Sappho and her influence

by David M. Robinson

Causeless abhorring.

In 1601 Campion and Roseter, Lyrics, Elegies, etc., give a clumsy example of Sapphic verse. In 1614 a tract called The Martyrdom of Saint George of Cappadocia contains at the end some “Sapphicks” which resemble the real Sappho only in having the same number of syllables to the verse. Cox and all others, so far as I know, fail to mention Sir Philip Sidney’s translation of the second ode.

[178.] Cf. W. C. Lawton, Sappho with some new translations, Lippincott Magazine, 77, 583; W. A. R. Kerr, “Sappho’s Soliloquy,” in Canadian Magazine, 12, 426; E. Saltus, “Sappho” in Lippincott’s Magazine, 51, 503; M. Thompson, “The Secret of Sappho,” in The Atlantic Monthly, 73, 365; M. Gray, “Sappho,” in Argosy, 51, 203; Athenaeum, 1889, 2, 56; F. B. Harte, “Sappho of Green Springs,” in Lippincott’s Magazine, 45, 627; Democratic Review, 7, 18; Higginson, in The Atlantic Monthly, 28, 83; G. Hill, in Appleton’s Journal, 6, 158, 179; Mrs. Hamilton in Harper’s, 56, 177 (has nothing to do with the real Sappho); M. Thompson, “Sappho’s Apple,” in The Independent, 53, 416; A. Chisholm, in Canadian Magazine, 15, 453; Reinach, Révue Archéologique, XXIV, 1914, 2, pp. 336-337; IX, 1919, p. 204; X, 1919, p. 225; H. I. R., Fragment of a Poem by Sappho done into English verse, in The Literary Digest, 48, 1493; “Real Personal Character of the Poetess Sappho,” in The Review of Reviews, 46, 107-8; Swinburne, “Sappho,” in The Living Age, 280, 817-8; W. L. Courtney, “Sappho and Aspasia,” in The Fortnightly Review, N. S. 91 (1912), 479-88; “Sappho from the Dust,” in The Literary Digest, 48, 1362-3; M. M. Miller, “Sappho’s Songs of Exile,” in The Independent, 87, 344; New York Nation, 1914, 1, p. 602; Aldington, “Letters to Unknown Women,” in The Dial, 64, 430-1; W. A. Percy, Sappho in Leukas and Other Poems, New Haven, 1915; Horton, “New Sappho Fragment in English Verse,” in The Dial, 61, 179; Michael Monahan, “Sappho,” in All’s Well or the Mirror Repolished, II, 1922, pp. 87 ff.; Robinson, in The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 22, 1922.

[178a.] In Charmides he says: “Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quill.”

[179.] See Pericles and Aspasia, Letters 47, 48, 82, 95, 149, 150, 152, 153.

[180.] Idyls of the King, Lancelot and Elaine, 1003-1004. Not in Mustard, Classical Echoes in Tennyson, New York, 1904.

[181.] Lyrics and Sonnets (Edinburgh, 1903), p. 66.

[182.] Miller-Robinson, Songs of Sappho.

[183.] Litz, Father Tabb, Johns Hopkins Press, 1923, p. 168.