Fragment 137
137Aristotle, in his Rhetoric, ii. 23, writes:—
ἢ ὥσπερ Σαπφώ, ὅτι το ἀποθνήσκειν κακόν· οἱ θεοὶ γὰρ οὕτω κεκρίκασιν· ἀπέθνησκον γὰρ ἄν.
Gregory, commenting on Hermogenes, also quotes the same saying:—
οἷον φησιν ἡ Σαπφώ, ὅτι τὸ ἀποθνήσκειν κακόν· οἱ θεοὶ γὰρ οὕτω κεκρίκασιν· ἀπέθνησκον γὰρ ἄν, εἴπερ ἦν καλὸν τὸ ἀποθνήσκειν.
Several attempts have been made to restore these words to a metrical form, and this of Hartung’s appears to be the simplest:—
Τὸ θνάσκειν κακόν· οὕτω κεκρίκασι θεοί·
ἔθνασκον γὰρ ἄν εἴπερ κάλον ἦν τόδε.
Death is evil; the Gods have so judged: had it been good, they would die.
The preceding fragment (136) seems to have formed part of the same ode as the present. Perhaps it was this ode, which Sappho sent to her daughter forbidding her to lament her mother’s death, that Solon is said to have so highly praised. The story is quoted from Aelian by Stobaeus thus: ‘Solon the Athenian [who died about 558 B.C.], son of Execestĭdes, on his nephew’s singing an ode of Sappho’s over their wine, was pleased with it, and bade the boy teach it him; and when some one asked why he took the trouble, he said, ἵνα μαθὼν αὐτὸ ἀποθανω, ‘That I may not die before I have learned it.’