Glory of colors on the gaze
Lightening in its beauty’s blaze.
It breathes of Love; it blooms the guest
Of Venus’ ever-fragrant breast.
In gaudy pomp its petals spread;
Light foliage trembles round its head;
With vermeil blossoms fresh and fair
It laughs to the voluptuous air.”—Elton.
Sappho’s Pupils.—Doubtless many went forth from Sappho’s school to reflect, in their own accomplishments, the brilliancy of their mistress. History has preserved the names of two of her pupils—Damoph’yla of Asia Minor, noted for a Hymn to Diana; and Erinna, a Rhodian maid who shone among the brightest lights of Sappho’s circle, and, if we may believe the story, died of a broken heart when compelled by her parents to exchange the delights of literature for the drudgery of the spinning-wheel. This cruel treatment Erinna made the subject of an affecting lament, “the Spindle,” a poem of three hundred hexameters, on which her reputation rests. Her death at the age of nineteen cheated the world of a writer who promised to rival Homer himself.
“The Spindle” is lost; but the following epigram on a virgin of Lesbos, who died on the day appointed for her marriage, speaks for Erinna:—