From the fair and fertile isle,
Chief muse of lovely womanhood,
Sang with his dulcet voice.
But it is plain enough in reality that this piece of poetry is not Sappho's. And I think myself that Hermesianax is joking concerning the love of Anacreon and Sappho. For Diphilus the comic poet, in his play called Sappho, has represented Archilochus and Hipponax as the lovers of Sappho.
Now it appears to me, my friends, that I have displayed some diligence in getting up this amorous catalogue for you, as I myself am not a person so mad about love as Cynulcus, with his calumnious spirit, has represented me. I confess, indeed, that I am amorous, but I do deny that I am frantic on the subject.
And why should I dilate upon my sorrows,
When I may hide them all in night and silence?
as Æschylus the Alexandrian has said in his Amphitryon. And this is the same Æschylus who composed the Messenian poems—a man entirely without any education.
LOVE.
73. Therefore I, considering that Love is a mighty and most powerful deity, and that the Golden Venus is so too, recollect the verses of Euripides on the subject, and say—