SAPPHO

It is to be a God, methinks, to sit before you and
listen close by to the sweet accents and winning
laughter which have made the heart in my breast
beat so fast and high. When I look on youn,
Brocheo,! my speech comes short or fails me quite,
Iam tongue- tied?; in a moment a delicate fire has
overrun my flesh, my eyes grow dim and my ears
sing, the sweat runs down me and a trembling takes
me altogether, till 1 am as green and pale as the
grass,” and death itself seems not very far away ; $—
but now that Lam poor, I must fain be content? .

Is it not marvellous how she has recourse at once to spirit,
bedy, hearing, tongue, sight, flesh, all as quite separate
things, anid by contraries both freezes and burns, raves and
is sane, and indeed is afraid she is nearly dead, so that she
expresses not one emotion but a concourse of emotions ?
Now all such things are characteristic of the lover, but it is
the choice, as I said, of the best and the combination of them
into a single whole, that has produced the excellence of the
piece. 5

1 (or Brochea) τα of ἃ compd. οἵ βραχύς. cf. Catull. and
see Camb. Phils’. Soe. Pree, 1920 Ξ the Greek is ‘my
tongue is broken up’ Sef. Macheth 1. 7 + the Greek
words for swooning are mostly metaphors from dying
> metaphorical (*besvars can’t be choosers’) and explained
by the lost sequel: = ‘if 1 cannot see you face to face I must
fain be content with distant reverence’ ὁ af. Plat. Pe. in
Part. 10, Cram. 4.7.1. 39. Plot. Bret, 18, Demet. 38, Cram.
“1.Ὁ. V. 206. 16, Sch. 77.22. 2, Canull. δ]

Wil. δ Long. ‘cf. ψύχεται below! apparently read «a5 δ᾽
ἴδρως wixpos χέεται: his miss ἐκ δὲ é€wade) w ἰδ. u. Kaxxyéera:
but wor is necessary and the above is quoted Cram. 1.0. 1.
208 to show ἰδ. ἰ- ἐν Mm. © BE υιᾶ.": wes πιδευσην, πιδευην,
or πιδευκὴν “ΠΡ νΦ1: mss ἃ. παντύλματον ἐ. (ἐ. καὶ!
πένητα 9 Heller -E: mss ἢ γὰρ φοβεῖται ἢ

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