Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/23

Rh subject As noted elsewhere, modern English writers justly treat this Phaon legend as incredible and as one founded neither on reason nor on sound evidence. The whole story seems, indeed, to be a legend of a not infrequent type.

It is not known certainly how long Sappho lived, but from the expression, “rather old,” which she uses about herself it may be supposed that she lived past middle life. Such biographical material is all too scanty, and it contains a considerable amount of conjecture, yet with it we must perforce be satisfied. Our knowledge of Sappho’s life-history is never likely to be amplified materially, though there is always reasonable hope that in the future more of her poems may be recovered.

As already indicated, the position, climate, and natural resources were all favourable to a high degree of material and intellectual development in the island of Lesbos, and such a state of affairs did actually exist even in these early times. The commercial and material prosperity no doubt came first, but it is known that in the seventh century B.C., before the birth of Sappho, there was already in existence a considerable body of lyric poetry, as well as other evidence of artistic, musical, and literary culture in the chief centres of population such as Mytilene. There is, furthermore, evidence that in some ways the customs of the Lesbians differed from, and were in advance of, those of many of the other divisions of the Greek population. The women of Lesbos of all classes