Page:The Poems of Sappho (1924).djvu/40

34 are due to Longinus. As this is the first effort of its kind it is perhaps worth quoting:

He that sits next to thee now and hears

Thy charming voyce, to me appears

Beauteous as any Deity

That rules the skie.

How did his pleasing glances dart

Sweet languors to my ravish’d heart

At the first sight though so prevailed

That my voyce fail’d.

I’me speechless, feavrish, fires assail

My fainting flesh, my sight doth fail

Whilst to my restless mind my ears

Still hum new fears.

Cold sweats and tremblings so invade

That like a wither’d flower I fade

So that my life being almost lost,

I seem a Ghost.

Yet since I’me wretched must I dare.”

The translator then goes on: “Thus did Sappho single out all those accidents that are either inherent or consequential to love and melancholy,” etc. Hall’s rendering of the text of Longinus is acceptable, but his translation of the Sapphic fragment is stiff and without distinction. His