main;There stands a rock, from whose impending steepApollo's fane surveys the rolling deep;190There injured lovers, leaping from above,Their flames extinguish, and forget to love.[31]Deucalion once with hopeless fury burned,In vain he loved, relentless Pyrrha scorned:But when from hence he plunged into the main,195Deucalion scorned, and Pyrrha loved in vain.Haste, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throwThy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!"[32]She spoke, and vanished with the voice—I rise,And silent tears fall trickling from my eyes.200I go, ye nymphs! those rocks and seas to prove;How much I fear, but ah, how much I love!I go, ye nymphs, where furious love inspires;Let female fears submit to female fires.To rocks and seas I fly from Phaon's hate,205And hope from seas and rocks a milder fate.Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow,And softly lay me on the waves below![33]And thou, kind Love, my sinking limbs sustain,}Spread thy soft wings, and waft me o'er the main,}210Nor let a lover's death the guiltless flood profane!}On Phœbus' shrine my harp I'll then bestow,And this inscription shall be placed below,"Here she who sung, to him that did inspire,Sappho to Phœbus consecrates her lyre;215What suits with Sappho, Phœbus, suits with thee;The gift, the giver, and the god agree."But why, alas, relentless youth, ah! whyTo distant seas must tender Sappho fly?[34]Thy charms than those may far more pow'rful be,220And Phœbus' self is less a god to me.[35]Ah! canst thou doom me to the rocks and sea,Oh! far more faithless and more hard than they?Ah! canst thou rather see this tender breastDashed on these rocks, than to thy bosom pressed?225This breast which once, in vain! you liked so well;[36]Where the loves played, and where the muses dwell.Alas! the muses now no more inspire,Untuned my lute, and silent is my lyre.My languid numbers have forgot to flow,230And fancy sinks beneath a weight of woe.Ye Lesbian virgins, and ye Lesbian dames,Themes of my verse, and objects of my flames,No more your groves with my glad songs shall ring,No more these hands shall touch the trembling string:235My Phaon's fled, and I those arts resign:(Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!)[37]Return, fair youth, return, and bring alongJoy to my soul, and vigour to my song:Absent from thee, the poet's flame expires;240But ah! how fiercely burn the lover's fires!Gods! can no prayers, no sighs, no numbers moveOne savage heart, or teach it how to love?The winds my prayers, my sighs, my numbers bear,[38]The flying winds have lost them all in air!245Oh when, alas! shall more auspicious galesTo these fond eyes restore thy welcome sails![39]If you return—ah why these long delays?Poor Sappho dies, while careless Phaon stays.O launch the bark, nor fear the wat'ry plain;250Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.O launch thy bark, secure of prosp'rous gales;Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling sails.[40]If you will fly—(yet ah! what cause can be,Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)255If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,Ah let me seek it from the raging seas:To raging seas unpitied I'll remove,And either cease to live or cease to love!

FOOTNOTES:[1]The ancients have left us little further account of Phaon than that he was an old mariner, whom Venus transformed into a very beautiful youth, whom Sappho and several other Lesbian ladies, fell passionately in love with.—Fenton.[2]Mrs. Behn's translation:Say, lovely youth, why would'st thou thus betray.—Wakefield.[3]In the MS.:These mournful numbers suit a mournful muse.[4]Our poet has not varied much here from the couplet of his predecessor, Sir Carr Scrope:I burn, I burn, like kindled fields of corn,When by the driving winds the flames are borne.—Wakefield.The first version in Pope's manuscript, though not so closely copied from Scrope, is decidedly inferior to the text:I burn, I burn, as when fierce whirlwinds raiseThe spreading flames, and crackling harvests blaze.[5]A childish, false thought.—Warton.[6]Scrope's couplet exceeds this in simplicity, and to my taste, on the whole, is preferable:My muse, and lute can now no longer please;These are th' employments of a mind at ease.—Wakefield.[7]As Ovid tells the story in his Metamorphoses, Apollo fell in love with Daphne and pursued her. When he was gaining upon her in the race she was transformed, at her own request, into a laurel. The Cretan dame was Ariadne. Bacchus was smitten with her extraordinary beauty, and married her.[8]This happy line, which is not too extravagant for a lover, belongs to Pope.[9]Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, an Æthiopian king. Her mother thought herself superior in beauty to the Nereids, which excited their jealousy, and through their influence a sea-monster was sent to prey upon man and beast in the dominions of Cepheus. To atone for her mother's vanity, and rid the land of the scourge, Cepheus agreed to offer up Andromeda to the monster. She was chained to a rock on the coast, where Perseus saw her at the critical moment when she was about to be devoured. Captivated by her charms he engaged and slew the monster, and made Andromeda his wife.[10]This is very inferior to the conciseness, and simplicity of the original, "memini (meminerunt omnia amantes)." Sir Carr Scrope's translation is nearer the original, and more natural as well as elegant:For they who truly love remember all.—Bowles.[11]This line is another of the embellishments which Pope engrafted on the original.[12]The first line of this couplet is faulty in point of versification, and, to use our bard's own remark, ten low words creep in one dull line. As to the last line, it is wholly redundant, and has no place in the original.—Ruffhead.[13]In the original, Erycina, which was a surname of Venus from Mount Eryx, in Sicily, where a celebrated temple was dedicated to her.[14]He has here left four lines untranslated, which are thus rendered in the MS.:My ruined brother trades from shore to shore,And gains as basely as he lost before:Me too he hates, advised by me in vain,So fatal 'tis to be sincere and plain.Of the last couplet the MS. contains a second version:He hates his sister for a sister's care,So unsuccessful 'tis to be sincere.[15]In the MS.:An infant now my hapless fortunes shares,And this sad breast feels all a mother's cares.[16]Cephalus tells the story poetically in Sandys' translation of Ovid's Met. vii. 701. He was a hunter, who was setting his nets in early dawn,When grey Aurora, having vanquished night,Beheld me on the ever-fragrant hillOf steep Hymettus, and against my will,As I my toils extended, bare me thence.[17]Cynthia prolonged the sleep of Endymion, a shepherd of singular beauty, that she might kiss him without his knowledge.[18]Scrope is pleasing here:Oh! let me once more see those eyes of thine!Thy love I ask not; do but suffer mine.—Wakefield.Pope's couplet was as follows in the MS.:Thy love I ask not to forsaken me,All that I ask is but to doat on thee."Scrope melius hic," wrote Cromwell, and though Pope altered the lines the remark of Cromwell remains true.[19]Ruffhead observes, that this line is superior to the original,Aspice, quam sit in hoc multa litura loco;which he thinks flat and languid: but the simplicity of the appeal to the blot on her paper is admirable, and should be only mentioned as a fact. The imitator has destroyed the whole beauty of the line, by a quaint antithesis, and a laboured arrangement of words, which are not natural in affliction. Scrope's translation again excels Pope's:My constant falling tears the paper stain,And my weak hand, etc.—Bowles.[20]"The parenthesis is an interpolation," says a note transcribed by Richardson from Pope's manuscript, and the remark is equally applicable to the next line.[21]In the first edition,No gift on thee thy Sappho could confer.The original couplet in the MS. wasNo pledge you left me, faithless and unkind!Nothing with me but wrongs was left behind."Jejune, flat, and ill expressed," is written against the last line in the manuscript, and Pope profited by the criticism.[22]This image is not in the original, but it is very pleasingly introduced.—Bowles.[23]The ten next verses are much superior to the original.—Warton.[24]From Dryden's Ovid, Epist. vii.:Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.It was at first thus in Pope's MS.:Thou art at once my anguish and delight,Care of my day, and phantom of my night.[25]In the MS.:Thy kisses then, thy words my soul endear.Glow on my lips, and murmur in my ear.[26]Of this couplet there are two other versions in the MS.:The charming phantom flies, and I complain,As if thyself forsook me once again.And,I dread the light of cruel heav'n to view,And close my eyes once more to dream of you.[27]"Antra nemusque" are not well rendered by "through lonely plains." Ovid is concise and specific, Pope general. Better rendered by Scrope:Soon as I rise I haunt the caves and groves.—Bowles.[28]In the first edition:I find the shades that did our joys conceal,Not him who made me love those shades so well.[29]Scrope's translation:Of Tereus she complains, and I of thee.—Wakefield.Tereus married Progne, and afterwards fell in love with her sister Philomela. Both sisters conspired to revenge themselves upon him. They killed Itys, his son by Progne, gave him some of the flesh to eat. When, with savage exultation, they revealed the truth to him, and he was about to slay them, Progne was changed into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.[30]The Sappho of Ovid only says that she laid down upon the bank worn out with weeping. Pope is answerable for the extravagant conceit of "her swelling the flood with her tears." In the next verse Pope calls the Naiad "a watery virgin,"—an expression which borders on the ludicrous.[31]There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea; for it was an established opinion that all those who were taken up alive would be cured of their former passion. Sappho tried the remedy, but perished in the experiment.—Fawkes.[32]Aleæus arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap on her account; but hearing that her body could not be found, he very generously lamented her fall, and is said to have written his 215th ode on that occasion.—Warton.The entire story was probably a legend.[33]These two lines have been quoted as the most smooth and mellifluous in our language; and they are supposed to derive their sweetness and harmony from the mixture of so many iambics. Pope himself preferred the following line to all he had written, with respect to harmony:Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows.—Warton.Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis:A constant trade-wind will securely blow,And gently lay us on the spicy shore.—Wakefield.[34]In the MS.:To those steep cliffs, that ocean must I fly.[35]In the place of this couplet, there were four lines in the MS.:If thou return thy Sappho too shall stay,Not all the gods shall force me then away;Nor Love, nor Phœbus, then invoked shall be,For thou alone art all the gods to me.Another version ran thus:Wouldst thou return, oh more than Phœbus, fairNo god like thee could ease thy Sappho's care.[36]"Liked" seems a very unsuitable expression in the present day. It was a word, however, among our early writers of greater force and significance:What I that loved, and you thatliked,Shall we begin to wrangle?No, no, no; my heart is fixed,And cannot disentangle.Old Ballad.—Bowles.[37]In the MS.:Phaon—myPhaon I almost had said—Is fled, with Phaon your delights are fled.Cromwell wrote against the last line "recte, non pulchre," and Pope tried three variations of it before he cast them aside for the version in the text:Is gone, and with him all your pleasures fled.Is gone, and all that's pleasing with him fled.Is gone, and with him your delights are fled.[38]Of ver. 242 and v. 244, Pope says in the MS., "So at first as printed, but objected [against] as tautological.Sic recteas [in the] margin, but carried afterwards as at first." "Sighs" was thought to be too nearly synonymous with "prayers," and Pope altered the lines by erasing the expressions "no sighs" and "my sighs," and affixing the epithet "tender" in both verses to numbers.[39]In the MS.:Oh, when shall kinder, more auspicious gales,Waft to these eyes thy long-expected sails."Pleonasm," says a note on the manuscript. "Kinder, andmore auspicious, too much."[40]This image is very inferior to the original, as it is more vague and general: the picture in the original is strikingly beautiful. The circumstances which make it so, are omitted by Pope:Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido,Ipse dabit tenera vela legetque manu.—Bowles.The objection of Bowles would not have applied to the manuscript, where this admirable couplet, which Pope unwisely omitted, follows the lines in the text:Shall take the rudder in his tender hand,And steer thee safe to this forsaken land.There is a second, but inferior rendering:Shall sit presiding on the painted prore,And steer thy ship to this forsaken shore.Cromwell applied the words of Horace, "quæ desperat nitescere posse, relinquit," which seems intended to intimate that it was impossible to give a poetical translation of the original. Pope deferred to the mistaken criticism.

[1]The ancients have left us little further account of Phaon than that he was an old mariner, whom Venus transformed into a very beautiful youth, whom Sappho and several other Lesbian ladies, fell passionately in love with.—Fenton.

[2]Mrs. Behn's translation:Say, lovely youth, why would'st thou thus betray.—Wakefield.

[2]Mrs. Behn's translation:

Say, lovely youth, why would'st thou thus betray.—Wakefield.

[3]In the MS.:These mournful numbers suit a mournful muse.

[3]In the MS.:

These mournful numbers suit a mournful muse.

[4]Our poet has not varied much here from the couplet of his predecessor, Sir Carr Scrope:I burn, I burn, like kindled fields of corn,When by the driving winds the flames are borne.—Wakefield.The first version in Pope's manuscript, though not so closely copied from Scrope, is decidedly inferior to the text:I burn, I burn, as when fierce whirlwinds raiseThe spreading flames, and crackling harvests blaze.

[4]Our poet has not varied much here from the couplet of his predecessor, Sir Carr Scrope:

I burn, I burn, like kindled fields of corn,When by the driving winds the flames are borne.—Wakefield.

The first version in Pope's manuscript, though not so closely copied from Scrope, is decidedly inferior to the text:

I burn, I burn, as when fierce whirlwinds raiseThe spreading flames, and crackling harvests blaze.

[5]A childish, false thought.—Warton.

[6]Scrope's couplet exceeds this in simplicity, and to my taste, on the whole, is preferable:My muse, and lute can now no longer please;These are th' employments of a mind at ease.—Wakefield.

[6]Scrope's couplet exceeds this in simplicity, and to my taste, on the whole, is preferable:

My muse, and lute can now no longer please;These are th' employments of a mind at ease.—Wakefield.

[7]As Ovid tells the story in his Metamorphoses, Apollo fell in love with Daphne and pursued her. When he was gaining upon her in the race she was transformed, at her own request, into a laurel. The Cretan dame was Ariadne. Bacchus was smitten with her extraordinary beauty, and married her.

[8]This happy line, which is not too extravagant for a lover, belongs to Pope.

[9]Andromeda, the daughter of Cepheus, an Æthiopian king. Her mother thought herself superior in beauty to the Nereids, which excited their jealousy, and through their influence a sea-monster was sent to prey upon man and beast in the dominions of Cepheus. To atone for her mother's vanity, and rid the land of the scourge, Cepheus agreed to offer up Andromeda to the monster. She was chained to a rock on the coast, where Perseus saw her at the critical moment when she was about to be devoured. Captivated by her charms he engaged and slew the monster, and made Andromeda his wife.

[10]This is very inferior to the conciseness, and simplicity of the original, "memini (meminerunt omnia amantes)." Sir Carr Scrope's translation is nearer the original, and more natural as well as elegant:For they who truly love remember all.—Bowles.

For they who truly love remember all.—Bowles.

[11]This line is another of the embellishments which Pope engrafted on the original.

[12]The first line of this couplet is faulty in point of versification, and, to use our bard's own remark, ten low words creep in one dull line. As to the last line, it is wholly redundant, and has no place in the original.—Ruffhead.

[13]In the original, Erycina, which was a surname of Venus from Mount Eryx, in Sicily, where a celebrated temple was dedicated to her.

[14]He has here left four lines untranslated, which are thus rendered in the MS.:My ruined brother trades from shore to shore,And gains as basely as he lost before:Me too he hates, advised by me in vain,So fatal 'tis to be sincere and plain.Of the last couplet the MS. contains a second version:He hates his sister for a sister's care,So unsuccessful 'tis to be sincere.

[14]He has here left four lines untranslated, which are thus rendered in the MS.:

My ruined brother trades from shore to shore,And gains as basely as he lost before:Me too he hates, advised by me in vain,So fatal 'tis to be sincere and plain.

Of the last couplet the MS. contains a second version:

He hates his sister for a sister's care,So unsuccessful 'tis to be sincere.

[15]In the MS.:An infant now my hapless fortunes shares,And this sad breast feels all a mother's cares.

[15]In the MS.:

An infant now my hapless fortunes shares,And this sad breast feels all a mother's cares.

[16]Cephalus tells the story poetically in Sandys' translation of Ovid's Met. vii. 701. He was a hunter, who was setting his nets in early dawn,When grey Aurora, having vanquished night,Beheld me on the ever-fragrant hillOf steep Hymettus, and against my will,As I my toils extended, bare me thence.

[16]Cephalus tells the story poetically in Sandys' translation of Ovid's Met. vii. 701. He was a hunter, who was setting his nets in early dawn,

When grey Aurora, having vanquished night,Beheld me on the ever-fragrant hillOf steep Hymettus, and against my will,As I my toils extended, bare me thence.

[17]Cynthia prolonged the sleep of Endymion, a shepherd of singular beauty, that she might kiss him without his knowledge.

[18]Scrope is pleasing here:Oh! let me once more see those eyes of thine!Thy love I ask not; do but suffer mine.—Wakefield.Pope's couplet was as follows in the MS.:Thy love I ask not to forsaken me,All that I ask is but to doat on thee."Scrope melius hic," wrote Cromwell, and though Pope altered the lines the remark of Cromwell remains true.

[18]Scrope is pleasing here:

Oh! let me once more see those eyes of thine!Thy love I ask not; do but suffer mine.—Wakefield.

Pope's couplet was as follows in the MS.:

Thy love I ask not to forsaken me,All that I ask is but to doat on thee.

"Scrope melius hic," wrote Cromwell, and though Pope altered the lines the remark of Cromwell remains true.

[19]Ruffhead observes, that this line is superior to the original,Aspice, quam sit in hoc multa litura loco;which he thinks flat and languid: but the simplicity of the appeal to the blot on her paper is admirable, and should be only mentioned as a fact. The imitator has destroyed the whole beauty of the line, by a quaint antithesis, and a laboured arrangement of words, which are not natural in affliction. Scrope's translation again excels Pope's:My constant falling tears the paper stain,And my weak hand, etc.—Bowles.

[19]Ruffhead observes, that this line is superior to the original,

Aspice, quam sit in hoc multa litura loco;

which he thinks flat and languid: but the simplicity of the appeal to the blot on her paper is admirable, and should be only mentioned as a fact. The imitator has destroyed the whole beauty of the line, by a quaint antithesis, and a laboured arrangement of words, which are not natural in affliction. Scrope's translation again excels Pope's:

My constant falling tears the paper stain,And my weak hand, etc.—Bowles.

[20]"The parenthesis is an interpolation," says a note transcribed by Richardson from Pope's manuscript, and the remark is equally applicable to the next line.

[21]In the first edition,No gift on thee thy Sappho could confer.The original couplet in the MS. wasNo pledge you left me, faithless and unkind!Nothing with me but wrongs was left behind."Jejune, flat, and ill expressed," is written against the last line in the manuscript, and Pope profited by the criticism.

[21]In the first edition,

No gift on thee thy Sappho could confer.

The original couplet in the MS. was

No pledge you left me, faithless and unkind!Nothing with me but wrongs was left behind.

"Jejune, flat, and ill expressed," is written against the last line in the manuscript, and Pope profited by the criticism.

[22]This image is not in the original, but it is very pleasingly introduced.—Bowles.

[23]The ten next verses are much superior to the original.—Warton.

[24]From Dryden's Ovid, Epist. vii.:Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.It was at first thus in Pope's MS.:Thou art at once my anguish and delight,Care of my day, and phantom of my night.

[24]From Dryden's Ovid, Epist. vii.:

Their daily longing, and their nightly dream.

It was at first thus in Pope's MS.:

Thou art at once my anguish and delight,Care of my day, and phantom of my night.

[25]In the MS.:Thy kisses then, thy words my soul endear.Glow on my lips, and murmur in my ear.

[25]In the MS.:

Thy kisses then, thy words my soul endear.Glow on my lips, and murmur in my ear.

[26]Of this couplet there are two other versions in the MS.:The charming phantom flies, and I complain,As if thyself forsook me once again.And,I dread the light of cruel heav'n to view,And close my eyes once more to dream of you.

[26]Of this couplet there are two other versions in the MS.:

The charming phantom flies, and I complain,As if thyself forsook me once again.

And,

I dread the light of cruel heav'n to view,And close my eyes once more to dream of you.

[27]"Antra nemusque" are not well rendered by "through lonely plains." Ovid is concise and specific, Pope general. Better rendered by Scrope:Soon as I rise I haunt the caves and groves.—Bowles.

[27]"Antra nemusque" are not well rendered by "through lonely plains." Ovid is concise and specific, Pope general. Better rendered by Scrope:

Soon as I rise I haunt the caves and groves.—Bowles.

[28]In the first edition:I find the shades that did our joys conceal,Not him who made me love those shades so well.

[28]In the first edition:

I find the shades that did our joys conceal,Not him who made me love those shades so well.

[29]Scrope's translation:Of Tereus she complains, and I of thee.—Wakefield.Tereus married Progne, and afterwards fell in love with her sister Philomela. Both sisters conspired to revenge themselves upon him. They killed Itys, his son by Progne, gave him some of the flesh to eat. When, with savage exultation, they revealed the truth to him, and he was about to slay them, Progne was changed into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.

[29]Scrope's translation:

Of Tereus she complains, and I of thee.—Wakefield.

Tereus married Progne, and afterwards fell in love with her sister Philomela. Both sisters conspired to revenge themselves upon him. They killed Itys, his son by Progne, gave him some of the flesh to eat. When, with savage exultation, they revealed the truth to him, and he was about to slay them, Progne was changed into a swallow, and Philomela into a nightingale.

[30]The Sappho of Ovid only says that she laid down upon the bank worn out with weeping. Pope is answerable for the extravagant conceit of "her swelling the flood with her tears." In the next verse Pope calls the Naiad "a watery virgin,"—an expression which borders on the ludicrous.

[31]There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea; for it was an established opinion that all those who were taken up alive would be cured of their former passion. Sappho tried the remedy, but perished in the experiment.—Fawkes.

[32]Aleæus arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap on her account; but hearing that her body could not be found, he very generously lamented her fall, and is said to have written his 215th ode on that occasion.—Warton.The entire story was probably a legend.

The entire story was probably a legend.

[33]These two lines have been quoted as the most smooth and mellifluous in our language; and they are supposed to derive their sweetness and harmony from the mixture of so many iambics. Pope himself preferred the following line to all he had written, with respect to harmony:Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows.—Warton.Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis:A constant trade-wind will securely blow,And gently lay us on the spicy shore.—Wakefield.

Lo, where Mæotis sleeps, and hardly flows.—Warton.

Dryden in his Annus Mirabilis:

A constant trade-wind will securely blow,And gently lay us on the spicy shore.—Wakefield.

[34]In the MS.:To those steep cliffs, that ocean must I fly.

[34]In the MS.:

To those steep cliffs, that ocean must I fly.

[35]In the place of this couplet, there were four lines in the MS.:If thou return thy Sappho too shall stay,Not all the gods shall force me then away;Nor Love, nor Phœbus, then invoked shall be,For thou alone art all the gods to me.Another version ran thus:Wouldst thou return, oh more than Phœbus, fairNo god like thee could ease thy Sappho's care.

[35]In the place of this couplet, there were four lines in the MS.:

If thou return thy Sappho too shall stay,Not all the gods shall force me then away;Nor Love, nor Phœbus, then invoked shall be,For thou alone art all the gods to me.

Another version ran thus:

Wouldst thou return, oh more than Phœbus, fairNo god like thee could ease thy Sappho's care.

[36]"Liked" seems a very unsuitable expression in the present day. It was a word, however, among our early writers of greater force and significance:What I that loved, and you thatliked,Shall we begin to wrangle?No, no, no; my heart is fixed,And cannot disentangle.Old Ballad.—Bowles.

[36]"Liked" seems a very unsuitable expression in the present day. It was a word, however, among our early writers of greater force and significance:

What I that loved, and you thatliked,Shall we begin to wrangle?No, no, no; my heart is fixed,And cannot disentangle.Old Ballad.—Bowles.

[37]In the MS.:Phaon—myPhaon I almost had said—Is fled, with Phaon your delights are fled.Cromwell wrote against the last line "recte, non pulchre," and Pope tried three variations of it before he cast them aside for the version in the text:Is gone, and with him all your pleasures fled.Is gone, and all that's pleasing with him fled.Is gone, and with him your delights are fled.

[37]In the MS.:

Phaon—myPhaon I almost had said—Is fled, with Phaon your delights are fled.

Cromwell wrote against the last line "recte, non pulchre," and Pope tried three variations of it before he cast them aside for the version in the text:

Is gone, and with him all your pleasures fled.Is gone, and all that's pleasing with him fled.Is gone, and with him your delights are fled.

[38]Of ver. 242 and v. 244, Pope says in the MS., "So at first as printed, but objected [against] as tautological.Sic recteas [in the] margin, but carried afterwards as at first." "Sighs" was thought to be too nearly synonymous with "prayers," and Pope altered the lines by erasing the expressions "no sighs" and "my sighs," and affixing the epithet "tender" in both verses to numbers.

[39]In the MS.:Oh, when shall kinder, more auspicious gales,Waft to these eyes thy long-expected sails."Pleonasm," says a note on the manuscript. "Kinder, andmore auspicious, too much."

[39]In the MS.:

Oh, when shall kinder, more auspicious gales,Waft to these eyes thy long-expected sails.

"Pleonasm," says a note on the manuscript. "Kinder, andmore auspicious, too much."

[40]This image is very inferior to the original, as it is more vague and general: the picture in the original is strikingly beautiful. The circumstances which make it so, are omitted by Pope:Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido,Ipse dabit tenera vela legetque manu.—Bowles.The objection of Bowles would not have applied to the manuscript, where this admirable couplet, which Pope unwisely omitted, follows the lines in the text:Shall take the rudder in his tender hand,And steer thee safe to this forsaken land.There is a second, but inferior rendering:Shall sit presiding on the painted prore,And steer thy ship to this forsaken shore.Cromwell applied the words of Horace, "quæ desperat nitescere posse, relinquit," which seems intended to intimate that it was impossible to give a poetical translation of the original. Pope deferred to the mistaken criticism.

[40]This image is very inferior to the original, as it is more vague and general: the picture in the original is strikingly beautiful. The circumstances which make it so, are omitted by Pope:

Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido,Ipse dabit tenera vela legetque manu.—Bowles.

The objection of Bowles would not have applied to the manuscript, where this admirable couplet, which Pope unwisely omitted, follows the lines in the text:

Shall take the rudder in his tender hand,And steer thee safe to this forsaken land.

There is a second, but inferior rendering:

Shall sit presiding on the painted prore,And steer thy ship to this forsaken shore.

Cromwell applied the words of Horace, "quæ desperat nitescere posse, relinquit," which seems intended to intimate that it was impossible to give a poetical translation of the original. Pope deferred to the mistaken criticism.

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