That round her ankles could not kilt her coats!
(Thomas Davidson in Warner’s Library
of the World’s Best Literature)
There is an intimate love of the loveliness of nature in Sappho, as we should expect of one resident on an island under Ionian skies where, as Herodotus (I. 142) says, “the climate and seasons are the most beautiful of any cities in the world.” “The many garlanded earth puts on her broidery” (E. 133). “Thus of old did the dainty feet of Cretan maidens dance pat to the music beside some lovely altar, pressing the soft smooth bloom of the grass” (E. 114). As Thomas Davidson has so well said: “every hour of the day comes to Sappho with a fresh surprise.” We lie down for a noonday siesta in “a murmurous, blossomy June,” as Stebbing puts it, in the orchard of the nymphs where (E. 4),
around
Through boughs of the apple
Cool waters sound.
From the rustling leaves
Drips sleep to the ground.
(Unpublished, Rhys Carpenter)[82]