Page:History of the Literature of Ancient Greece (Müller) 2ed.djvu/197

175 LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 175 Calyce, spoke of the love of a virtuous maiden for a youth who despised her passion; and in despair she threw herself from the Lencadian rock. The effect of the leap in the story of Sappho (viz. the curing her of her intolerable passion) must therefore have been unknown to Stesi- chorus. Some years later, Anacreon says in an ode, " again casting myself from the Leucadian rock, I plunge into the grey sea, drunk with love *." The poet can scarcely by these words be supposed to say that he cures himself of a vehement passion, but rather means to describe the delirious intoxication of violent love. The story of Sappho's leap pro- bably originated in some poetical images and relations of this kind ; a similar story is told of Aphrodite in reg'ard to her lament for Adonis t- Nevertheless it is not unlikely that the leap from the Leucadian rock may really have been made, in ancient times, by desperate and frantic men. Another proof of the fictitious character of the story is that it leaves the principal point in uncertainty, namely, whether Sappho sur- vived the leap or perished in it. From what has been said, it follows that a true conception of the erotic poetry of Sappho, and of the feelings expressed in it, can only be drawn from fragments of her odes, which, though numerous, are for the most part very short. The most considerable and the best known of Sappho's remains is the complete ode J, in which she implores Aphro- dite not to allow the torments and agitations of love to destroy her mind, but to come to her assistance, as she had formerly descended from heaven in her golden car drawn by sparrows, and with radiant smiles on her divine face had asked her what had befallen her, and what her unquiet heart desired, and who was the author of her pain. She promised that if he fled her now, he soon would follow her ; if he did not now accept her presents, he would soon offer presents to her ; if he did not love her now, he would soon love her, even were she coy and reluctant. Sappho then implores Aphrodite to come to her again and assist her. Although, in this ode, Sappho describes her love in glowing language, and even speaks of her own frantic heart §, yet the indelicacy of such an avowal of passionate love is much diminished by the manner in which it is made. The poetess does not impor- tune her lover with her complaints, nor address her poem to him, but confides her passion to the goddess and pours out to her all the tumult and the anguish of her heart. There is great delicacy in her not venturing to give utterance in her own person to the expec- tation that the coy and indifferent object of her affection would be transformed into an impatient lover; an expectation little likely to find a place in a heart so stricken and oppressed as that of the poetess ; she f See Ptolem. Hephaestion (in Phot, Bibliotliec.) /3i/U/ov £. I Fragm. 1. Blomf, 1. Neuc.
 * In Hephaestion, p. 130.