Fragment 40 (Voigt 130)
40 · Voigt 130Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet.
Ἔρος δαὖτέ μ’ ὀ λυσιμελης δόνει,
γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον.
Lo, Love once more, the limb-dissolving King,
The bitter-sweet impracticable thing,
Wild-beast-like rends me with fierce quivering.
— J. Addington Symonds, 1883.
Compare—
O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
— Tennyson, Fatima.
O bitterness of things too sweet!
— Swinburne, Fragoletta.
Sweet Love, that art so bitter.
— Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse.
and the song in Bothwel, act i. sc. 1:—
Surely most bitter of all sweet things thou art,
And sweetest thou of all things bitter, love.
Quoted by Hephaestion. Cf. fr. 125.