APPENDIX II.

REFERRING TO THE ESSAY

ON THE POETRY OF PETRARCH.

SECT. IX.

SPECIMENS

OF GREEK LOVE-POETRY

FROM SAPPHO

DOWN TO THE WRITERS

OF THE LOWER EMPIRE.

SAPPHO.

86

They who regard the Fragments of Sappho, as mere Love-songs, degrade her genius. Her strain' was of a higher mood. Simple, vehement, rich in images, sparing in words, her poetry is the poetry of impulse. In all succeeding poets who have written on Love, we can trace the wit of sentiment, and the finished delicacy of art: in Sappho we have a total unconsciousness of effort; but such is the enthusiasm of her sensations, that she has infused sublimity into the softness of sexual passion. Longinus has instanced her bold selection and association of circumstances in the emotions of violent love as forming the true sublime. He does not, however, specify any peculiarity in the passion described by Sappho, as distinguishing it from a common passion; and yet I am satisfied, that these strong emotions have a deeper source. Persons who have been struck with the disproportion of the effects to the cause, have conceived jealousy to be intended; but this seems to me quite an error, into which they have been led by the mention of the man

who is supposed to sit by the girl; for it is supposition only: it is a mere figure, and has not the least. appearance of being pointed at any particular lover. It is not the sight of the man, but the smile of the girl that is said to produce this fluttering of the heart: nor is this fainting of the spirits likely to be occasioned by jealousy, which rather engenders a sullen, or malignant temper of mind, and an angry contortion of the countenance. Longinus does not quote the ode as a just description of jealous uneasiness, but of amorous furor:' and his expressions are All things of this kind happen to those who are in love; but the seizure of the chief particulars, and the embodying of them in one whole, has effected the sublime.' I have no doubt that the passion of which Sappho describes the paroxysm, is a passion indulged by stealth, and concealed through a sense of guilt or apprehension. The first line of the succeeding stanza, which is lost, seems to hint at a disclosure: Yet must I venture all' and I am confirmed in my inference by the traditionary story of the physician who discovered the love of Antiochus for his mother-in-law Stratonice by comparing the effects which her presence produced on his patient, with the symptoms enumerated by Sappho."-ELTON.

6

SAPPHO.

PHILLIPS'S TRANSLATION.

BLEST as the immortal God is he,
The youth who fondly sits by thee,
And hears and sees thee, all the while,
Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

'Twas this deprived my soul of rest,
And raised such tumults in my breast;
For, while I gazed, in transport tost,
My breath was gone, my voice was lost;
My bosom glow'd; the subtle flame
Ran quick through all my vital frame;
O'er
my dim eyes a darkness hung;
My ears with hollow murmurs rung.

In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd;
My blood with gentle horrors thrill'd;
My feeble pulse forgot to play;

I fainted, sunk, and died away.

THE LATTER PART ATTEMPTED MORE LITERALLY.

My trembling tongue hath lost its power;

Slow, subtle fires my frame devour;
My sight is fled; around me swim

Low dizzy murmurs: every limb
Cold creeping dews o'erspread. I feel
A shivering tremor o'er me steal:
Paler than grass I grow; my breath
Pants in short gasps; I seem like death.

M.