The little coterie that wrote and talked and worked in the direction
of finer ideals of life and manners, under the influence of the first
woman poet of the world, has made the island of Lesbos, with its
varying charm of sea and sky, and beautiful gardens, and singing birds,
and sparkling fountains, and white cliffs outlined like sculpture in
the crystalline air, luminous for all time. Of its four more or less
famous poets, three were women, but Sappho has overshadowed all the
rest. The very atmosphere woke the imagination, and made their hearts
sing aloud with love and joy, varied by an occasional note of sorrow
and pain. They came from all lands, these gifted maidens, to sit at the
feet of Sappho, and to carry back to their distant homes the spirit of
poesy and song which inspired so many Hellenic women to brave deeds
as well as to tender and heroic words. But the passion of southern
seas became a religious enthusiasm in the sheltered and somber plains
of Bœotia, where the lives of women had been so bare and hard, and
Hesiod with his fellow-poets had given them such cold consolation. The
songs of love were turned to processional hymns chanted by white-robed
virgins as they brought offerings to the shrines of their gods.
It may have been the fame of Sappho that fired the genius of Myrtis
and Corinna. Possibly some dark-eyed maiden had come back from Lesbos
to spread the cult of knowledge and beauty, to found other esthetic
clubs which should give a new impulse to women’s lives. But when we try
to give a living form to these famous poets, we grasp at shadows. We
simply know that they lived and sang and had their little day of glory,
with grand tombs at the end, and statues in various parts of Greece.
They were teachers of Pindar, and Corinna is said to have defeated him
five times in poetic contests at Thebes. Several centuries later there
was still at Tanagra a picture representing her in the act of binding a
fillet about her beautiful head, probably in token of these victories.
Five crowns on her tomb also told the story. She was the friend and
critic of the great lyric poet, but he said some unkind things of his
successful rival, and insisted that the prize was due to her beauty
rather than her genius. In spite of this, he went to her for counsel.
She had advised him to use the Greek myths in his poems, and he did
it so lavishly that she wittily told him to “sow with the hand and not
pour out of a sack.” She was not quite generous, however, to her other
friend, who also won a prize in the same manner. She says, “I blame
the clear-toned Myrtis that she, a woman born, should enter the lists
with Pindar.” Why it was not proper for a sister poet who had taught
both of them to do what she did herself, is not clear. She was called
the first of the nine lyrical muses, who were the earthly counterparts
of the “celestial nine.” Myrtis was another. As the immortal Maids
who dwelt on the slopes of Helicon were apt to visit their rivals
with summary vengeance of much more serious character, perhaps their
mortal representatives ought to be forgiven for a shade of jealousy so
delicately implied.
Corinna left five books of poems, but small trace of them remains. Many
of her verses were sung by maidens at religious festivals. Her modest
niche in the temple of fame she owes mainly to her victories over
Pindar, though she was second only to Sappho. Why her work, which was
crowned with so many laurels, has not lived beside his, is one of the
mysteries of buried ages. Perhaps it was because she made use of purely
local legends and the local dialect, to which many thought she owed her
success in her own day.
This wave of feminine genius that passed over the hills and valleys of
Greece spent itself in little more than a century on Doric soil. The
last of the lyrical muses were Praxilla and Telesilla. We have a faint
glimpse of the first at Sicyon, where she lived, and ancient critics
gave her a place by the side of Anacreon. She drew her inspiration
largely from mythology, and sang successfully on that favorite theme
of poetic maidens, the death of Adonis. In the most critical age of
Greece she was honored with a statue by Lysippus, which may be taken as
sufficient proof that she was much more than a writer of sentimental
verses.
More noted was Telesilla, the poet and heroine of Argos, an antique
Joan of Arc, whose exaltation took a poetic form instead of a religious
one. A curious little story, mythical or otherwise, is related of
her. She was very ill and consulted the oracle, which told her to
devote herself to the Muses. This species of mind-cure proved more
effective than medicine, and she recovered under the magic of music
and poetry. But she had the spirit of an Amazon as well as the genius
of a poet. At a crisis in the war with Sparta, she armed the women,
and manned the walls with slaves too young or too old to fight. The
Spartans thought it discreditable to kill the women, and disgraceful
to be beaten by them, so they retreated. The event was commemorated
by an annual festival at which men appeared in feminine attire. Many
centuries afterward a statue of Telesilla was still standing on a
pillar in front of the temple of Aphrodite at Argos. She held in her
hand a helmet which she was about to put on her head, and several
volumes of poetry were lying at her feet. Among her themes were the
fated daughters of the weeping Niobe; she also wrote famous hymns to
Artemis and Apollo. In spite of her allegiance to the Muses, she was
more conspicuous for her service to Ares, who was henceforth worshiped
at Argos as the patron deity of women.
The poetry of the Æolians was largely inspired by love, or a religion
of beauty. But the Doric genius was not a lyrical one, and the
passionate personal note which made the charm of Sappho and her
contemporaries was lost in stirring martial strains. Women ceased to
write or to be known at all in literature until a later time, when they
dipped into philosophy a little, especially in the Dorian colonies,
where they were educated and held in great consideration. Pythagoras
had many feminine followers, and his school at Crotona was continued
after his death by his wife Theano and a daughter who had assisted him.
But most of them live, if at all, only as names, or in the reflected
light of famous men whose disciples they were.