V.  FRAGMENTS FROM SAPPHO

131

Longinus, about 250 A. D., uses this, The Ode to Anactoria, or To a Beloved Woman, or To a Maiden, as tradition variously names it, to illustrate the perfection of the Sublime in Poetry, calling it “not one passion, but a congress of passions,” and showing how Sappho had here seized upon the signs of love-frenzy and harmonized them into faultless phrase. Plutarch had, about 60 A. D., spoken of this ode as “mixed with fire,” and quoted Philoxenus as referring to Sappho’s “sweet-voiced songs of healing love.”

     II

THE ODE
TO
ANACTORIA.

I

That man seems to me peer of gods, how sit in they presence, and hears close to him thy sweet speech and lovely laughter; that indeed make my heart flutter in my bosom. For when I see thee but a little, I have no utterance left, my tongue is broken down, and straightway a subtle fire has run under my skin, with my eyes I have no sight, my ears ring, sweat pours down, and a trembling seizes all my body; I am paler than grass, and seem in my madness little better than one dead. But I must dare all, since one so poor . . . .

HENRY T. WHARTON.

132

II

The famous imitation of this ode by Catullus,
         ii., Ad Lesbiam—

Ille mi par esse deo videtur,
Ille, si fas est, superare divos,
Qui sedens adversus ident item te
            Spectat et audit
Dulce riedentem, misero, quod omnis
Eripit sensus mihi: nam simul te,
Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi
             *      *      *      *      *      
Linqua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
Flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
Tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
            Lumina nocte —

is thus translated by Mr. W. E. Gladstone: —

Him rival to the gods I place
    Him loftier yet, if loftier be,
Who, Lesbia, sits before thy face,
    Who listens and who looks on thee;
Thee smiling soft.  Yet this delight
    Doth all my sense consign to death;
For when thou dawnest on my sight,
      Ah, wretched! flits my labouring breath.
133 My tongue is palsied.  Subtly hid
    Fire creeps me through from limb to limb:
My loud ears tingle all unbid:
     Twin clouds of night mine eyes bedim.

III

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!
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.

J. ADDINGTON SYMONDS, 1883.