Sublime_ as an illustration of the perfection of the sublime in poetry.
John Addington Symonds thus renders it in English:
"Peer of gods he seemeth to me, the blissful
Man who sits and gazes at thee before him,
Close beside thee sits, and in silence hears thee
Silverly speaking,
Laughing love's low laughter. Oh this, this only
Stirs the troubled heart in my breast to tremble I
For should I but see thee a little moment,
Straight is my voice hushed;
Yea, my tongue is broken, and through and through me
'Neath the flesh impalpable fire runs tingling;
Nothing see mine eyes, and a noise of roaring
Waves in my ear sounds;
Sweat runs down in rivers, a tremor seizes
All my limbs, and paler than grass in autumn,
Caught by pains of menacing death, I falter,
Lost in the love-trance."
Epithalamia, or wedding songs, were the most numerous of all Sappho's
works, and in them she attained an excellence unequalled by any other
poet. Catullus, in despair, seems to have been content with adapting in
his marriage odes well-known songs of Sappho. The poet seems to have
described all the stages in the ceremony--the Greek maidens leading the
pale bride to the expectant bridegroom, chanting their simple chorus to
Hymen, the god of marriage. At one time, they sing the approach of the
bridegroom:
"Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters,
Hymenaeus!
Like Ares comes the bridegroom,
Hymenaeus!
Taller far than a tall man,
Hymenaeus!"
But their thoughts are all for the rejoicing bride, who blushes "as
sweet as the apple on the end of the bough."
"O fair--O sweet!
As the sweet apple blooms high on the bough,
High as the highest, forgot of the gatherers:
So thou:--
Yet not so: nor forgot of the gatherers;
High o'er their reach in the golden air,
O sweet--O fair!"
We shall arrange the briefer fragments according to subject, not
according to metre, in order that through them we may gain a clear
conception of Sappho's attitude toward life and nature, that we may know
the poetess in her love and friendship, her longings and her sorrows,
her sensibility to the influences of nature and art.
Her conception of love has been already noticed in the longer poems just
quoted. A number of the fragments indicate a similar intensity of
emotion. Thus she says:
"Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving king,
The bitter-sweet, impracticable thing,
Wild-beast-like rends me with fierce quivering."
In another:
"Lo, Love once more my soul within me rends
Like wind that on the mountain oak descends."
A being so intense as Sappho, with sensibilities so refined and
intuitions so keen, naturally possessed an ardent love of nature. Her
power of expressing its charm is shown in a number of fragments. Every
aspect of nature seems to have appealed to her.
Of the morning she says:
"Early uprose the golden-sandalled Dawn."
And of the evening:
"Evening, all things thou bringest
Which Dawn spreads apart from each other;
The lamb and the kid thou bringest,
Thou bringest the boy to his mother."
And of the night:
"And dark-eyed Sleep, child of Night"
She sings to us also of the
"Rainbow, shot with a thousand hues."
And of the stars:
"Stars that shine around the refulgent full moon
Pale, and hide their glory of lesser lustre
When she pours her silvery plenilunar
Light on the orbed earth."
And again of the moon and the Pleiades:
"The moon has left the sky;
Lost is the Pleiads' light;
It is midnight
And time slips by;
But on my couch alone I lie."
Trees and flowers and plants appeal to her as if they were endowed with
life, and by her mention of them she calls up to the imagination a
tropical summer with its attendant recreations. Thus she sings of the
breeze murmuring cool through the apple boughs:
"From the sound of cool waters heard through the green boughs
Of the fruit-bearing trees,
And the rustling breeze,
Deep sleep, as a trance, down over me flows."
Sappho loves flowers with a personal sympathy. She feels for the
hyacinth:
"As when the shepherds on the hills
Tread under foot the hyacinth,
And on the ground the purple flower lies crushed."
She sings also of the golden pulse that grows on the shores, and of the
pure, soft bloom of the grass trampled under foot by the Cretan women as
they dance round the fair altar of Aphrodite. The rose seems to have
been her favorite flower, for, says Philostratus, "Sappho loves the
rose, and always crowns it with some praise, likening beautiful maidens
to it."
The birds, too, found in her a most sympathetic friend. Her ear is open
to:
"Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale,"
and she pities the wood-doves as "their heart turns cold and their wings
fall," under the stroke from the arrow of the archer.
Sappho's love for nature is only surpassed by her love for art, for
splendor and festivity, as they appeal to the aesthetic nature. She loves
her lyre, the song and the dance, garlands, purple robes, and all that
attended the worship of Aphrodite and the Muses. Her lyre she thus
addresses:
"Come, then, my lyre divine!
Let speech be thine."
And to Aphrodite she utters this appeal:
"Come, Queen of Cyprus, pour the stream
Of nectar, mingled lusciously
With merriment, in cups of gold."
She also calls about her the Muses and the Graces:
"Hither come, ye dainty Graces
And ye fair-haired Muses now!"
And again:
"Come, rosy-armed, chaste Graces! come,
Daughter of Jove."
And yet again:
"Hither, hither come, ye Muses!
Leave the golden sky."
In the worship of Aphrodite and the Graces, garlands are appropriate for
the devotees:
"Of foliage and flowers love-laden
Twine wreaths for thy flowing hair
With thine own soft fingers, maiden,
Weave garlands of parsley fair;
"For flowers are sweet, and the Graces
On suppliants wreathed with may
Look down from their heavenly places,
But turn from the crownless away."
Such was the joy of the devotees of the Muses. Sappho believed in the
adornment of the soul as well as of the body, and she thus addresses one
who neglected the services of the Muses:
"Yea, thou shalt die,
And lie
Dumb in the silent tomb;
Nor of thy name
Shall there be any fame
In ages yet to be or years to come;
For of the flowering Rose,
Which on Pieria blows,
Thou hast no share:
But in sad Hades' house
Unknown, inglorious
'Mid the dark shades that wander there
Shalt thou flit forth and haunt the filmy air."
"I think there will be memory of us yet in after days," said Sappho, and
the sentiment is one which later poets have often imitated. Thus the
poetess had intimations of the immortality that is justly hers, and the
reader will heartily enter into the spirit of Swinburne's paraphrase:
"I, Sappho, shall be one with all these things,
With all things high forever; and my face
Seen once, my songs once heard in a strange place,
Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereof
In gladness, and much sadness and long love."
Sappho sings of love and its manifestations, of longing and passion, of
grief and regret, of natural beauty in sea and sky, by day and by night,
of the birds and trees and flowers, and "all this is told us in language
at once overpowering and delicate, in verse as symmetrical as it is
exquisite, free, and fervid, through metaphor simple or sublime; each
word, each line, expressive of the writer's inmost sense; with an art
that, in its Greek constraint, comparison, and sweetness, and in its
Oriental fervor, is faultless and unerring."
Not only as a poet is Sappho of interest to the women of our day, but
also because she was the founder of the first woman's club of which we
have knowledge. This Lesbian literary club did not engage, however, in
the study of current topics, or seek to gather sheaves of knowledge from
the field of science and history, but was consecrated strictly to the
service of the Muses. Sappho attracted by her fame young women of Lesbos
and of neighboring cities. She gathered them about her, gave them
instruction in poetry and music, and incited them to the cultivation of
all the arts and graces. Many of these maidens from a distance doubtless
sought the society of Sappho because they were weary of the low drudgery
and monotonous routine of home life that fell to the lot of women in
Ionian cities, and because they felt the need of a freer atmosphere and
more inspiring surroundings.
Sappho eagerly sought to elevate her sex. She showed them that, through
the more perfect training of mind and body, their horizon would be
enlarged, their resources for happiness increased, and their homes
become centres of inspiring influences for husband and children.
Never was there a teacher more eager to possess her pupils' love and
confidence. Maximus of Tyre compares her relations with her girl friends
to Socrates's relations with young men. At times, men have seen fit to
censure these intimate friendships of Socrates and Sappho with their
pupils, and to see in them immoral relations such as characterized the
passionate devotion of many Greek men to beautiful youths; but there is
no ground for such imputations. While manifesting the beauty and
sweetness and satisfaction in woman's love for woman, Sappho did not
attempt to make this love a substitute for the love of men. She herself
was married; and there are intimations in her poems that certain of her
girl friends exchanged the pleasures of aesthetic comradeship for the
joys of wedded life.
From the fragments of her songs, we know the names of at least fourteen
of her pupils, and it pleases the fancy to attempt to reconstruct a
picture of that delightful band of girl friends, who spent their days in
the study of poetry and music and their evenings in every elevating form
of recreation. A writer has thus sketched the picture: "Let us call
around her in fancy the maidens who have come from different parts of
Greece to learn of her. Anactoria is here from Miletus, Eunica from
Salamis, Gongyle from Colophon, and others from Pamphylia, and the isle
of Telos. Erinna and Damophyla study together the composition of Sapphic
metres. Atthis learns how to strike the harp with the plectrum, Sappho's
invention; Mnasidica embroiders a sacred robe for the temple. The
teacher meanwhile corrects the measures of the one, the notes of
another, the strophes of a third; then summons all from their work, to
rehearse together some sacred chorus or temple ritual; then stops to
read a verse of her own, or to denounce a rival preceptress. Throughout
her intercourse with these maidens her conduct is characterized by
passionate love, as between equals in mind and heart, and is expressed
in fervid and high-wrought language embodying a purity that cannot be
misunderstood or cavilled away."
VII
THE SPARTAN WOMAN
It was from Sparta that Paris in the Heroic Age bore away to his
Phrygian home Argive Helen, fairest of mortals, the Greek ideal of
feminine beauty and charm. But never since that fateful day--as, indeed,
never before it--was there in Sparta any woman to compare with her; for
the Spartan maidens of historical times, though comely and vigorous and
noted for physical beauty, were cast in a firmer, sturdier mould than
that which characterized Helen, the flower of grace and loveliness. Yet
the traveller in Sparta in her prime must have marvelled at the splendid
maidens and matrons he saw amid the hills of Lacedaemon--trained in
athletic exercises, fleet of foot, vigorous and well-proportioned, and
showing in their very bearing how important they were to the well-being
of the State.
In Sparta, woman was the equal of man--in Athens, his inferior. In this
fact lies the secret of the training that was given her, for the
character of the education of woman is an index to the position assigned
her by the spirit of the State. Spartan legislation concerning woman was
controlled by one idea--to develop in the maiden the mother-to-be. This
idea is so beautiful, so profound, that, after all the centuries which
have elapsed, one cannot find a better principle for feminine education.
Like mother, like son--and the Spartan ideal of the son was the warrior
strong, brave, and resolute, enduring hardship and living solely for
the State. Hence the mother must be strong, brave, and resolute,
sacrificing every womanly tenderness to the prevailing conception of
patriotism.
Great is the contrast between the women of the various peoples of
Greece. The Achaean woman, in Homeric times, played no prominent part in
public affairs; her home was her palace, and she manifested those
domestic traits and womanly qualities that in this day still constitute
womanly charm. The life of the Ionian woman was a secluded one; she was
under the domination of the sterner sex, and compelled to devote herself
largely to the varied duties of the household. The AEolian woman, on the
contrary, had asserted her freedom, and lived on terms of social and
intellectual comradeship with men. She devoted herself to the
cultivation of every womanly grace, and was the earnest follower of
Aphrodite and the Muses. In contrast to these, the Spartan woman
presents an altogether unique type. She was merely a creature of the
State, the cultivation of her higher nature being under the control of a
rigid system. As such, she contributed in a large degree to the public
welfare, but it was at the sacrifice of many feminine attributes. In
her, natural affection and womanly sympathy were sacrificed to a single
virtue--patriotism. But one function was emphasized--that of motherhood.
All her training was devoted to but one end--that of producing soldiers.
The life of the individual was strictly subordinated to the good of the
State. Such a system evolved a remarkable type of womanhood, and the
Spartan matron has won an immortal name in history.
From the central mass of the mountain system of the Peloponnesus in
Arcadia, two chains, Taygetus and Parnon, detach themselves and extend
southward, terminating in the two dangerous promontories of Taenarum and
Malea. Between the two ridges the river Eurotas winds its way in a
southeasterly course. In the undulating valley formed by the bed of the
stream, and shut in by the mountain ranges, lay ancient Sparta. The
country, by nature and climate, was such as to make men hardy and
determined. Euripides styles it "a country rich in productions, but
difficult to cultivate; shut in on all sides by a barrier of stern
mountains; almost inaccessible to the foe." Its hidden situation in the
Eurotas valley made it a well-guarded camp, and the Dorian conquerors of
the Peloponnesus, surrounded by enemies and threatened by warlike
neighbors, soon saw that the only hope of holding their conquests and
extending their power lay in the maintenance of a warlike race.
Lycurgus, usually reputed to have lived in the ninth century before
Christ, was the founder of the legislation which constituted the
greatness of Sparta. He was one of the originators of the principle, so
characteristic of antiquity and in such contrast to the spirit of modern
times: "The citizen is born and lives for the State; to it his time, his
strength, and all his powers belong." Nowhere was this maxim so rigidly
enforced as at Sparta. Lycurgus established institutions of a public
nature which gave a centralized administration of the most rigid sort,
and regulations relating to private life which would develop a warlike
type of citizen, the whole system tending to make Sparta supreme in the
Peloponnesus, and her soldiers invincible in war. To accomplish this
end, the daily life of every individual, both male and female, was under
the control of the State. The effect of such a system on the character
has been happily expressed by Rousseau: "He strengthened the citizen by
taking away the human traits from the man."
Lycurgus saw that the salvation of Sparta depended on its citizens being
a nation of warriors. Only by being always ready for war and by
possessing an invincible body of soldiery could the State fulfil its
destiny in the work of the world. He realized further that the natural
antecedent of a nation of men strong physically and intellectually is a
race of healthy, sturdy, able-bodied women. Hence his training of the
daughters of Sparta was the corner-stone of his system. Valuing woman
only for her fruitfulness, his legislation in regard to her had but one
object in view--fitting her to be the mother of a powerful race of men.
Maidens, therefore, as well as youths, were subjected to the most rigid
physical training.
From the moment of birth, the Spartan boy or girl was in the hands of
the State. The infant was exposed in the place of public assembly, and
if the elders considered it frail and unpromising, or for any reason
regarded its existence of no value to the State, the child was thrown
off a cliff of Mount Taygetus,--a usage shocking to modern
sensibilities, but accepted as a necessity by Plato, Aristotle, and
other ancient philosophers. The able-bodied child was restored to its
mother, and she directed the early training of her charge under the eye
of the magistrates. Though the Spartan girl was not, as the youth,
removed altogether from the mother at the age of seven and brought up in
the barracks, yet her training was scarcely less severe than that of the
boys. The feminine tasks of spinning and weaving, customary for free
women of other peoples, were by the Spartans committed to female slaves,
and the State so ordered the lives of the free maidens that they might
become in the future the mothers of robust children. "He [Lycurgus]
directed the maidens," says Plutarch, "to exercise themselves with
wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the
end that the fruit they conceived might in strong and healthy bodies
take firmer root and find better growth." These gymnastic exercises they
practised in public, clad in little else save their own modesty, thus
overcoming fear of exposure to the air, as well as overgreat tenderness
and shyness. Similarly clad, they took part in processions along with
the young men, and were trained in singing and dancing in the public
choruses. This carefully regulated comradeship between youths and
maidens was encouraged with a view to stimulating the young men to deeds
of valor. The maidens on these occasions would make, by means of jests,
befitting reflections on the young men who had misbehaved themselves in
the wars, and would sing encomiums upon those who had done gallant
actions. Thus the young men were spurred on to greater endeavor by the
dread of feminine ridicule, and were inspired by feminine praise to the
performance of great deeds. It was always the part of the Spartan
maiden, then, to keep bright the fires of patriotism and heroic
endeavor. The mother, by precept and example, taught the daughter to
repress every emotion of womanly tenderness, to elevate the State to the
first place in her heart and life, and to find her destiny in bearing
brave sons to defend her country. Thus admitted to the freedom of
companionship with their brothers in the games and processions, and
stimulated by the instructions of their mothers, they early caught the
spirit and purpose which animated one and all--the spirit of unselfish
patriotism. It was natural, therefore, that they accepted without a
murmur the tyranny of a single idea and found in it their glory and
pride. Many stories are told of their remarkable devotion to the State.
A Spartan mother who has lost her boy in battle exclaims: "Did I not
bear him that he might die for Sparta?" To another, waiting for tidings
of the battle, comes a messenger announcing that her five sons have
perished. "You contemptible slave," she replies, "that is not what I
wish to hear. How fares my country?" On hearing that Sparta is
victorious, she adds, without a tremor: "Willingly, then, do I hear of
the death of my sons."
Marriage is the determining factor in the economic conditions of
society, and the regulations prescribed concerning it are an excellent
index to the character of any people. Under the Lycurgan system,
marriage was strictly under the control of the State. The goddess of
love was practically banished from Sparta. Only one temple to Aphrodite
stood in Lacedaemon; and in this the goddess was represented armed, not
with her magic girdle, but with a sword, and seated with a veil over her
head and fetters upon her feet, symbolizing that she was under
restraint. History records many instances of affection between husband
and wife, but considerations of love did not enter into the marriage
contract. No frail woman was allowed to marry. The age of marriage was
fixed at the period which was considered best for the perfection of the
offspring, usually about thirty years in the case of the men, and about
twenty for the maidens. Plutarch describes in uncolored language the
chief features of the marriage relations of the Spartans:
"In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of
force; nor were brides ever small and of tender years, but in their full
bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the wedding comes
and clips the hair of the bride close round her head, dresses her up in
man's clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the dark; afterward
comes the bridegroom, in his everyday clothes, sober and composed, as
having supped at the common table; and entering privately into the room
where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone, and takes her to himself;
and after staying some time together, he returns composedly to his own
apartment, to sleep as usual with the other young men. And so he
continues to do, spending his days and indeed his nights with them,
visiting his bride in fear and shame and with circumspection, when he
thought he should not be observed; she also, on her part, using her wit
to help to find favorable opportunities for their meeting, when company
was out of the way. In this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that
they sometimes had children by their wives before ever they saw their
faces by daylight. Their interviews being thus difficult and rare,
served not only for continual exercise of their self-control, but
brought them together with their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their
affections fresh and lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and
long continuance with each other, while their partings were always early
enough to leave behind unextinguished in each of them some remaining
fire of longing and mutual delight.
"After guarding marriage with this modesty and reserve, Lycurgus was
equally careful to banish empty and womanish jealousy. For this object,
excluding all licentious disorders, he made it nevertheless honorable
for men to give the use of their wives to those whom they should think
fit, that so they might have children by them; ridiculing those in whose
opinion such favors are so unfit for participation as to fight and shed
blood and go to war therefor. Lycurgus allowed a man, who was advanced
in years and had a young wife, to recommend some virtuous and approved
young man, that she might have a child by him, who might inherit the
good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On the other
side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon account of her
modesty and the well-favoredness of her children might, without
formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise, as it
were, from this plot of good ground worthy and well-allied children for
himself."