ortunately we can come within six centuries of the real Lesbian society in the reports of Maximus Tyrius, whom Felton strangely calls "a tedious writer of the time of the Antonines," but who seems to me often to rival Epictetus and Plutarch in eloquence and nobleness of tone. In his eighth dissertation he draws a parallel between the instruction given by Socrates to men and that afforded by Sappho to women. "Each," he says, "appears to me to deal with the same kind of love, the one as subsisting among males, the other among females." "What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phcedrus are with Socrates, that Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria are with the Lesbian. And what those rivals Prodicus, Gorgias, Thrasymachus, and Protagoras are to Socrates, that Gorgo and Andromeda are to Sappho. At one time she reproves, at another she confutes these, and addresses them in the same ironical language with Socrates." Then he draws parallels between the writings of the two. "Diotima says to Socrates that love flourishes in abundance, but dies in want. Sappho conveys the same meaning when she calls love 'sweetly bitter' and 'a painful gift.' Socrates calls love 'a sophist,' Sappho 'a ringlet of words.' Socrates says that he is agitated with Bacchic fury through the love of Phædrus; but she that 'love shakes her mind as the wind when it falls on mountain-oaks.' Socrates reproves Xantippe when she laments that he must die, and Sappho writes to her daughter, 'Grief is not lawful in the residence of the Muse, nor does it become us.'"

Thus far Maximus Tyrius. But that a high intellectual standard prevailed in this academy of Sappho's may be inferred from a fragment of her verse, in which she utters her disappointment over an uncultivated woman, whom she had, perhaps, tried in vain to influence. This imaginary epitaph warns this pupil that she is in danger of being forgotten through forgetfulness of those Pierian roses which are the Muses' symbol. This version retains the brevity of the original lines, and though rhymed, is literal, except that it changes the second person to the third: --

Dying she reposes;
Oblivion grasps her now;
Since never Pierian roses
Were wreathed round her empty brow;
She goeth unwept and lonely
To Hades' dusky homes,
And bodiless shadows only
Bid her welcome as she comes.

To show how differently Sappho lamented her favorites, I give Elton's version of another epitaph on a maiden, whom we may fancy lying robed for the grave, while her companions sever their tresses around her, that some- thing of themselves may be entombed with her.

"This dust was Timas'; ere her bridal hour
She lies in Proserpina's gloomy bower;
Her virgin playmates from each lovely head
Cut with sharp steel their locks, the strewments for the dead."

These are only fragments; but of the single complete poem that remains to us from Sappho, I shall venture on a translation, which can only claim to be tolerably literal, and to keep, in some degree, to the Sapphic metre. Yet I am cheered by the remark of an old grammarian, Demetrius Phalereus, that "Sappho’s whole poetry is so perfectly musical and harmonious, that even the harshest voice or most awkward recital can hardly render it unpleasing to the ear." Let us hope that the Muses may extend some such grace, even to a translation.

HYMN TO APHRODITE.

Beautiful-throned, immortal Aphrodite!
Danghter of Zens, begniler, I implore thee,
Weigh me not down with weariness sod anguish,
0, thou most holy!

Come to me now! if ever thou in kindness
Hearkenedst my words,-- and often hast thou hearkened,
Heeding, and coming from the mansions golden
Of thy great Father,

Yoking thy chariot, borne by thy most lovely
Consecrated birds, with dusky-tinted pinions,
Waving swift wings from utmost heights of heaven
Through the mid-ether:

Swiftly they vanished; leaving thee, 0 goddess,
Smiling, with face immortal in its beauty,
Asking what I suffered, and why in utter longing
I had dared call thee;

Asking, what I sought, thus hopeless in desiring,
Wildered in brain, and spreading nets of passion
Alas, or whom? and saidst thou, "Who has harmed thee?
0 my poor Sappho!"

"Though now he flies, erelong he shall pursue thee;
Fearing thy gifts, he too in turn shall bring them;
Loveless to-day, to-morrow he shall woo thee,
Though thou shouldat spurn him."

Thus seek me now, 0 holy Aphrodite!
Save me from anguish, give me all I ask for,
Gifts at thy hand; and thine shall be the glory,
Sacred protector!

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