Fr. 33

I loved thee once, Atthis, long ago.
H. T. Wharton

 

I loved thee,--hark, one tenderer note than all--
Atthis, of old time, once--one low long fall,
Sighing--one long low lovely loveless call,
Dying--one pause in song so flamelike fast--
Atthis, long since in old time overpast--
One soft first pause and last.
One,--then the old rage of rapture's fieriest rain
Storms all the music-maddened night again.
Swinburne,
Songs of the Springtides, p. 57.

Quoted by Hephaestion, about 150 A.D., as an example of metre. The verse stood at the beginning of the first ode of the second book of Sappho's poems, which Hephaestion says was composed entirely of odes in this metre:

 

Fr. 34

A slight and ill-favoured child didst thou seem to me.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Plutarch; and by others also.

Bergk thinks it is certain that this fragment belongs to the same poem as does the preceding, judging from references to it by Terentianus Maurus, about 100 A.D., and by Marius Victorinus, about 350 A.D.

 

Fr. 35

Foolish woman, pride not thyself on a ring.
H. T. Wharton

Preserved by Herodian the grammarian, who lived about 160 A.D.

 

Fr. 36

I know not what to do; my mind is divided.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, about 220 B.C.

 

Fr. 37

I do not think to touch the sky with my two arms.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Herodian. Cf. Horace, Carm. I. i. 36, Sublimi feriam sidera vertice,--

My head, exalted so, will touch the stars,

which some think a direct translation of this line of Sappho's.

Old Horace? 'I will strike,' said he,
'The stars with head sublime.'
Tennyson, Tiresias, 1885.

 

Fr. 38

And I flutter like a child after her mother.
H. T. Wharton

 

Like a child whose mother's lost,
I am fluttering, terror-tost.
M. J. Walhouse

 

After my mother I flew like a bird.
Frederick Tennyson

Quoted in the Etymologicum Magnum as an example of Aeolic. It may have related to a sparrow, and been imitated by Catullus, 3, 6 ff.:

 

Sweet, all honey: a bird that ever hailed her
Lady mistress, as hails the maid a mother.
Nor would move from her arms away: but only
Hopping round her, about her, hence or hither
Piped his colloquy, piped to none beside her.
Robinson Ellis

 

Fr. 39

Spring's messenger, the sweet-voiced nightingale.
H. T. Wharton

 

        The dear good angel of the spring,
The nightingale.
Ben Johnson,
The Sad Shepherd, Act ii.

 

The tawny sweetwinged thing
Whose cry was but of Spring.
Swinburne,
Songs of the Springtides, p. 52.

Quoted by the Scholiast on Sophocles, Electra, 149, 'the nightingale is the messenger of Zeus, because it is the sign of Spring.'

 

Fr. 40

Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
H. T. Wharton

 

Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving King,
The bitter-sweet impracticable thing,
Wild-beast-like rends me with fierce quivering.
J. Addington Symonds, 1883.

Compare--

 

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
Tennyson, Fatima.

 

O bitterness of things too sweet!
Swinburne, Fragoletta.

 

Sweet Love, that art so bitter.
Swinburne,
Tristram of Lyonesse.

and the song in Bothwell, act i. sc. 1:--

Surely most bitter of all sweet things thou art,
And sweetest thou of all things bitter, love.

Quoted by Hephaestion. Cf. fr. 125.

 

Fr. 41

But to thee, Atthis, the thought of me is hateful; thou flittest to Andromeda.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Hephaestion together with fr. 40, but it seems to be the beginning of a different ode.

 

Fr. 42

Now Eros shakes my soul, a wind on the mountain falling on the oaks.
H. T. Wharton

 

Love shook me like the mountain breeze
Rushing down on the forest trees.
Frederick Tennyson.

 

Lo, Love once more my soul within me rends,
Like wind that on the mountain oak descends.
J. A. Symonds, 1883.

Quoted by Maximus Tyrius, about 150 B.C., in speaking of Socrates exciting Phaedrus to Bacchic frenzy when he talked of love.

 

Fr. 43

When all night long [sleep] holds their [eyes].
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Apollonius to show the Aeolic form of sphi. Bergk thinks that Sappho may have written--

        oppat [aôros]
ota pannuchos asphi katagrei,

therefore I translate it so.

 

Fr. 44

And purple napkins for thy lap . . . (even these wilt thou despise) I sent from Phocaea: precious gifts for thy lap.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Athenaeus out of the fifth book of Sappho's Songs to Aphrodite, to show that cheiromaktra were cloths, handkerchiefs, for covering the head. But the whole passage is hopelessly corrupt.

 

Fr. 45

Come now, divine shell, become vocal for me.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted by Hermogenes and Eustathius, of Sappho apostrophising her lyre.

 

Fr. 46

And tender woven garlands round tender neck.
H. T. Wharton

From Athenaeus.

 

Fr. 47

Fonder of maids than Gello.
H. T. Wharton

Quoted as a proverb by Zenobius, about 130 A.D.; said of those who die an untimely death, or of those whose indulgence brings ruin on their children. Gello was a maiden who died in youth, whose ghost, the Lesbians said, pursued children and carried them off.

 

Fr. 48

Of Gorgo full weary.
H. T. Wharton

 

I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways.
Swinburne, Anactoria.

 

Quoted by Choeroboscus, about the end of the sixth century A.D., to show that the Aeolic genitive ended in -ôs. Maximus Tyrius mentions this girl Gorgo along with Andromeda (cf. fr. 41) as beloved by Sappho.

 

Fr. 49

Of a proud (or perfumed, or flowery) palace.
H. T. Wharton

 

Athenaeus says Sappho here mentions the 'royal' and the 'brentheian' unguent together, as if they were one and the same thing; but the reading is very uncertain.

 

Fr. 50

But I upon a soft cushion dispose my limbs.
H. T. Wharton

From Herodian.