Epithalamia, Bridal Songs
91 · Voigt 111¶Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters. (Hymenaeus!) Like Ares comes the bridegroom, (Hymenaeus!) taller far than a tall man. (Hymenaeus!)
Ἴψοι δὴ τὸ μέλαθρον
᾿Υμήναον
ἀέρρετε τέκτοντες ἄνδρες·
᾿Υμήναον
γάμβρος ἔρχεται ἶσος Ἄρευϊ,
[᾿Υμήναον]
ἄνδρος μεγάλω πόλυ μείζων·
[᾿Υμήναον]
Artists, raise the rafters high!
Ample scope and stately plan—
Mars-like comes the bridegroom nigh,
Loftier than a lofty man.
— Anon., Edinb. Rev., 1832, p. 109.
High lift the beams of the chamber,
Workmen, on high;
Like Arés in step comes the Bridegroom;
Like him of the song of Terpander,
Like him in majesty.
— F. T. Palgrave, 1854.
Quoted by Hephaestion as an example of a mes-hymnic poem, where the refrain follows each line. The hymenaeus or wedding-song was sung by the bride’s attendants as they led her to the bridegroom’s house, addressing Hymen the god of marriage. The metre seems, says Professor Mahaffy (Hist. of Class. Greek Lit., i., p. 20, 1880), to be the same as that of the Linus song; cf. fr. 62.
92 · Voigt 106¶Towering, as the Lesbian singer towers among men of other lands.
Πέρροχος, ὠς ὄτ’ ἄοιδος ὀ Λέσβιος ἀλλοδάποισιν.
Quoted by Demetrius, about 150 A.D. It is uncertain what ‘Lesbian singer’ is here referred to; probably Terpander, but Neue thinks it may mean the whole Lesbian race, from their pre-eminence in poetry.
93 · Voigt 105a¶As the sweet-apple blushes on the end of the bough, the very end of the bough, which the gatherers overlooked, nay overlooked not but could not reach.
Οἶον τὸ γλυκύμαλον ἐρεύθεται ἄκρῳ ἐπ’ ὔσδῳ
ἄκρον ἐπ’ ἀκροτάτῳ· λελάθοντο δὲ μαλοδρόπηες,
οὐ μὰν ἐκλελάθοντ’, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐδύναντ’ ἐπίκεσθαι.
—O fair—O sweet!
As the sweet apple blooms high on the bough,
High as the highest, forgot of the gatherers:
So thou:—
Yet not so: nor forgot of the gatherers;
High o’er their reach in the golden air,
—O sweet—O fair!
— F. T. Palgrave, 1854.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Hermogenes, and by others, to explain the word γλυκύμαλον, ‘sweet-apple,’ an apple grafted on a quince; it is used as a term of endearment by Theocritus (Idyl xi. 39), ‘Of thee, my love, my sweet-apple, I sing.’ Himerius, writing about 360 A.D., says: ‘Aphrodite’s orgies we leave to Sappho of Lesbos, to sing to the lyre and make the bride-chamber her theme. She enters the chamber after the games, makes the room, spreads Homer’s bed, assembles the maidens, leads them into the apartment with Aphrodite in the Graces’ car and a band of Loves for playmates. Binding her tresses with hyacinth, except what is parted to fringe her forehead, she lets the rest wave to the wind if it chance to strike them. Their wings and curls she decks with gold, and drives them in procession before the car as they shake the torch on high.’ And particularly this: ‘It was for Sappho to liken the maiden to an apple, allowing to those who would pluck before the time to touch not even with the finger-tip, but to him who was to gather the apple in season to watch its ripe beauty; to compare the bridegroom with Achilles, to match the youth’s deeds with the hero’s.’ Further on he says: ‘Come then, we will lead him into the bride-chamber and persuade him to meet the beauty of the bride. O fair and lovely, the Lesbian’s praises appertain to thee: thy play-mates are rosy-ankled Graces and golden Aphrodite, and the Seasons make the meadows bloom.’ These last words especially—
Ὦ κάλα, ὦ χαρίεσσα.
O fair, O lovely ...
seem taken out of one of Sappho’s hymeneal odes, although they also occur in Theocritus, Idyl xviii. 38.
94 · Voigt 105b¶As on the hills the shepherds trample the hyacinth under foot, and the flower darkens on the ground.
Οἴαν τὰν ὐάκινθον ἐν οὔρεσι ποίμενες ἄνδρες
πόσσι καταστείβοισι, χάμαι δ’ ἐπιπορφύρει ἄνθος.
Compare Catullus, xi. 21-24:—
Think not henceforth, thou, to recall Catullus’
Love; thy own sin slew it, as on the meadow’s
Verge declines, un-gently beneath the ploughshare
Stricken, a flower.
— (Robinson Ellis.)
And Vergil, Aeneid, ix. 435, of Euryalus dying:—
And like the purple flower the plough cuts down
He droops and dies.
Pines she like to the hyacinth out on the path by the hill top;
Shepherds tread it aside, and its purples lie lost on the herbage.
— Edwin Arnold, 1869.
One Girl.
(A combination from Sappho.)
I.
Like the sweet apple which reddens upon the topmost bough,
A-top on the topmost twig,—which the pluckers forgot, somehow,—
Forgot it not, nay, but got it not, for none could get it till now.
II.
Like the wild hyacinth flower which on the hills is found,
Which the passing feet of the shepherds for ever tear and wound,
Until the purple blossom is trodden into the ground.
— D. G. Rossetti, 1870;
in 1881 he altered the title to Beauty. (A combination from Sappho.)
Quoted by Demetrius, as an example of the ornament and beauty proper to a concluding sentence. Bergk first attributed the lines to Sappho.
95 · Voigt 104a¶Evening, thou that bringest all that bright morning scattered; thou bringest the sheep, the goat, the child back to her mother.
Ϝέσπερε, πάντα φέρων, ὄσα φαίνολις ἔσκέδασ’ αὔως,
φέρεις οἶν, φέρες αἶγα, φέρεις ἄπυ ματέρι παῖδα.
Thus imitated by Byron:—
O Hesperus, thou bringest all good things—
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent’s brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o’erlaboured steer;
Whate’er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate’er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gathered round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring’st the child too to its mother’s breast.
Don Juan, iii. 107.
And by Tennyson:—
The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth,
Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.
Thou comest morning or even; she cometh not morning or evening.
False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind?
Leonine Elegiacs, 1830-1884.
Hesperus brings all things back
Which the daylight made us lack,
Brings the sheep and goats to rest,
Brings the baby to the breast.
— Edwin Arnold, 1869.
Hesper, thou bringest back again
All that the gaudy daybeams part,
The sheep, the goat, back to their pen,
The child home to his mother’s heart.
— Frederick Tennyson, 1890.
Evening, all things thou bringest
Which dawn spread apart from each other;
The lamb and the kid thou bringest,
Thou bringest the boy to his mother.
— J. A. Symonds, 1883.
Hesper, whom the poet call’d the Bringer home of all good things.
— Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, 1886.
From the Etymologicum Magnum, where it is adduced to show the meaning of αὔως, ‘dawn.’ The fragment occurs also in Demetrius, as an example of Sappho’s grace. One cannot but believe that Catullus had in his mind some such hymeneal ode of Sappho’s as that in which this fragment must have occurred when he wrote his Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite: Vesper Olympo, etc. (lxii.), part of which was imitated in the colloquy between Opinion and Truth in Ben Jonson’s The Barriers.
96 · Voigt Alcaeus 304¶I shall be ever maiden.
Ἀϊπάρθενος ἔσσομαι.
From a Parisian MS. edited by Cramer, adduced to show the Aeolic form of ἀεί, ‘ever.’
97 · Voigt 109¶We will give, says the father ...
Δώσομεν, ησι πάτηρ.
From a Parisian MS. edited by Cramer.
98 · Voigt 110b¶To the doorkeeper feet seven fathoms long, and sandals of five bulls’ hides, the work of ten cobblers.
Θυρώρῳ πόδες ἐπτορόγυιοι,
τὰ δὲ σάμβαλα πεμπεβόηα,
πίσυγγοι δὲ δέκ’ ἐξεπόνασαν.
From Hephaestion, as an example of metre. Demetrius says: ‘And elsewhere Sappho girds at the rustic bridegroom and the doorkeeper ready for the wedding, in prosaic rather than poetic phrase, as if she were reasoning rather than singing, using words out of harmony with dance and song.’
99¶Happy bridegroom, now is thy wedding come to thy desire, and thou hast the maiden of thy desire.
Ὄλβιε γάμβρε, σοὶ μὲν δὴ γάμος, ὠς ἄραο,
ἐκτετέλεστ’, ἔχῃς δὲ πάρθενον, ἂν ἄραο.
Happy bridegroom, thou art blest
With blisses far beyond the rest,
For thou hast won
The chosen one,
The girl thou lovest best.
— Frederick Tennyson.
Quoted by Hephaestion, along with the following, to exemplify metres; both fragments seem to belong to the same ode.
100¶And a soft [paleness] is spread over the lovely face.
Μελλίχιος δ’ ἐπ’ ἰμέρτῳ κέχυται προσώπῳ.
In the National Library of Madrid there is a MS. of an epithalamium by Choricius, a rhetorician of Gaza, who flourished about 520 A.D., in which the lamented Ch. Graux (Revue de Philologie, 1880, p. 81) found a quotation from Sappho which is partly identical with this fragment preserved by Hephaestion. H. Weil thus attempts to restore the passage:—
Σοὶ χάριεν μὲν εἶδος, ὄππατα δ’ –⏑–⏒
μέλλιχρ’, ἔρος δ’ ἐπ’ ἰμέρτῳ
κέχυται προσώπῳ·
–⏑ τετίμακ’ ἐξοχά σ’ Ἀφροδίτα.
Well favoured is thy form, and thine eyes ... honeyed, and love is spread over thy fair face ... Aphrodite has honoured thee above all.
Two apparent imitations by Catullus are quoted by Weil to confirm his restoration of Sappho’s verses; viz., mellitos oculos, honeyed eyes (48, 1), and pulcher es, neque te Venus negligit, fair thou art, nor does Venus neglect thee (61, 194).
101 · Voigt 50¶He who is fair to look upon is [good], and he who is good will soon be fair also.
Ὀ μὲν γὰρ κάλος, ὄσσον ἴδην, πέλεται [ἄγαθος],
ὀ δὲ κἄγαθος αὔτικα καὶ κάλος ἔσσεται.
Beauty, fair flower, upon the surface lies;
But worth with beauty e’en in aspect vies.
— ? Felton.
Galen, the physician, writing about 160 A.D., says: ‘It is better therefore, knowing that the beauty of youth is like Spring flowers, its pleasure lasting but a little while, to approve of what the Lesbian [here] says, and to believe Solon when he points out the same.’
102 · Voigt 107¶Do I still long for maidenhood?
Ἦρ’ ἔτι παρθενίας ἐπιβάλλομαι;
Quoted by Apollonius, and by the Scholiast on Dionysius of Thrace, to illustrate the interrogative particle ἆρα, Aeolic ἦρα, and as an example of the catalectic iambic.
103 · Voigt 117¶The bride [comes] rejoicing; let the bridegroom rejoice.
Χαίροισα νύμφα, χαιρέτω δ’ ὀ γάμβρος.
From Hephaestion, as a catalectic iambic.
104 · Voigt 115¶Whereunto may I well liken thee, dear bridegroom? To a soft shoot may I best liken thee.
Τίῳ σ’, ὦ φίλε γάμβρε, κάλως ἐϊκάσδω;
ὄρπακι βραδίνῳ σε κάλιστ’ ἐϊκάσδω.
From Hephaestion, as an example of metre.
105 · Voigt 116¶Hail, bride! noble bridegroom, all hail!
... Χαῖρε, νύμφα,
χαῖρε, τίμιε γάμβρε, πόλλα.
Quoted by Servius, about 390 A.D., on Vergil, Georg. i. 31; also referred to by Pollux and Julian.
106 · Voigt 113¶For there was no other girl, O bridegroom, like her.
Οὐ γαρ ἦν ἀτέρα πάϊς, ὦ γάμβρε, τοιαύτα.
From Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
107, 108¶Sing Hymenaeus!
Ah for Adonis!
Ἐσπετ’ ᾿Υμήναον.
Ὦ τὸν Ἀδώνιον.
From Plotius, about the fifth or sixth century A.D., to show the metre of Sappho’s hymeneal odes. The text is corrupt; the first verse is thus emended by Bergk, the second by Scaliger. Cf. fr. 63.
109 · Voigt 114¶A. Maidenhood, maidenhood, whither art thou gone away from me?
B. Never again will I come to thee, never again.
A. Παρθενία, παρθενία, ποῖ με λίποισ’ ἀποίχῃ;
Β. Οὐκέτι ἥξω πρὸς σέ, οὐκέτι ἥξω.
‘Sweet Rose of May, sweet Rose of May,
Whither, ah whither fled away?’
‘What’s gone no time can e’er restore—
I come no more, I come no more.’
— J. H. Merivale.
From Demetrius, who quoted the fragment to show the grace of Sappho’s style and the beauty of repetition.
110¶Fool, faint not thou in thy strong heart.
Ἄλλαν μὴ καμεστέραν φρένα.
From a very corrupt passage in Herodian. The translation is from Bergk’s former emendation—
Ἄλλα μὴ κάμε τὺ στερέαν φρένα.
111 · Voigt 165¶To himself he seems ...
Φαίνεταί ϝοι κῆνος.
From Apollonius, to show that the Aeolians used the digamma, ϝ. Bergk says this fragment does not belong to fr. 2.
112 · Voigt 167¶Much whiter than an egg.
Ὠΐω πόλυ λευκότερον.
From Athenaeus; cf. frs. 56 and 122.
113 · Voigt 146¶Neither honey nor bee for me.
Μήτ’ ἔμοι μέλι μήτε μέλισσα
A proverb quoted by many late authors, referring to those who wish for good unmixed with evil. They seem to be the words of the bride. This, and the second line of fr. 62, and many other verses, show Sappho’s fondness for alliteration; frs. 4 and 5, among several others, show that she did not ignore the charm of assonance.
114¶Stir not the shingle.
Μὴ κίνη χέραδας.
Quoted by the Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius to show that χεράδες were ‘little heaps of stones.’
115¶Thou burnest us.
Ὄπταις ἄμμε.
Compare Swinburne’s—
My life is bitter with thy love; thine eyes
Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs
Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound, etc.
Anactoria.
Quoted by Apollonius to show the Aeolic form of ἡμᾶς, ‘us.’
116 · Voigt 119¶A napkin dripping.
Ἠμιτύβιον σταλάσσον.
From the Scholiast on Aristophanes’ Plutus, quoted to show the meaning of ἡμιτύβιον, ‘a half worn out shred of linen with which to wipe the hands.’
117 · Voigt 164¶She called him her son.
Τὸν ϝὸν παῖδα κάλει.
Quoted by Apollonius to show the Aeolic use of the digamma.
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