Quand l’éclat argenté du char qu’elle conduit
Annonce que des cieux elle ouvre la barrière?
In the third elegy of the same canto is an elaboration of the fragment on the power of love, the bitter-sweet irresistible creature, and in the first elegy of the fifth canto there is an echo of the fragment about wealth without virtue. In long notes on the second elegy of the fifth book Gorsse cites de Sivry’s or Sauvigny’s verse translations or paraphrases in French, and Latin versions of a score of other fragments and of the Pelagon and Timas epitaphs. In the first elegy of the sixth canto the Sapphic symptoms of love are used:
Je sens mes cheveux se dresser,
Mon sang brûler d’une flamme rapide,
Ou dans mes veines se glacer.
The third elegy of the same canto is an adaptation of the hymn to Aphrodite and in the notes are given Latin versions by Gorsse himself, Elias Andreas, and Birkow.
Not many have written elegies on Sappho, but Gorsse was followed in 1812 by Touzet, who wrote Sapho, poëme élégiaque. It was in 1816 that Lamartine wrote his mediocre imitation of Sappho’s great hymn, calling it L’élégie antique. It is in the cold restored pseudo-classical style of Casimir Delavigne:
Dieux, quels transports nouveaux! ô dieux, comment décrire
Tons les feux dont mon sein se remplit à la fois?