I find the fhades that veil'd our joys before; But, Phaon gone, those shades delight no more. 170 Night fhades the groves, and all in filence lie, 175 A fpring there is, whofe filver waters fhow, 180 Watch'd by the fylvan Genius of the place: 0 She flood and cry'd, "O you that love in vain! "Fly hence, and feek the fair Leucadian main; NOTES. "There VER. 188. Leucadian main;] Addison, with his usual exquifite humour, has given, in the 233d Spectator, an account of the perfons, male and female, who leaped from the promontory of Leucate into the Ionian fea, in order to cure themfelves of the passion of love. Their various characters, and effects of this leap, are de. scribed with infinite pleafantry. One hundred and twenty-four males, and one hundred and twenty-fix females, took the leap in the 250th Olympiad; out of them one hundred and twenty were perfectly C 2 "Phœbus ab excelfo, quantum patet, afpicit æquor: 195 "Actiacum populi Leucadiumque vocant. "Hinc fe Deucalion Pyrrhæ fuccenfus amore "Mifit, et illæfo corpore preffit aquas. "Nec mora: versus Amor tetigit lentiffima Pyrrhæ "Pectora; Deucalion igne levatus erat.. "Hanc legem locus ille tenet, pete protinus altam Ut monuit, cum voce abiit. Ego frigida furgo: 200 Quicquid erit, melius quam nunc erit: aura, fubito. Inde NOTES. perfectly cured. Sappho, arrayed like a Spartan virgin, and her harp in her hand, threw herself from the rock with fuch intrepidity, as was never before observed in any who had attempted that very dangerous leap; from whence the never rose again, but was faid to be changed into a swan as she fell, and was feen hovering in the air in that shape. Alcæus arrived at the promontory of Leucate that very evening, in order to take the leap on her account; but hearing that her body could not be found, he very generously lamented her fall, and is faid to have written his 125th ode on that occafion. WARTON. "There stands a rock, from whofe impending steep 190 194 Apollo's fane furveys the rolling deep; "There injur'd lovers, leaping from above, "Their flames extinguifh, and forget to love. "Deucalion once with hopeless fury burn'd, "In vain he lov'd, relentless Pyrrha fcorn'd: "But when from hence he plung'd into the main, "Deucalion fcorn'd, and Pyrrha lov'd in vain. "Hafte, Sappho, haste, from high Leucadia throw "Thy wretched weight, nor dread the deeps below!" She spoke, and vanish'd with the voice—I rise, And filent tears fall trickling from my eyes. I go, ye Nymphs! thofe rocks and feas to prove; How much I fear, but ah, how much I love! I go, ye Nymphs, where furious love infpires; Let female fears fubmit to female fires. To rocks and feas I fly from Phaon's hate, And hope from feas and rocks a milder fate, Ye gentle gales, beneath my body blow, And foftly lay me on the waves below! 200 205 And thou, kind Love, my finking limbs fustain, Spread thy foft wings, and waft me o'er the main, Nor let a Lover's death the guiltlefs flood profane! NOTES. On VER. 207. Te gentle gales,] Thefe two lines have been quoted` as the most smooth and mellifluous in our language; and they are fuppofed to derive their sweetnefs and harmony from the mixture of fo many Iambics Pope himfelf preferred the following line to all he had written, with refpect to harmony : Lo, where Mæotis fleeps, and hardly flows WARTON. Inde chelyn Phœbo communia munera ponam: "Grata lyram pofui tibi, Phoebe, poëtria Sappho : "Convenit illa mihi, convenit illa tibi." Cur tamen Actiacas miferam me mittis ad oras, Cum profugum poffis ipfe referre pedem ? Et forma et meritis tu mihi Phoebus eris. 220 225 Nunc vellem facunda forent: dolor artibus obstat; Ingeniumque meis fubftitit omne malis, NOTES, Non VER. 223.] The tranflation by Philips of Sappho's beautiful relic does not, though eloquent, breathe the spirit of the original. VER. 227.] Little can be added to the character that Addison has fo elegantly drawn of Sappho in the 2238 and 229th numbers of the Spectator; in which are inferted the tranflations which Philips, under Addison's eye, gave of the two only remaining of her exquifite odes; one preferved by Dionyfius Halicarnaffus, and the other by Longinus. To the remarks that Pearce has made on the latter, I cannot forbear fubjoining a remark of Tanaquil Faber on a fecret and almost unobserved beauty of this ode that in the eight laft lines, the article, in the original, is repeated feven times, to reprefent the fhort breathings of a perfon in the act of fainting away, and pronouncing every fyllable with difficulty. Two beautiful fragments are preferved; the first confifting only of four lines in Fulvius Urfinus, which Horace has imi tated 212 215 On Phœbus' fhrine my harp I'll then bestow, And this Infcription fhall be plac'd below, "Here fhe who fung, to him that did infpire, Sappho to Phoebus confecrates her Lyre; "What suits with Sappho, Phoebus, fuits with thee; "The gift, the giver, and the God agree." But why, alas, relentless youth, ah why To distant Seas must tender Sappho fly? Thy charms than those may far more pow'rful be, And Phoebus' felf is lefs a God to me, 221 Ah! canft thou doom me to the rocks and fea, NOTES, tated in the twelfth ode of the third book, Tibi qualum, &c.; and the other the beginning of an ode addreffed to Evening, by Demetrius Phalareus, in the Oxford edition, by Gale, p. 104. In one of Akenfide's odes to lyric poetry, which have been too much depreciated, are two fine ftanzas: one in the character of Alcæus, and the other on the character of Sappho ; Spirat adhuc Amor Vivuntque commiffi calores Eolie fidibus puellæ! WARTON. VER. 226. This breaft, &c] "Lik'd" feems a very unfuitable expreffion in the present day; it was a word, however, among our early writers, of greater force and fignificance : "What! I that lov'd, and you that lik'd, Shall we begin to wrangle? No, no, no; my heart S fix'd, And cannot disentangle." Old Ballad. |