“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.
The writing of Sappho was thus in no way dissociated from the
surrounding life of Lesbos. Similarly the Lesbian love of bright
and beautiful things--of gold, of roses, of sweet odours and sweet
sounds--pervades all that is left of her. The Queen of Love sits on a
richly-coloured throne; she dispenses the “nectar” of love in “beakers
of gold”; she wears a “golden coronal”; the Graces have “rosy arms”;
verses are the “rose-wreath of the Muses”; the blessed goddesses shower
grace upon those who approach them with garlands on their heads. If
maidens dance around the altar, they may dance most pleasantly on the
tender grass flecked with flowers. It is sweet to lie in the garden of
the Nymphs, where--
“Through apple-boughs, with purling sound,
Cool waters creep;
From quivering leaves descends around
The dew of sleep.”
Sweet among sounds is that of the “harbinger of spring, the
nightingale, whose voice is all desire.” Sappho does in very truth, as
she declares, love daintiness. Above all, she loves love. Love is the
“nectar” in the lines--
“Come, Cyprian Queen, and, debonair,
In golden cups the nectar bear,
Wherein all festal joy must share
Or be no joy.”
But there is nothing morbid, nothing of the hot-house, about all this.
It is simply the frank, naïve, half-physical, half-mental, enjoyment
of the youth of the world, as fresh and healthy as the love of the
_trouvères_, or of Chaucer, for the daisy, and of the balladist for
the season when the “shaws be sheen and leaves be large and long.”
Unhappily of the nine books of Sappho there have survived only one
complete poem, one or two considerable fragments, and a number of
scraps and lines. So far as we possess even these we have to thank
ancient critics, such as Aristotle, Dionysius, and Longinus, writers
of miscellanies, such as Plutarch and Athenæus, or grammarians like
Hephæstion. We have also to thank those modern scholars, and particular
Bergk, who have acutely and patiently gleaned the scattered remnants
from the pages of these ancient authorities. Scanty as they are, we can
gather from them as profound a conviction of their creator’s genius
as we gather from some fragmentary torso of an ancient masterpiece of
sculpture. We may grieve that a torso of Praxiteles is so mutilated;
nevertheless the art of the master speaks in every recognisable line
of it. According to the old proverbs, “Hercules may be known from his
foot” and “a lion from his toe-nail.” What remains of Sappho is enough
to make us fully comprehend the splendour of her poetic reputation in
ancient times. That reputation was unique. To the Greeks “the poet”
meant Homer; “the poetess” meant Sappho. The story goes that Solon,
the Athenian sage and legislator who was her contemporary, hearing
his nephew sing one of Sappho’s odes, demanded to be taught it, “So
that I may not die without learning it.” Plato consents to praise her,
and that, when Plato speaks of a poet, is praise from Sir Hubert. To
Aristotle she ranks with Homer and Archilochus. Strabo, the geographer,
calls her “a marvellous being,” whom “no woman could pretend to rival
in the very least in the matter of poetry.” Plutarch avers that “her
utterances are veritably mingled with fire,” and that “the warmth of
her heart comes forth from her in her songs.” He confesses also that
their dainty charm shamed him to put by the wine-cup. To one writer of
epigrams, said to be Plato himself, she is the “Tenth Muse”; to others
she is the “pride of Greece” or the “flower of the Graces.” It is
recorded that Mitylene stamped her effigy upon its coins. If imitation
is the sincerest flattery, she was flattered abundantly. The most
genuine lyric poet of Rome, Catullus, and its most skilful artificer of
odes, Horace, both freely copied her. They did more than imitate; they
plagiarised, they translated, sometimes almost word for word. There
is scarcely an intelligible fragment left of Sappho which has not been
borrowed or adapted by some modern poet, in English, French, or German.
There is one mutilated ode of hers which no one can translate. It is
quoted by Longinus as showing with what vivid terseness she can portray
the tumultuous and conflicting sensations of a lover in that bright
fierce south. Ambrose Philips makes it wordy; Boileau makes it formal.
It displays all the grand Greek directness, but a directness clothed
in the grand Greek charm of perfect rhythmical expression. We can
preserve, if we will, the directness, but the charm of its medium will
inevitably vanish.
In effect, lamentably stripped of its native verbal charm, it may be
rendered--
“Blest as the gods, methinks, is he
Who sitteth face to face with thee
And hears thy sweet voice nigh,
Thy winsome laugh, whereat my heart
Doth in my bosom throb and start;
One glimpse of thee, and I
Am speechless, tongue-tied; subtle flame
Steals in a moment through my frame;
My ears ring; to mine eye
All’s dark; a cold sweat breaks; all o’er
I tremble, pale as death; nay more,
I seem almost to die.”