Part 1

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Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). [=a] [)a] etc. represent vowels with macrons or breves respectively. In the representations of metre - represents heavy and v a light syllable, with = undetermined (breve and macron in the printed work).

* * * * *

[Greek: SAPPHÔ]

L. Alma Tadema J. Cother Webb pinxt. fec.

SAPPHO

MEMOIR, TEXT, SELECTED RENDERINGS, AND A LITERAL TRANSLATION BY HENRY THORNTON WHARTON M.A. OXON

LONDON: JOHN LANE · THE BODLEY HEAD · NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY · 1908

[Greek: Panta kathara tois katharois.]

_First Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Pp._ xii+190. _One Illustration. David Stott._ 1885.

_Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Pp._ xvi+213. _Two Illustrations, David Stott._ 1887.

_Third Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Pp._ xx+217. _Three Illustrations, John Lane._ 1895.

_Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Pp._ xx+222. _Three Illustrations and Memoir of Mr. Wharton._ _John Lane._ 1898.

_Fifth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. Pp._ xxxii+217. _Three Illustrations and Memoir of Mr. Wharton._ _John Lane._ 1908.

Printed by BALLANTYNE & CO. LIMITED Tavistock Street, London

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION

I would fain have enriched this edition of my _Sappho_ with some new words of the poetess, if only even to the slight extent which I reached in 1887; but, to the world's sorrow, that pleasure has been denied me. Still, we need not yet give up all hope, after the unexpected discovery of the unknown _Mimiambi_ of Herondas, on a papyrus-roll used to stuff an Egyptian mummy-case, so few years ago (cf. _The Academy_, Oct. 11, 1890).

Neverthless, I can now present to the lovers of Sappho a good deal more than was heretofore in my power; in a new form, it is true, but with the same beautiful Greek type. And with this third edition I am enabled to give a reproduction, in photogravure, of the charming picture of Mitylene by the late Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., for which I am primarily indebted to Dr. R. Garnett, of the British Museum.

Since it was my privilege, if I may say so without arrogance, to introduce Sappho to English readers in the year 1885, in a form which they could understand, whether they knew any Greek or none, and in the entirety of every known word of hers, there has arisen a mass of literature upon the subject of the greatest lyrist of all time. To enumerate the pictures that have been painted, the articles and books and plays that have been written, which have appealed to the public in the last ten years, would be an almost impossible task. In my _Bibliography_ I have endeavoured to give a reference to all that is of prominent and permanent interest, ranging from 'the postman poet,' Mr. Hosken, to the felicitous paraphrases--some fractions of which I have taken the liberty to quote in the text--of 'Michael Field' in her _Long Ago_.

The translation of the Hymn to Aphrodite, which was made for me by the late J. Addington Symonds, now appears in the amended form in which he finally printed it. Professor Palgrave has kindly allowed me to include some versions of his, made many years ago. The late Sir R. F. Burton made a metrical translation of Catullus, which has recently been published, and I am grateful to Lady Burton for allowing me to reprint his version of the Roman poet's Ode to Lesbia.

The only critical edition of the text of Sappho since that of Bergk--the text which I adopt--has been made by Mr. G. S. Farnell, headmaster of the Victoria College, Jersey; from which I have had considerable assistance.

As regards erudite scholarship, the investigations of Professor Luniak, of the Kazan University, deserve more attention than it is within the scope of my book to give them. I reviewed his essay in some detail in _The Academy_ for July 19, 1890, p. 53. The criticisms upon it by Professor Naguiewski, in his disputation for the doctorate two years later, go far to prove that my appreciation of Sappho's character cannot be easily shaken. That rapturous fragment of Sophocles--

[Greek: Ô theoi, tis ara Kupris, ê tis himeros,] [Greek: toude xynêpsato?]

(_O gods, what love, what yearning, contributed to this?_) still remains to me the keynote of what Sappho has been through all the ages.

HENRY T. WHARTON.

'MADRESFIELD,' ACOL ROAD, WEST HAMPSTEAD, LONDON, N.W., _April 1895_.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION

The cordial reception which the first edition of my little book met with has encouraged me to make many improvements in this re-issue. Unforeseen delays in its production have also helped me to advance upon my first essay. Among other changes, I have been able to obtain a new fount of Greek type, which has to me a peculiar beauty. Unfamiliar though some of the letters may appear at first sight, they reproduce the calligraphy of the manuscripts of the most artistic period of the Middle Ages. This type has been specially cast in Berlin, by favour of the Imperial Government. In a larger size it is not unknown to English scholars, but such as I am now enabled to present has never been used before.

Last spring a telegram from the Vienna correspondent of the _Times_ announced that some new verses of Sappho had been found among the Fayum papyri in the possession of the Archduke Rénier. When the paper on his Imperial Highness' papyri was read before the Imperial Academy of Science by Dr. Wilhelm Ritter von Hartel on the 10th of March, it became evident that the remark was made, not in allusion to the Archduke's possessions, but to that portion of the Fayum manuscripts which had been acquired by the Imperial Museum in Berlin. The verses referred to were indeed no other than the two fragments which had been deciphered and criticised by the celebrated scholar, Dr. F. Blass, of Kiel, in the _Rheinisches Museum_ for 1880; and further edited by Bergk in the posthumous edition of his _Poetae Lyrici Graeci_. I am now able, not only to print the text of these fragments and a translation of them, but also, through the courtesy of the Imperial Government of Germany, to give an exact reproduction of photographs of the actual scraps of parchment on which they were written a thousand years ago. Dr. Erman, the Director of the Imperial Egyptian Museum, kindly furnished me with the photographs; and the Autotype Company has copied them with its well-known fidelity.

Among many other additions, that which I have been able to make to fragment 100 is particularly interesting. The untimely death of the young French scholar, M. Charles Graux, who found the quotation among the dry dust of Choricius' rhetorical orations, is indeed to be deplored. Had he lived longer he might have cleared up for us many another obscure passage in the course of his studies of manuscripts which have not hitherto found an editor.

The publication of the memoir on Naukratis by the Committee of the Egypt Exploration Fund last autumn is an event worthy of notice, the town having been so intimately connected with Sappho's story. On one of the pieces of pottery found at Naucratis by Mr. Petrie occur the inscribed letters [Greek: SAPH] (pl. xxxiv., fig. 532), which some at first thought might refer to Sappho; but the more probable restoration is [Greek: ei]s Aph[roditên], 'to Aphrodite.'

Since the issue of my first edition, M. De Vries has published, at Leyden, an exhaustive dissertation upon Ovid's Epistle, _Sappho to Phaon_, which has caused me to modify some of my conclusions regarding it. Although Ovid's authorship of this Epistle seems to me now to be sufficiently vindicated, I still remain convinced that we are not justified in taking the statements in it as historically accurate.

It is curious also that a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Erlangen offered, as his inaugural dissertation, in 1885, an account of 'Sappho the Mitylenean.' The author, Joacheim I. Paulidos, is a native of Lesbos. It is a pamphlet of sixty pages, written, not in modern, but in classical Greek. His opening sentence, [Greek: Mia kai monê egeneto Sapphô]--'Sappho stands alone and unique,' comes near the meaning, but misses the polish of the phrase--gives his dominant tone; his acceptance of her character greatly resembles mine.

Since the years now and then bring to light some fresh verses of Sappho's, there is a faint hope that more may still be found. The rich store of parchments and papyri discovered in the Fayum has not all been examined yet. Indeed, among a few of these which were lost in the custom-house at Alexandria in 1881-2, M. Maspero, the renowned Director of Explorations in Egypt, thought he had detected the perfume of Sappho's art.

It is pleasing to see (cf. fragment 95) that our own Poet Laureate has again recurred, in his latest volume of poems, to a phrase from Sappho which he had first used nearly sixty years ago; and that he calls her 'the poet,' implying her supremacy by the absence of any added epithet.

I am indebted to many kind friends and distinguished scholars for much assistance. Among them I must especially thank Professor Blass, of Kiel. Notwithstanding the frequent recurrence of his name on my pages, I owe more to his cordial help and criticism than I can acknowledge here.

Little more than I have given is needed to prove how transcendent an artist Sappho was; but I cannot forbear concluding with an extract from a recent essay on poetry by Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton:--

'Never before these songs were sung, and never since, did the human soul, in the grip of a fiery passion, utter a cry like hers; and, from the executive point of view, in directness, in lucidity, in that high imperious verbal economy which only Nature can teach the artist, she has no equal, and none worthy to take the place of second.'

HENRY T. WHARTON.

39 ST. GEORGE'S ROAD, KILBURN, LONDON, N.W., _April 1887_.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

SAPPHO, the Greek poetess whom more than eighty generations have been obliged to hold without a peer, has never, in the entirety of her works, been brought within the reach of English readers. The key to her wondrous reputation--which would, perhaps, be still greater if it had ever been challenged--has hitherto lain hidden in other languages than ours. As a name, as a figure pre-eminent in literary history, she has indeed never been overlooked. But the English-reading world has come to think, and to be content with thinking, that no verse of hers survives save those two hymns which Addison, in the _Spectator_, has made famous--by his panegyric, not by Ambrose Philips' translation.

My aim in the present work is to familiarise English readers, whether they understand Greek or not, with every word of Sappho, by translating all the one hundred and seventy fragments that her latest German editor thinks may be ascribed to her:

Love's priestess, mad with pain and joy of song, Song's priestess, mad with joy and pain of love. SWINBURNE.

I have contented myself with a literal English prose translation, for Sappho is, perhaps above all other poets, untranslatable. The very difficulties in the way of translating her may be the reason why no Englishman has hitherto undertaken the task. Many of the fragments have been more or less successfully rendered into English verse, and such versions I have quoted whenever they rose above mediocrity, so far as I have been able to discover them.

After an account of Sappho's life as complete as my materials have allowed, I have taken her fragments in order as they stand in Bergk, whose text I have almost invariably followed. I have given (1) the original fragment in Greek, (2) a literal version in English prose, distinguished by italic type, (3) every English metrical translation that seems worthy of such apposition, and (4) a note of the writer by whom, and the circumstances under which, each fragment has been preserved. Too often a fragment is only a single word, but I have omitted nothing.

It is curious to note how early in the history of printing the literature of Sappho began. The British Museum contains a sort of commentary on Sappho which is dated 1475 in the Catalogue; this is but twenty years later than the famous 'Mazarin' Bible, and only one year after the first book was printed in England. It is written in Latin by Georgius Alexandrinus Merula, and is of much interest, apart from its strange type and contractions of words.

The first edition of any part of Sappho was that of the Hymn to Aphrodite, by H. Stephanus, in his edition of Anacreon, 8vo, 1554. Subsequent editions of Anacreon contained other fragments attributed to her, including some that are now known to be by a later hand. Fulvius Ursinus wrote some comments on those then known in the _Carmina Novem Illustrium Feminarum_ published at Antwerp, 8vo, 1568. Is. Vossius gave an amended text of the two principal odes in his edition of Catullus, London, 4to, 1684.

But the first separate edition of Sappho's works was that of Johann Christian Wolf, which was published in 4to at Hamburg in 1733, and reprinted under an altered title two years later. Wolf's work is as exhaustive as was possible at his date. He gives a frontispiece figuring all the then known coins bearing reference to the poetess; a life of her--written, like the rest of the treatise, in Latin--occupies 32 pages; a Latin translation of all the quotations from or references to her in the Greek classics, and all the Latin accounts of her, together with the annotations of most previous writers, and copious notes by himself, in 253 pages; and the work is completed with elaborate indices.

The next important critical edition of Sappho was that of Heinrich Friedrich Magnus Volger, pp. lxviii., 195, 8vo, Leipzig, 1810. It was written on the old lines, and did not do much to advance the knowledge of her fragments. Volger added a 'musical scheme' which seems more curious than useful, and of which it is hard to understand either the origin or the intention.

But nothing written before 1816 really grasped the Sapphic question. In that year Welcker published his celebrated refutation of the long-current calumnies against Sappho, _Sappho vindicated from a prevailing Prejudice_. In his zeal to establish her character he may have been here and there led into extravagance, but it is certain that his searching criticism first made it possible to appreciate her true position. Nothing that has been written since has succeeded in invalidating his main conclusions, despite all the onslaughts of Colonel Mure and those few who sympathised with him.

Consequently the next self-standing edition of Sappho, by Christian Friedrich Neue, pp. 106, 4to, Berlin, 1827, embodying the results of the 'new departure,' was far in advance of its predecessors--not in cumbrous elaboration, but in critical excellence. Neue's life of the poetess was written in the light of Welcker's researches; his purification of the text was due to more accurate study of the ancient manuscripts, assisted by the textual criticisms published by Bishop Blomfield the previous year in the Cambridge _Museum Criticum._

Since Neue's time much has been written about Sappho, for the most part in Latin or German. The final revision of the text, and collection of all that can now be possibly ascribed to her, was made by Theodor Bergk, in his _Poetae Lyrici Graeci_, pp. 82-140 of the third volume of the fourth edition, 8vo, Leipzig, 1882, which I have here, with rare exceptions, followed.

There is a noteworthy dissertation on her life by Theodor Kock, _Alkäos und Sappho_, 8vo, Berlin, 1862, in which the arguments and conclusions of Welcker are mainly endorsed, and elaborated with much mythological detail.

Perhaps the fullest account of Sappho which has recently appeared is that by A. Fernandez Merino, a third edition of which was published at Madrid early last year. Written in Spanish, it discusses in an impartial spirit every question concerning Sappho, and is especially valuable for its copious references.

Professor Domenico Comparetti, the celebrated Florentine scholar, to whom I shall have occasion to refer hereafter, has recently done much to familiarise Italian readers with the chief points of Sapphic criticism. His enthusiasm for her character and genius is all that can be desired, but his acceptance of Welcker's arguments is not so complete as mine. Where truth must lie between two extremes, and evidence on either side is so hard to collect and estimate, it is possible for differently constituted minds to reach very different conclusions. The motto at the back of my title-page is the guide I am most willing to follow. But, after all, to use the words of a friend whom I consulted on the subject, 'whether the pure think her emotion pure or impure; whether the impure appreciate it rightly, or misinterpret it; whether, finally, it was platonic or not; seems to me to matter nothing.' Sappho's poetic eminence is independent of such considerations. To her,

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Those who wish to learn more about Sappho than is here recorded will find a guide in the Bibliography which I have added at the end of the volume. My sole desire in these pages is to present 'the great poetess' to English readers in a form from which they can judge of her excellence for themselves, so far as that is possible for those to whom Aeolic Greek is unfamiliar. Her more important fragments have been translated into German, French, Italian, and Spanish, as well as English; but all previous complete editions of her works have been written solely by scholars for scholars. Now that, through the appreciation of Sappho by modern poets and painters, her name is becoming day by day more familiar, it seems time to show her as we know her to have been, to those who have neither leisure nor power to read her in the tongue in which she wrote.

I have not concerned myself much with textual criticism, for I do not arrogate any power of discernment greater than that possessed by a scholar like Bergk. Only those who realise what he has done to determine the text of Sappho can quite appreciate the value of his work. Where he is satisfied, I am content. He wrote for the learned few, and I only strive to popularise the result of such researches as his: to show, indeed, so far as I can, that which centuries of scholarship have succeeded in accomplishing.

The translations by Mr. John Addington Symonds, dated 1883, were all made especially for this work in the early part of that year, and have not been elsewhere published. My thanks are also due to Mr. Symonds for much valuable criticism.

The medallion which forms the frontispiece has been engraved by my friend Mr. John Cother Webb, after the head of Sappho in the picture by Mr. L. Alma Tadema, R.A., exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881, as 'op. ccxxiii.,' and now in America. I trust that my readers will sympathise with me in cordial gratitude to both artist and engraver, to the one for his permission, to the other for his fidelity.

HENRY T. WHARTON.

39 ST. GEORGE'S ROAD, KILBURN. LONDON, N.W., _May 1885_.

IN MEMORIAM

MR. H. T. WHARTON--known to book-lovers as 'Sappho Wharton'--died on August 22, 1895, after a lingering illness due to influenza, at his residence in West Hampstead; and he lies buried in the neighbouring cemetery of Fortune Green.

Henry Thornton Wharton was born in 1846 at Mitcham, in Surrey, of which parish his father was then vicar. His mother, who survives him, was a Courtenay, a cousin of the Earl of Devon. His elder brother, the author of _Etyma Graeca_ and _Etyma Latina_, is a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford; a younger brother shares his taste for ornithology. He was educated as a day-boy at the Charterhouse, in its old Smithfield days; and after spending a short time in the classical department of King's College, he went up to Oxford in 1867, as a commoner of Wadham. That college had no more enthusiastic _alumnus_, and he will be greatly missed, both at the Gaudy and at the annual dinner in London. He graduated in 1871 with honours in natural science, and then joined the medical school at University College. On qualifying as M.R.C.S. in 1875, he settled down to general practice in West Hampstead. He never earned a large income; but his devotion to all his patients, and in particular his generosity to the poor, will cause his memory to be long held in honour.

The general public first heard of him in 1885, when he brought out his _Sappho_--memoir, text, selected renderings, and a literal translation (David Stott). The book met with an immediate success, partly because it supplied a want, and partly from the attractive form in which it was produced. A second edition was called for within two years; and this very summer a third, with additions, has been published by Mr. John Lane. The author spared no pains to make the volume worthy of its subject. Merely as a specimen of book-making, it has few rivals. The Royal Press of Berlin lent a fount of Greek type, which had never before been used in this country. Prof. Blass, of Kiel, gave his assistance in determining the obscure text of the fragments. Mr. John Addington Symonds contributed special metrical versions of all the longer pieces. Mr. John Cother Webb engraved for frontispiece the head of Sappho in Mr. Alma Tadema's famous picture, the original of which has since gone to America. Of Mr. Wharton's own work we must be content to praise the memoir, marked by good sense as well as erudition; and the bibliography, which includes the latest programs of Russian universities. The result is one of the rare books that give fresh life to an ancient author, and beget other good books, such, in this case, as Michael Field's _Long Ago_. It appeals alike to the scholar, the bibliophile, and the general public; and by it the author's name will be preserved, along with that of the immortal poetess, when far more notorious writers of the day are forgotten.

But Mr. Wharton was by no means a man of one book. Though he had got together a choice collection of English literature, his real interest lay in natural history. It would be difficult, indeed, to say to which of its branches he was most devoted. His knowledge of ornithology was based upon observation as much as upon books. His eye and ear were both highly trained, and he always made his learning subservient to nature. So, again, with regard to botany. While he did not despise the most technical details, it was his delight to accompany gatherings of autumn fungus-hunters, and to point out what was wholesome and what poisonous. He was one of the joint compilers of the official List of British Birds published by the B. O. U. (1883), his special task being to supervise and elucidate the Latin nomenclature; and he contributed a chapter on the local flora to a work entitled _Hampstead Hill_ (1889).

So much, however, summarises only what Harry Wharton did, not what he was. His was one of the bounteous natures that radiate happiness wherever they go. Men, women, and children alike brightened in his genial presence. He led a blameless and a beneficent life. He never made an enemy and he never lost a friend. He ought to have been a contemporary of Charles Lamb. It is hard to realise--especially for one who has known and loved him for nearly thirty years--that we shall never see again that _os honestum_, never hear again that ringing laugh.

'God be with his soul! A' was a merry man.'

J. S. COTTON.

1895.

CONTENTS

_Page_

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION v

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION ix