SAPPHO

Book [

1 To ApnropitTe

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Liferary Comyasifion :+ The

finished and brilliant style of composition... . has the
following chavacteristies: . 2... It would not be out of

place for me to enumerate here the finest exponents of it.
Among epie writers I should give the first place in this style
to Hesiod, amone Ivrists to Sappho, with Anacreon and
Simonides next to her; among tragic poets there is only one
example, Euripides. Among historians, to be exact, there
is none, but Ephorus and Theopompus show it more than
most ; among the ovators I should choose Isocrates. I will
now give illustrations of this style, taking Sappho to repre-
sent the poets and Isucrates the orators: and I will begin
with the lyrist :

Aphrodite splendour-throned? immortal,  wile-
weaving child of Zeus, to thee is my prayer. Whelm
not my heart, O Queen, with suffering and sorrow,
but come hither I pray thee, if ever ere this thou
hast heard and marked my voice afar, and stepping
from thy Father's house harnessed a golden chariot,
and the strong pinions of thy two swans? fair and

swift, whirring from heaven through mid-sky, have

lef. Heph. 83 with seh., Prise. 1, 37, Hdn. 2. 948 Lentz,
ELM. 485. 41, Ath. 9. 301 e, Hesych. ὠκέες στροῦθοι : used by
Heph. to illustrate the metre, and hence to be regarded as
the Ist ode of S.’s Ist Book in the (7 Alexandrian edition,
which was entirely composed of poems in this metre
2 prob. = ‘sitting on a throne of inlaid wood or metal’
8. cf. 172, Ale. 2. : not sparrows, see Proc, (opp.), Stat. S. 1.2.

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