Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/34

 CHAPTER II

HE history of the writings of Sappho, as far as translations into English are concerned, only begins in the seventeenth century, though before the middle of that period there was a considerable number of references of varying length and importance scattered through English books, chiefly on historical and poetical subjects. Although few of these early references to the poetess have anything to do with actual translation of the fragments, their character and occurrence have a certain interest and a bibliographical relationship with the later attempts at translation into English. Such references also serve as an indication of the mental attitude of writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries towards Sappho, and from them we acquire the impression that there was a gradual growth in appreciation and comprehension as the eighteenth century loomed into view, though this appreciation and comprehension were often clouded by the inability of these writers, owing to their imperfect knowledge and the prepossessions of their intellectual environment, to shake themselves free from the effects of the scandals launched by the later Greek comic writers, who were undoubtedly writing down to their 28