“‘Break not thy lyre, for much is yet thine own,
Thy tuneful art and the undying love
That I have vowed thee.’
‘Peace,’ answered Sappho, ‘peace between us lies,
For aye the shadow of my slumbering child,
Who died for love of Memnon.’”
Sappho leaves Sicily. In Lesbos, where Memnon reigns, she intends to throw herself into the sea.
‘All unseen then she climbed the rock, that rose from the ocean,
There she uplifted her voice in song as though she would send him
One farewell yet, the last e’er from earth she departed.
Softly at first she sang, then the cadence uprising,
Swelled like breakers afar, till slowly it sank into silence.
“Weep thou not, because the gods have sent thee,
And my fate, my life here ended lie.
All that words could tell, my songs declare,
All that could be borne, ’twas mine to bear;
Thanks be to the gods—the end is nigh!
Weep thou not! this life is dust and folly,
Let me pass into the eternal light!
All that once was mine has fled from me;
Let me grasp the perfect whole and see
Thus at last its radiance infinite.
Weep thou not! whene’er my songs thou singest,
Shall my spirit fly with thine to meet.
Links of harmony join soul to soul!
Now, where ocean’s billows softly roll,
Tired of life, I’ll sink to slumber sweet.”
The poetic narrative ends with this poem.
The story of Hammerstein lies in Germany, in the Middle Ages, during the war between Henry IV. and his son Henry.