in 1732 Hudemann translated a few of the fragments, and there were good
German editions of all Sappho’s fragments as early as the careful one by
Christian Wolf (1734). In 1744 appeared Neukirch’s translation of the
first two odes, and in 1746 Götz published his translation in rhymeless
verse. In the same year appeared Stählin’s translations. In 1764 “the
German Sappho,” Die Karshin, mentions Sappho five or six times and Phaon,
but has no direct echoes. In 1776 Meinecke put Sappho into verse; in 1782
Ramler; in 1783 Günther Wahl. In 1787 verse translations were published
at Berlin and Liebau, and in 1793 Conz published his translation of
the fragment, _To an Ignorant Girl_. In 1809 Friedrich Gottlieb Born
edited an edition for schools; in the same year C. Braun translated the
fragments; in 1810 Volger published his very important and rare edition
with commentary and musical schemes. He was soon followed by Welcker’s
defense (1816), which Goethe mentions four times. But Sappho’s poetry
remained a closed book to Goethe.[166] There were many succeeding
editions or translations: Degen (1821), Neue (1827), Brockhausen’s
verse imitations (1827), Richter (1833), Jäger (1836), Gerhard’s free
rendering for German student songs (1847), Köchly (1851), Hartung
(1857), Weise (1878), Theodor Bergk’s great edition of 1882 reprinted
in 1914; Schultz-Geffcken’s _Altgriechische Lyrik im deutschen Reim_
(1895), Stowasser, _Griechenlyrik in deutsche Verse übertragen_ (1910);
and Wilamowitz, _Sappho und Simonides_ (1913). There is a good German
account of Sappho by Paul Brandt in his _Sappho, ein Lebensbild aus den
Frühlingstagen altgriechischer Dichtung_ (1905). In _Griechische Lyrik_
(1920) Erich Bethe in a good chapter on Sappho translates into rhymed
verse the first two odes and several of the fragments (E. 99, 119, 135,
114, 54, 71, as well as the new papyrus fragments E. 83, 149, 150, 148,
154).
I can quote here only the new fragment 83:
...
Weinend hat sie Abschied genommen,
Immer wieder sprach sie so:
‘Hartes, Sappho, muss ich leiden,
Muss dich lassen, muss nun scheiden.’
Und ich hab zu ihr gesprochen:
‘Lebe wohl und denke mein!
Wisse, dass dich treu geleite
Meine Liebe in die Weite!’
Denn stets werde ich gedenken,
Auch wenn du es einst vergisst,
Wieviel Schönes wir genossen,
Wie du oft um schlanke Sprossen
Veilchen wandest, Rosen bandest
Und du mich damit bekränzt,
Und die duft’gen Purpurblüten
Deinen zarten Hals umglühten ...
There are only a few distinct cases of Sappho’s influence on the
great German poets, and so I limit myself to comparing Grillparzer’s
melodramatic adaptation of the Aphrodite ode with the beautiful rendering
by the German lyric poet of modern times, Geibel, who as a tutor in
Athens learned to love Lesbian lyrics and Greek literature, though he
could not reproduce the wonderful soft sound of the Aeolic Greek:
Golden-thronende Aphrodite,
Listenersinnende Tochter des Zeus,
Nicht mit Angst und Sorgen belaste,
Hocherhabne! dies pochende Herz!
Sondern komm, wenn jemals dir lieblich
Meiner Leier Saiten getönt,
Deren Klängen du öfters lauschtest,
Verlassend des Vaters goldenes Haus.
Du bespanntest den schimmernden Wagen,
Und deiner Sperlinge fröhliches Paar,
Munter schwingend die schwärzlichen Flügel,
Trug dich vom Himmel zur Erde herab.
Und du kamst; mit lieblichem Lächeln,
Göttliche! auf der unsterblichen Stirn,
Fragtest du, was die Klagende quäle,
Warum erschalle der Flehenden Ruf?
Was das schwärmende Herz begehre,
Wen sich sehne die klopfende Brust
Sanft zu bestricken im Netz der Liebe;
‘Wer ist’s, Sappho, der dich verletzt?
Flieht er dich jetzt, bald wird er dir folgen;
Verschmäht er Geschenke, er gibt sie noch selbst,
Liebt er dich nicht, gar bald wird er lieben,
Folgsam gehorchend jeglichem Wink!’
Komm auch jetzt und löse den Kummer,
Der mir lastend den Busen beengt,
Hilf mir erringen, nach was ich ringe,
Sei mir Gefährtin im lieblichen Streit!
(GRILLPARZER)
Die du thronst auf Blumen, o schaumgeborne
Tochter Zeus’, listsinnende, hör’ mich rufen,
Nicht in Schmach und bitterer Qual, o Göttin,
Lass mich erliegen.
Sondern huldvoll neige dich mir, wenn jemals
Du mein Flehn willfährigen Ohrs vernommen,
Wenn du je, zur Hilfe bereit, des Vaters
Halle verlassen.
Raschen Flugs auf goldenem Wagen zog dich
Durch die Luft dein Taubengespann, und abwärts
Floss von ihm der Fittiche Schatten dunkelnd
Über den Erdgrund.
So dem Blitz gleich, stiegst du herab und fragtest,
Sel’ge, mit unsterblichem Antlitz lächelnd:
‘Welch ein Gram verzehrt dir das Herz, warum doch
Riefst du mich, Sappho?
Was beklemmt mit sehnlicher Pein so stürmisch
Dir die Brust? Wen soll ich ins Netz dir schmeicheln?
Welchem Liebling schmelzen den Sinn? Wer wagt es,
Deiner zu spotten?
Flieht er: wohl, so soll er dich bald verfolgen;
Wehrt er stolz der Gabe, so soll er geben;
Liebt er nicht, bald soll er für dich entbrennen,
Selbst ein Verschmähter.’
Komm denn, komm auch heute, den Gram zu lösen!
Was so heiss mein Busen ersehnt, o lass es
Mich empfahn, Holdselige, sei du selbst mir
Bundesgenossin!
(GEIBEL)
In 1793, Franz von Kleist at the age of twenty-four had written a tragedy
_Sappho_, a typical eighteenth century play of intrigue, an immature
performance, however, lacking in clear portrayals of character and in
dramatic development. In 1816 F. W. Gubitz had published an unimportant
monodrama _Sappho_, which was almost a caricature of what a dramatic
work of art should be. In these dramas there was little of the real
_Sappho_, but the case is different with Grillparzer’s Sappho, which
was given April 21, 1818, in Vienna with great success. Some of the
motives of von Kleist reappear in Grillparzer, and there are resemblances
in language and thought. He may have used Amalie vom Imhoff’s _Die
Schwestern von Lesbos_ (1801), where there is a reference to the
Leucadian Leap. But he rises to higher heights, and if he did use the
above authors, their “crude ore,” as one critic has expressed it, “yields
pure gold.” Grillparzer tells us himself in his autobiography[167] how
he conceived the idea of the drama. On June 29, 1817, he was strolling
along the banks of the Danube when at the entrance to the Prater, the
great park of Vienna, he met Dr. Joël, who remarked that Weigel, the
orchestra-leader, wanted a libretto. Dr. Joël stated that Sappho would
be a good subject, and Grillparzer immediately replied that it certainly
would make a good tragedy. They parted company, and Grillparzer walked
deep into the Prater, and when he returned home late in the evening the
plan of Sappho was complete. The next day he went to the Imperial Library
and secured a copy of the extant fragments of Sappho, in which he found
one of the two complete poems, which is addressed to the goddess of love,
entirely suited to his purpose. He translated it at once, and the very
next morning began work on the drama. The spirit of the play is German,
not Greek, and takes some motives from Goethe’s _Tasso_. But Sappho is
depicted as a woman rather than a poetess, and the story of the tragedy
is really that of an unhappy woman disappointed in love. While it is
a genuine love-tragedy, it also portrays the hard lot of the poet and
the struggle between art and life even more vigorously than Goethe’s
_Tasso_ did. At the very beginning of the play Sappho has been crowned
with the wreath of victory at the Olympic games and meets Phaon, who
is represented as only slightly younger. Carried away by her triumph,
he throws himself into her arms, only to spurn her later. To Phaon she
sings (Act I, vi) Sappho’s hymn to Aphrodite, which we have just quoted,
with a few changes to adapt it to the situation. Of course there were
no such contests at Olympia in Sappho’s day, and Sappho’s victory is a
pure invention. Neither was the original hymn addressed to Phaon, nor did
the usual legend say that Sappho cast herself from a Lesbian cliff; but
Grillparzer must preserve the three unities, and such dramatic licenses
and many anachronisms, such as the mention of Croesus who lived after
Sappho’s time, are permissible to a master of dramatic technique. What
interests us is that Grillparzer actually studied Sappho’s fragments
and was much assisted by them. In Act I, lines 173 ff., he seems to be
referring to the Adonis fragments, including the one on the loneliness of
midnight, and to the verses which name Andromeda and Atthis:
vom schönen Jüngling,
Der Liebesgöttin liebeglüh’nden Sang,
Die Klage einsam hingewachter Nacht,
Von Andromedens und von Atthis’ Spielen.
The fragment (E. 74) is echoed in lines 671-2:
Denn, wenn auch heftig manchmal, rasch und bitter,
Doch gut ist Sappho, wahrlich lieb und gut.
While Grillparzer is one of the few German poets who has imitated the
content of Sappho’s songs, many have tried the Sapphic strophe with
success, especially Wilbrandt in the Adonis song, in _Der Meister von
Palmyra_:
Also will’s der ewige Zeus; du musst nun
Niedersteigen unter die blüh’nde Erde,
Musst die dunkle Persephoneia küssen,
Schöner Adonis.
Many a German novel refers to Sappho, but without any special knowledge
of her fragments. One of the most interesting, which adapts with many
changes the Rhodopis story, has been translated into English, _An
Egyptian Princess_, by George Ebers (A. L. Burt Co., New York, second
German edition 1868). Here Charaxus actually marries Rhodopis and names
their child Cleïs, who in turn has a child Sappho whose love-scenes with
Bartja make up most of the novel.
“Alcaeus, the greatest poet of his day, and Charaxus, the
brother of that Sappho whose odes it was our Solon’s last wish
to learn by heart, came here to Naukratis, which had already
long been the flourishing center of commercial communication
between Egypt and the rest of the world. Charaxus saw Rhodopis,
and soon loved her so passionately that he gave an immense
sum to secure her from the mercenary Xanthus, who was on
the point of returning with her to his own country; Sappho
wrote some biting verses, derisive of her brother and his
purchase, but Alcaeus on the other hand, approved, and gave
expression to this feeling in glowing songs on the charms of
Rhodopis. And now Sappho’s brother, who had till then remained
undistinguished among the many strangers at Naukratis, became
a noted man through Rhodopis. His house was soon the center
of attraction to all foreigners, by whom she was overwhelmed
with gifts. The king Hophra, hearing of her beauty and talent,
sent for her to Memphis, and offered to buy her of Charaxus,
but the latter had already long, though secretly, given
Rhodopis her freedom, and loved her far too well to allow of a
separation. She, too, loved the handsome Lesbian and refused
to leave him despite the brilliant offers made to her on all
sides. At length Charaxus made this wonderful woman his lawful
wife, and continued to live with her and her little daughter
Kleïs in Naukratis, until the Lesbian exiles were recalled to
their native land by Pittakus. He then started homeward with
his wife, but fell ill on the journey, and died soon after his
arrival at Mitylene. Sappho, who had derided her brother for
marrying one beneath him, soon became an enthusiastic admirer
of the beautiful widow and rivaled Alcaeus in passionate songs
to her praise.”
We may mention also in closing this chapter the lyrics, published in
a small volume, called _Stürme_, by Carmen Sylva, the nom de plume of
Rumania’s late queen, because in these lyrics the tragedy of Sapphic love
has a German political rather than a Lesbian setting.
X. SAPPHO IN FRENCH LITERATURE[168]
The poetess of passion, perfect in expression, is more akin to French
literature than to German, and so it is not surprising to discover
Sapphic echoes in every period of the former from that of the erudite and
artistic poetry of the Pléiade in the sixteenth century to the present
day of Maurice Donnay. In the sixteenth century Louise Labé was composing
sonnets which burned like an ode of Sappho, and in 1556 Remy Belleau in
his _Anacréon_ published the first French translation of Sappho. Only
three years later (1559), another of the Pléiade, Pierre de Ronsard, who
turned from his admiration of Homer and Pindar to Horace, Anacreon, and
Sappho, gave in the second book of his _Amours_, a translation of the
second ode of Sappho:
Je suis un demy-dieu quand, assis vis-à-vis
De toy, mon cher souci, j’escoute des devis,
Devis entre-rompus d’un gracieux sourire,
Souris qui me retient le coeur emprisonné:
Car, en voyant tes yeux, je me pasme étonné
Et de mes pauvres flancs un seul vent je ne tire.
Ma langue s’engourdit, un petit feu me court
Fretillant sous la peau; je suis muet et sourd
Et une obscure nuit dessus mes yeux demeure;
Mon sang devient glacé, l’esprit fuit de mon corps,
Je tremble tout de crainte, et peu s’en faut alors
Qu’à tes pieds estendu sans âme je ne meure.
Ronsard also translated the famous folk-song, which has been so much
imitated in all literatures, wrongly calling it an epigram:[169]
Desia la Lune est couchée,
La poussiniere est cachée,
Et ia la my-nuit brunette
Vers l’Aurore s’est panchée,
Et ie dors au lict seulette.
In the second book of his _Poèmes a Christophile de Choiseul_ (Edition
Laumonier V, 186), Ronsard (1556) said:
Le doux Anacreon me plaist et ie voudrois que la douce Saphon
Qui si bien resueilloit la lyre Lesbienne,
En France accompaignast la Muse Teïenne!
Early in the seventeenth century Malherbe wrote the following stanzas for
le Duc de Bellegarde “to a lady who imagined that he was in love with
her,” in which he copied from the Lesbian poetess certain symptoms of
love:
Philis, qui me voit le teint blême,
Les sens ravis hors de moi-même,
Et les yeux trempés tout le jour,
Cherchant la cause de ma peine,
Se figure, tant elle est vaine,
Qu’elle m’a donné de l’amour ...
En quelle école nonpareille
Auroit-elle appris la merveille
De si bien charmer ses appas,
Que je pusse la trouver belle,
Pâlir, transir, languir pour elle
Et ne m’en apercevoir pas?
In 1620 Colletet published a prose imitation of Ovid, entitled _Lettre de
Saphon à Phaon_ (_Les Epistres d’Ovide. Traduites en prose françoise._
Par les sieurs Du Perron, Des Portes, de la Brosse, de Lingendes,
Hedelin et Colletet. Paris, 1620). In 1660 Le Sieur Du Four translated
the two odes, the first in prose, the second in verse. In 1674 that
great classicist, Nicholas Boileau, who ranked the ancient writers above
the modern because they had been tested through hundreds of years and
because they agreed with nature and reason, included a beautiful and
truly classical rendering of the second ode, in his translation of the
_Treatise on the Sublime_:
Je sens de veine en veine une subtile flamme
Courir par tout mon corps sitôt que je te vois;
Et dans les doux transports où s’égare mon âme
Je ne saurais trouver de langue ni de voix.
Un nuage confus se répand sur ma vue;
Je n’entends plus, je tombe en de douces langueurs;
Et pâle, sans haleine, interdite, éperdue,
Un frisson me saisit, je tremble, je me meurs.
In 1677 Boileau’s intimate friend, Jean Racine, produced his great
tragedy in five acts, _Phèdre_, based mainly on Euripides and Seneca, but
including a translation of Sappho’s second ode, in Act I, scene 3, where
Phaedra says about Hippolytus:
Je le vis, je rougis, je pâlis à sa vue;
Un trouble s’éleva dans mon âme éperdue;
Mes yeux ne voyoient plus, je ne pouvois parler;
Je sentis tout mon corps et transir et brûler;
Je reconnus Vénus et ses feux redoutables,
D’un sang qu’elle poursuit tourments inévitables.
Racine’s comment was that he had “rien vu de plus vif ni de plus beau
dans toute l’antiquité.” In 1649 Mlle de Scudéry in her _Artamène ou
le Grand Cyrus_ and also in her letters calls herself Sappho, perhaps
thinking of Sappho as a great literary writer and with a reference to
Platonic friendship but no conception of Sappho as a bad character.
Bayle rather objects to giving the name Sappho to a “fille qui écrivoit
parfaitement bien en vers et en prose, et dont la vertu étoit admirée.”
Perhaps Anne Dacier was not then the first to defend Sappho. In any case,
Mlle de Scudéry gives the wrong idea of the historical Sappho, for in
the tenth volume of _le Grand Cyrus_ she gives a tedious recital of the
loves of Sappho and Phaon. What could be farther from the real burning
Sappho than desiring “un amant sans vouloir un mari, mais un amant
qui, se contentant de la possession de son coeur, l’aime avec respect
jusqu’à la mort.” The later French romance, entitled _Les Amours de
Sapho et de Phaon_, also has nothing to do with the real Sappho. In 1680
Hilaire-Bernard de Requeleyne (cf. Baillet, _Jugemens des Savans_, IV.
392-393) gave with the Greek a poetical version, and in the next year
Professor Le Fèvre of the University of Saumur, the Greek scholar and
translator of Virgil, made another French translation, which was disloyal
to the Greek and did not deserve the praise which has been bestowed
upon it. On December 1, 1681,[170] his daughter, Anne (Madame Dacier)
published _Les Poësies d’Anacreon et de Sapho_ with notes and a life of
Sappho. She believed in the Phaon story and that Sappho followed Phaon to
Sicily and there composed the “plus beaux vers du monde,” including the
hymn to Venus; “Tout le monde sçait qu’elle aima Phaon et qu’elle l’aima
d’une manière fort violente.”
“Ce qui me fait croire qu’il ne faut pas ajoûter foy à tout
ce que l’on trouve écrit contre elle. Si elle avoit esté de
l’humeur dont on l’a dépeinte, il n’y a point d’apparence
qu’elle eût eu tant de chagrin de l’amour de Caraxus, ni
qu’elle eût osé l’en reprendre avec tant d’éclat. II ne faut
pas douter que son merite ne luy eût fait bien des ennemis; car
elle surpassoit en sçavoir, non seulement toutes les femmes,
quoi que de son temps il y en eût en Grèce d’extrémement
sçavantes; mais elle estoit même fort au dessus des plus
excellens Poëtes. Je crois donc que ceux dont les vers auroient
esté trouvez incomparables, si Sapho n’en eût jamais fait,
ne furent pas de ses amis, et que l’envie a fait écrire les
calomnies dont on a tâché de la noircir. Je ne puis même
m’imaginer que les Mityleniens eussent eu tant de veneration
pour une personne si décriée, et qu’aprés sa mort, ils eussent
fait graver son image sur leur monoye.”
Sappho’s name was in vogue at this time wherever love was the subject of
conversation or of writing. In 1683 Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle in
his _Dialogues des morts_,[171] a title taken from Lucian, has _Sapho_
and _Laure_ discuss which sex should be the aggressor in love-making.
Fontenelle displays no knowledge of Sappho herself, but has chosen her
name, like so many writers even down to the time of Alphonse Daudet, to
lend importance to a story which has already been conceived and for which
an attractive title must be found. We can only quote the latter part of
the dialogue:
LAURE. Quoi! auriez-vous voulu qu’on eût établi que les femmes
attaqueraient les hommes?
SAPHO. Eh! quel besoin y a-t-il que les uns attaquent, et que
les autres se défendent? Qu’on s’aime de part et d’autre autant
que le coeur en dira.
LAURE. Oh! les choses iraient trop vite, et l’amour est un
commerce si agréable, qu’on a bien fait de lui donner le plus
de durée que l’on a pu. Que serait-ce, si l’on était reçu
des que l’on s’offrirait? Que deviendraient tous ces soins
qu’on prend pour plaire, toutes ces inquiétudes que l’on
sent, quand on se reproche de n’avoir pas assez plu, tous ces
empressemens avec lesquels on cherche un moment heureux, enfin
tout cet agréable mélange de plaisirs et de peine qu’on appelle
amour? Rien ne serait plus insipide, si l’on ne faisait que
s’entr’aimer.
SAPHO. Hé bien, s’il faut que l’amour soit une espèce de
combat, j’aimerais mieux qu’on eût obligé les hommes à se tenir
sur la défensive. Aussi-bien, ne m’avez-vous pas dit que les
femmes avaient plus de penchant qu’eux à la tendresse? A ce
compte, elles attaqueraient mieux.
LAURE. Oui, mais ils se défendraient trop bien. Quand on veut
qu’un sexe résiste, on veut qu’il résiste autant qu’il faut
pour faire mieux goûter la victoire à celui qui attaque, mais
non pas assez pour la remporter. Il doit n’être ni si faible,
qu’il se rende d’abord, ni si fort, qu’il ne se rende jamais.
C’est là notre caractère, et ce ne serait peut-être pas celui
des hommes. Croyez-moi, après qu’on a bien raisonné ou sur
l’amour, ou sur telle autre matière qu’on voudra, on trouve au
bout du compte que les choses sont bien comme elles sont, et
que la réforme qu’on prétendrait y apporter gâterait tout.
In 1684 une Demoiselle de qualité de la Province de Guienne, only
eighteen years of age, published a French prose translation of the two
odes in the _Mercure_ for July. In the same year appeared a metrical
translation with Greek text, philological notes, and a life of Sappho
in which are repeated the stories of disgraceful love, infatuation for
Phaon, and the Leucadian Leap, _Les Poésies d’Anacreon et de Sapho
traduites de Grec en vers François_. In 1692 we have another verse
rendering by Baron de Longuepierre, who added a feeble poem in which
Apollo vainly defends Sappho against the arrows of love. In 1694
Despréaux in his edition of the _Treatise on the Sublime_ gave a
poetical version of the second ode which was so artistic that French
critics in their enthusiasm pronounced it superior to the original, but
its rhetorical phrases are far from the simplicity of Sappho’s Greek.
Toward the end of the grand siècle La Fare, the Epicurean and inseparable
friend of the Abbé de Chaulieu, translated the famous second ode. In
1704 appeared a verse translation by De la Fosse; in 1712 Gacon’s verse
translation of Sappho’s two odes and Father Bougeant’s _Anacréon à
Sapho, Dialogue en Vers Grecs_; and in 1713 appeared in French verse
an imaginary epistle of Sappho to Phaon (_Mercure_ for April). In 1716
La Fosse published his verses based on those of the Le Fèvres. In 1758
Poinsinet de Sivry produced his good verse translations. Voltaire
(1694-1778) made an elegant adaptation of the second ode, with his eye
also on Theocritus’ second idyl:
Reine des nuits, dis quel fut mon amour,
Comme en mon sein les frissons et la flamme
Se succédaient, me perdaient tour à tour;
Quels doux transports égarèrent mon âme;
Comment mes yeux cherchaient en vain le jour.
Comme j’aimais et sans songer à plaire,
Je ne pouvais ni parler ni me taire.
In 1766 appeared Blin de Sainmore’s _Lettres de Sapho a Phaon_ with an
account of Sappho’s life and verse translations of her poems. In 1773
appeared a new version of Sappho in prose by Moutonnet de Clairfons
which proved so popular that it went through at least seven editions. In
1798 Mérard de Saint-Just published his verse translations of Sappho and
Anacreon. Toward the end of the eighteenth century,[172] an imaginary
Greek manuscript, said to have been found at Herculaneum, translated by
de Lantier, was published under the title _Voyages d’Antenor en Grèce
et en Asie_, a most interesting and learned story of an imaginary trip
to Grecian lands. Antenor and Phanor in the first chapter of the second
volume meet Sappho and two unfortunate Greeks. An account is given in
chapter three of the love of Sappho and Phaon, and the hymn to Aphrodite,
quoted in the notes in Boileau’s translation, is addressed to Phaon:
“C’est pour cet ingrat qu’un jour dans l’enthousiasme de la poésie et de
l’amour, je composai cette ode qui a circulé dans toute la Grèce, et que
sans doute la postérité répétera encore.” In the fourth chapter Antenor
and his friend attend the funeral of Sappho and see the ashes deposited
in an urn. On the cippus is carved a lyre with this epitaph:
Ci-gît Sapho, la gloire de nos jours;
Muses, pleurez, pleurez, Amours.
In the seventh chapter an account is given of Sappho’s last days, and
Theagenes is revealed as her rival, to whom Phaon has united himself by
a solemn bond. To Sappho is attributed a long ode in which she invokes
Venus and all the infernal deities against her lover. She ends, however,
by returning to the sweetness and generosity which had originally
characterized her. I quote only the last two stanzas:
Et toi, mes amours, ô ma lyre,
Douce compagne de mes jeux,
Repose toi, ma muse expire;
Reçois ici mes longs adieux.
Mourons; allons au noir rivage:
Heureuse, si, dans mon ennui,
De Phaon emportant l’image,
Je peux aux morts parler de lui.
The author evidently was fond of Sappho and would compare with her Louise
Labbé, _la belle Cordière_ (1526-1566), a woman of tender heart and with
a taste for passion, who wrote verses on love in Greek, Latin, Italian,
French, and Spanish. At this time Sappho was held in high esteem and
it was a compliment to call a writer “a modern Sappho.” So for example
in the preface to L’Abbé Le Roy, _Le Paradis perdu_, poëme traduit de
l’Anglais de Milton en vers françois (Rouen, 1775) we read: “Aussi a-t-on
fait le plus favorable et le plus juste accueil à la charmante esquisse
du Paradis Terrestre, que daigna nous donner une femme célébre, dont le
nom seul fait l’éloge, Mme du Boccage, cette Sappho moderne, qui fait
d’honneur a la France.”
In 1777[173] Sauvigny published his _Poésies de Sapho_, composed of
eighteen odes, four _scolies morales_, four epigrams, the epitaphs of
Timas and Pelagon, some fragments, a letter of Sappho to Phaon, and a
hymn to Venus. There are many pretty uses of Sappho, though in no sense
can the poems be said to be those of Sappho. The third ode is an echo of
the fragment on the Evening Star:
Belle étoile du soir, digne ornement des cieux,
...
Tu fais rentrer le paisible troupeau,
Qui du loup ravisseur craint la dent meurtrière;
La fille qui, joyeuse, a quitté le hameau,
Tu la ramènes à sa mère.
Ces timides amans que Vénus a touchés,
Qui brûlent d’être unis ensemble,
Et que l’éclat du jour avait tenus cachés,
C’est ton retour qui les rassemble.
The fifth ode renders the fragment on virginity: