PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
I would fain have enriched this edition of my Sappho with some new words of the poetess, if only even to the slight extent which I reached in 1887; but, to the world's sorrow, that pleasure has been denied me. Still, we need not yet give up all hope, after the unexpected discovery of the unknown Mimiambi of Herondas, on a papyrus-roll used to stuff an Egyptian mummy-case, so few years ago (cf. The Academy, Oct. 11, 1890).
Neverthless, I can now present to the lovers of Sappho a good deal more than was heretofore in my power; in a new form, it is true, but with the same beautiful Greek type. And with this third edition I am enabled to give a reproduction, in photogravure, of the charming picture of Mitylene by the late Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., for which I am primarily indebted to Dr. R. Garnett, of the British Museum.
Since it was my privilege, if I may say so without arrogance, to introduce Sappho to English readers in the year 1885, in a form which they could understand, whether they knew any Greek or none, and in the entirety of every known word of hers, there has arisen a mass of literature upon the subject of the greatest lyrist of all time. To enumerate the pictures that have been painted, the articles and books and plays that have been written, which have appealed to the public in the last ten years, would be an almost impossible task. In my Bibliography I have endeavoured to give a reference to all that is of prominent and permanent interest, ranging from 'the postman poet,' Mr. Hosken, to the felicitous paraphrases—some fractions of which I have taken the liberty to quote in the text—of 'Michael Field' in her Long Ago.
The translation of the Hymn to Aphrodite, which was made for me by the late J. Addington Symonds, now appears in the amended form in which he finally printed it. Professor Palgrave has kindly allowed me to include some versions of his, made many years ago. The late Sir R. F. Burton made a metrical translation of Catullus, which has recently been published, and I am grateful to Lady Burton for allowing me to reprint his version of the Roman poet's Ode to Lesbia.
The only critical edition of the text of Sappho since that of Bergk—the text which I adopt—has been made by Mr. G. S. Farnell, headmaster of the Victoria College, Jersey; from which I have had considerable assistance.
As regards erudite scholarship, the investigations of Professor Luniak, of the Kazan University, deserve more attention than it is within the scope of my book to give them. I reviewed his essay in some detail in The Academy for July 19, 1890, p. 53. The criticisms upon it by Professor Naguiewski, in his disputation for the doctorate two years later, go far to prove that my appreciation of Sappho's character cannot be easily shaken. That rapturous fragment of Sophocles—
Ὦ θεοί, τίς ἆρα Κύπρις, ἢ τίς ἵμερος,
τοῦδε ξυνήψατο;
(O gods, what love, what yearning, contributed to this?) still remains to me the keynote of what Sappho has been through all the ages.
HENRY T. WHARTON.
'MADRESFIELD,' ACOL ROAD,
WEST HAMPSTEAD, LONDON, N.W.,
April 1895.