INTRODUCTION

THE POETRY OF SAPPHO.—If all the poets and all the lovers of poetry should be asked to name the most precious of the priceless things which time has wrung in tribute from the triumphs of human genius, the answer which would rush to every tongue would be “The Lost Poems of Sappho.” These we know to have been jewels of a radiance so imperishable that the broken gleams of them still dazzle men’s eyes, whether shining from the two small brilliants and the handful of star-dust which alone remain to us, or reflected merely from the adoration of those poets of old time who were so fortunate as to witness their full glory.

For about two thousand five hundred years Sappho has held her place as not only the supreme poet of her sex, but the chief lyrist of all lyrists. Every one who reads acknowledges her fame, concedes her supremacy; but to all except poets and Hellenists her name is a vague and uncomprehended splendour, rising secure above a persistent mist of misconception. In spite of all that is in these days being written about Sappho, it is perhaps not out of place now to inquire, in a few words, into the substance of this supremacy which towers so unassailably secure from what appear to be such shadowy foundations.

First, we have the witness of her contemporaries. Sappho was at the height of her career about six centuries before Christ, at a period when lyric poetry was peculiarly esteemed and cultivated at the centres of Greek life. Among the Molic peoples of the Isles, in particular, it had been carried to a high pitch of perfection, and its forms had become the subject of assiduous study. Its technique was exact, complex, extremely elaborate, minutely regulated; yet the essential fires of sincerity, spontaneity, imagination and passion were flaming with undiminished heat behind the fixed forms and restricted measures. The very metropolis of this lyric realm was Mitylene of Lesbos, where, amid the myrtle groves and temples, the sunlit silver of the fountains, the hyacinth gardens by a soft blue sea, Beauty and Love in their young warmth could fuse the most rigid forms to fluency. Here Sappho was the acknowledged queen of song—revered, studied, imitated, served, adored by a little court of attendants and disciples, loved and hymned

by Alcæus, and acclaimed by her fellowcraftsmen throughout Greece as the wonder of her age. That all the tributes of her contemporaries show reverence not less for her personality than for her genius is sufficient answer to the calumnies with which the ribald jesters of that later period, the corrupt and shameless writers of Athenian comedy, strove to defile her fame. It is sufficient, also, to warrant our regarding the picturesque but scarcely dignified story of her vain pursuit of Phaon and her frenzied leap from the Cliff of Leucas as nothing more than a poetic myth, reminiscent, perhaps, of the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis—who is, indeed, called Phaon in some versions. The story is further discredited by the fact that we find no mention of it in Greek literature—even among those Attic comedians who would have clutched at it so eagerly and given it so gross a turn—till a date more than two hundred years after Sappho’s death. It is a myth which has begotten some exquisite literature, both in prose and verse,

from Ovid’s famous epistle to Addison’s gracious fantasy and some impassioned and imperishable dithyrambs of Mr. Swinburne; but one need not accept the story as a fact in order to appreciate the beauties which flowered out from its coloured unreality.

The applause of contemporaries, however, is not always justified by the verdict of after-times, and does not always secure an immortality of renown. The fame of Sappho has a more stable basis. Her work was in the world’s possession for not far short of a thousand years—a thousand years of changing tastes, searching criticism, and familiar use. It had to endure the wear and tear of quotation, the commonizing touch of the school and the market-place. And under this test its glory grew ever more and more conspicuous. Through those thousand years poets and critics vied with one another in proclaiming her verse the one unmatched exemplar of lyric art. Such testimony, even though not a single fragment remained to us from which to judge her poetry for ourselves, might well convince us that the supremacy acknowledged by those who knew all the triumphs of the genius of old Greece was beyond the assault of any modern rival. We might safely accept the sustained judgment of a thousand years of Greece.

Fortunately for us, however, two small but incomparable odes and a few scintillating fragments have survived, quoted and handed down in the eulogies of critics and expositors. In these the wisest minds, the greatest poets, and the most inspired teachers of modern days have found justification for the unanimous verdict of antiquity. The tributes of Addison, Tennyson, and others, the throbbing paraphrases and ecstatic interpretations of Swinburne, are too well known to call for special comment in this brief note; but the concise summing up of her genius by Mr. Watts-Dunton in his remarkable essay on poetry is so convincing and illuminating that it seems to demand quotation here: “Never before these songs were sung, and never since did the human soul, in the grip of a fiery passion, utter a cry like hers; and, from the executive point of view, in directness, in lucidity, in that high, imperious verbal economy which only nature can teach the artist, she has no equal, and none worthy to take the place of second.”

The poems of Sappho so mysteriously lost to us seem to have consisted of at least nine books of odes, together with epithalamia, epigrams, elegies, and monodies. Of the several theories which have been advanced to account for their disappearance, the most plausible seems to be that which represents them as having been burned at Byzantium in the year 380 Anno Domini, by command of Gregory Nazianzen, in order that his own poems might be studied in their stead and the morals of the people thereby improved. Of the efficacy of this act no means of judging has come down to us.

In recent years there has arisen a great body of literature upon the subject of Sappho, most of it the abstruse work of scholars writing for scholars. But the gist of it all, together with the minutest surviving fragment of her verse, has been made available to the general reader in English by Mr. Henry T. Wharton, in whose altogether admirable little volume we find all that is known and the most apposite of all that has been said up to the present day about

“Love’s priestess, mad with pain and joy of song, Song’s priestess, mad with joy and pain of love.”

Perhaps the most perilous and the most alluring venture in the whole field of poetry is that which Mr. Carman has undertaken in attempting to give us in English verse those lost poems of Sappho of which fragments have survived. The task is obviously not one of translation or of paraphrasing, but of imaginative and, at the same time, interpretive construction. It is as if a sculptor of to-day were to set himself, with reverence, and trained craftsmanship, and studious familiarity with the spirit, technique, and atmosphere of his subject, to restore some statues of Polyclitus or Praxiteles of which he had but a broken arm, a foot, a knee, a finger upon which to build. Mr. Carman’s method, apparently, has been to imagine each lost lyric as discovered, and then to translate it; for the indefinable flavour of the translation is maintained throughout, though accompanied by the fluidity and freedom of purely original work.

C.G.D. ROBERTS.

Now to please my little friend I must make these notes of spring, With the soft south-west wind in them And the marsh notes of the frogs.

I must take a gold-bound pipe, And outmatch the bubbling call From the beechwoods in the sunlight, From the meadows in the rain.

CONTENTS

Now to please my little friend

I Cyprus, Paphos, or Panormus

II What shall we do, Cytherea?

III Power and beauty and knowledge

IV O Pan of the evergreen forest

V O Aphrodite

VI Peer of the gods he seems

VII The Cyprian came to thy cradle

VIII Aphrodite of the foam

IX Nay, but always and forever

X Let there be garlands, Dica

XI When the Cretan maidens

XII In a dream I spoke with the Cyprus-born

XIII Sleep thou in the bosom

XIV Hesperus, bringing together

XV In the grey olive-grove a small brown bird

XVI In the apple boughs the coolness

XVII Pale rose leaves have fallen

XVIII The courtyard of her house is wide

XIX There is a medlar-tree

XX I behold Arcturus going westward

XXI Softly the first step of twilight

XXII Once you lay upon my bosom

XXIII I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago

XXIV I shall be ever maiden

XXV It was summer when I found you

XXVI I recall thy white gown, cinctured

XXVII Lover, art thou of a surety

XXVIII With your head thrown backward

XXIX Ah, what am I but a torrent

XXX Love shakes my soul, like a mountain wind

XXXI Love, let the wind cry

XXXII Heart of mine, if all the altars

XXXIII Never yet, love, in earth’s lifetime

XXXIV “Who was Atthis?” men shall ask

XXXV When the great pink mallow

XXXVI When I pass thy door at night

XXXVII Well I found you in the twilit garden

XXXVIII Will not men remember us

XXXIX I grow weary of the foreign cities

XL Ah, what detains thee, Phaon

XLI Phaon, O my lover

XLII O heart of insatiable longing

XLIII Surely somehow, in some measure

XLIV O but my delicate lover

XLV Softer than the hill-fog to the forest

XLVI I seek and desire

XLVII Like torn sea-kelp in the drift

XLVIII Fine woven purple linen

XLIX When I am home from travel

L When I behold the pharos shine

LI Is the day long

LII Lo, on the distance a dark blue ravine

LIII Art thou the top-most apple

LIV How soon will all my lovely days be over

LV Soul of sorrow, why this weeping?

LVI It never can be mine

LVII Others shall behold the sun

LVIII Let thy strong spirit never fear

LIX Will none say of Sappho

LX When I have departed

LXI There is no more to say, now thou art still

LXII Play up, play up thy silver flute

LXIII A beautiful child is mine

LXIV Ah, but now henceforth

LXV Softly the wind moves through the radiant morning

LXVI What the west wind whispers

LXVII Indoors the fire is kindled

LXVIII You ask how love can keep the mortal soul

LXIX Like a tall forest were their spears

LXX My lover smiled, “O friend, ask not

LXXI Ye who have the stable world

LXXII I heard the gods reply

LXXIII The sun on the tide, the peach on the bough

LXXIV If death be good

LXXV Tell me what this life means

LXXVI Ye have heard how Marsyas

LXXVII Hour by hour I sit

LXXVIII Once in the shining street

LXXIX How strange is love, O my lover

LXXX How to say I love you

LXXXI Hark, love, to the tambourines

LXXXII Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon

LXXXIII In the quiet garden world

LXXXIV Soft was the wind in the beech-trees

LXXXV Have ye heard the news of Sappho’s garden

LXXXVI Love is so strong a thing

LXXXVII Hadst thou with all thy loveliness been true

LXXXVIII As on a morn a traveller might emerge

LXXXIX Where shall I look for thee

XC O sad, sad face and saddest eyes that ever

XCI Why have the gods in derision

XCII Like a red lily in the meadow grasses

XCIII When in the spring the swallows all return

XCIV Cold is the wind where Daphne sleeps

XCV Hark, where Poseidon’s

XCVI Hark, my lover, it is spring!

XCVII When the early soft spring wind comes blowing

XCVIII I am more tremulous than shaken reeds

XCIX Over the wheat field

C Once more the rain on the mountain

Epilogue

I

Cyprus, Paphos, or Panormus May detain thee with their splendour Of oblations on thine altars, O imperial Aphrodite.

Yet do thou regard, with pity 5 For a nameless child of passion, This small unfrequented valley By the sea, O sea-born mother.

II

What shall we do, Cytherea? Lovely Adonis is dying. Ah, but we mourn him!

Will he return when the Autumn Purples the earth, and the sunlight 5 Sleeps in the vineyard?

Will he return when the Winter Huddles the sheep, and Orion Goes to his hunting?

Ah, but thy beauty, Adonis, 10 With the soft spring and the south wind, Love and desire!

III

Power and beauty and knowledge,— Pan, Aphrodite, or Hermes,— Whom shall we life-loving mortals Serve and be happy?

Lo now, your garlanded altars, 5 Are they not goodly with flowers? Have ye not honour and pleasure In lovely Lesbos?

Will ye not, therefore, a little Hearten, impel, and inspire 10 One who adores, with a favour Threefold in wonder?

IV

O Pan of the evergreen forest, Protector of herds in the meadows, Helper of men at their toiling,— Tillage and harvest and herding,— How many times to frail mortals 5 Hast thou not hearkened!

Now even I come before thee With oil and honey and wheat-bread, Praying for strength and fulfilment Of human longing, with purpose 10 Ever to keep thy great worship Pure and undarkened.

* * * * *

O Hermes, master of knowledge, Measure and number and rhythm, Worker of wonders in metal, 15 Moulder of malleable music, So often the giver of secret Learning to mortals!

Now even I, a fond woman, Frail and of small understanding, 20 Yet with unslakable yearning Greatly desiring wisdom, Come to the threshold of reason And the bright portals.

* * * * *

And thou, sea-born Aphrodite, 25 In whose beneficent keeping Earth, with her infinite beauty, Colour and fashion and fragrance, Glows like a flower with fervour Where woods are vernal! 30

Touch with thy lips and enkindle This moon-white delicate body, Drench with the dew of enchantment This mortal one, that I also Grow to the measure of beauty 35 Fleet yet eternal.

V

O Aphrodite, God-born and deathless, Break not my spirit With bitter anguish: Thou wilful empress, 5 I pray thee, hither!

As once aforetime Well thou didst hearken To my voice far off,— Listen, and leaving 10 Thy father’s golden House in yoked chariot,

Come, thy fleet sparrows Beating the mid-air Over the dark earth. 15 Suddenly near me, Smiling, immortal, Thy bright regard asked

What had befallen,— Why I had called thee,— 20 What my mad heart then Most was desiring. “What fair thing wouldst thou Lure now to love thee?

“Who wrongs thee, Sappho? 25 If now she flies thee, Soon shall she follow;— Scorning thy gifts now, Soon be the giver;— And a loth loved one 30

“Soon be the lover.” So even now, too, Come and release me From mordant love pain, And all my heart’s will 35 Help me accomplish!

VI

Peer of the gods he seems, Who in thy presence Sits and hears close to him Thy silver speech-tones And lovely laughter. 5

Ah, but the heart flutters Under my bosom, When I behold thee Even a moment; Utterance leaves me; 10

My tongue is useless; A subtle fire Runs through my body; My eyes are sightless, And my ears ringing; 15

I flush with fever, And a strong trembling Lays hold upon me; Paler than grass am I, Half dead for madness. 20

Yet must I, greatly Daring, adore thee, As the adventurous Sailor makes seaward For the lost sky-line 25

And undiscovered Fabulous islands, Drawn by the lure of Beauty and summer And the sea’s secret. 30

VII

The Cyprian came to thy cradle, When thou wast little and small, And said to the nurse who rocked thee “Fear not thou for the child:

“She shall be kindly favoured, 5 And fair and fashioned well, As befits the Lesbian maidens And those who are fated to love.”

Hermes came to thy cradle, Resourceful, sagacious, serene, 10 And said, “The girl must have knowledge, To lend her freedom and poise.

Naught will avail her beauty, If she have not wit beside. She shall be Hermes’ daughter, 15 Passing wise in her day.”

Great Pan came to thy cradle, With calm of the deepest hills, And smiled, “They have forgotten The veriest power of life. 20

“To kindle her shapely beauty, And illumine her mind withal, I give to the little person The glowing and craving soul.”

VIII

Aphrodite of the foam, Who hast given all good gifts, And made Sappho at thy will Love so greatly and so much,

Ah, how comes it my frail heart 5 Is so fond of all things fair, I can never choose between Gorgo and Andromeda?