Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/31

Rh gentum, shows Sappho and Alcaeus, each with a musical instrument. This vase is now in Munich. According to Cicero there was a fine bronze statue made by Silanion, which was stolen by Verres from the Prytaneum at Syracuse, and Christodorus also describes a statue of the poetess in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus at Byzantium in the fifth century A.D. Unfortunately, all trace of these statues has disappeared.

The Aeolic dialect in which Sappho wrote is the softest, smoothest, and most direct in expression of all the varieties of the Greek language. There are said to be traces of this dialect in the ordinary speech of the people of Lesbos even to the present day. In it the rough breathings were absent, there was a frequent throwing back of the accent, the digamma was used to some extent, and  frequently became, for example,  became, It should be noted in this connection that Sappho sometimes calls herself “Psappha,” which is an Aeolic form of her name. This soft Aeolic Greek was a fitting medium for the rich and sensuous language and imagery of her poems, and the result is perhaps more pleasing than would have been the case had the circumstances of time and place caused her to use the crystalline and more finely chiselled Attic Greek of two centuries later.

It is very important to remember the part played by musical instruments in relation to the composition and recitation of the lyric poetry of Lesbos. Stringed instru-