SAPPHO TO PHAON. OVID seems to have had the merit of inventing this beautiful species of writing epistles under feigned names. Though indeed Propertius has one composition of this sort, an Epistle of Arethusa to Lycortas, B. iv. Eleg. 3. It is a high improvement on the Greek Elegy, to which its dramatic form renders it much superior. The judgment of the writer must chiefly appear, by opening the complaint of the person introduced, just at such a period of time, as will give occasion for the most tender sentiments, and the most sudden and violent turns of passion to be displayed. Ovid may perhaps be blamed for a sameness of subjects in these epistles of his heroines; and his epistles are likewise too long, which circumstance has forced him into a repetition and languor in the sentiments. It would be a pleasing task, and conduce to the formation of a good taste, to show how differently Ovid and the Greek tragedians have made Medea, Phædra, and Deianira, speak on the very same occasions. Such a comparison would abundantly manifest the fancy and wit of Ovid, and the judgment and nature of Euripides and Sophocles. If the character of Medea was not better supported in the tragedy which Ovid is said to have produced, and of which Quintilian speaks so highly, than it is in her epistle to Jason, one may venture to declare, that the Romans would not yet have been vindicated from their inferiority to the Greeks in tragic poesy. It may be added, that some of Drayton's Heroical Epistles deserve praise, particularly that of Lord Surrey to Geraldine, Lady Jane Grey to Lord Guildford Dudley, Jane Shore to Edward the Fourth. Lord Hervey took the subject of Roxana to Usbeck, from the incomparable Persian Letters of the President Montesquieu; the beauty of which writer is his expressive brevity, which Lord Hervey has lengthened to an unnatural degree, especially as Roxana is supposed to write just after she has swallowed a deadly poison, and during its violent operations. The Italians have a writer of Heroical Epistles, Antonio Bruni; some of his subjects are, the Hebrew Mother to Titus Vespasian, Erminia to Tancred, Radamistus to Zenobia, Semiramis to Ninus, Catharine to Henry the Eighth. They were printed at Venice, 1636, with prints, from the designs of Guido and Dominichino.-Warton. SAPPHO PHAONI. ECQUID, ut inspecta est studiosæ littera dextræ, Carmina, cum lyricis sim magis apta modis. Est in te facies, sunt apti lusibus anni. O facies oculis insidiosa meis! Sume fidem et pharetram; fies manifestus Apollo: 5 10 15 20 SAPPHO TO PHAON. SAY, lovely youth, that dost my heart command, 5 I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn By driving winds the spreading flames are borne ! 10 While I consume with more than Ætna's fires! No more my soul a charm in music finds; Music has charms alone for peaceful minds. Soft scenes of solitude no more can please, 15 Love enters there, and I'm my own disease. No more the Lesbian dames my passion move, Once the dear objects of my guilty love; All other loves are lost in only thine, Ah youth ungrateful to a flame like mine! 20 Whom would not all those blooming charms surprise, NOTES. 25 Ver. 9. Uror] Our poet has not much varied here from the couplet of his predecessor, Sir Carr. Scrope. "I burn, I burn, like kindled fields of corn, When by the driving winds the flames are born.”—Wakefield. These lines were evidently copied in the famous epigram of "Lumine Acon dextro," &c. made on Louis de Ver. 26. Not Bacchus' self] Et Phoebus Daphnen, et Gnosida Bacchus amavit; 30 Laudis habet, quamvis grandius ille sonet. Si mihi difficilis formam natura negavit; 35 Ingenio formæ damna rependo meæ. Sum brevis; at nomen, quod terras impleat omnes, 40 Candida si non sum, placuit Cepheïa Perseo 45 At me cum legeres, etiam formosa videbar; Cantabam, memini (meminerunt omnia amantes) 50 Hæc quoque laudabas; omnique a parte placebam, Yet Phoebus lov'd, and Bacchus felt the flame, Than ev'n those Gods contend in charms with thee. 30 The Muses teach me all their softest lays, And the wide world resounds with Sappho's praise. Tho' great Alcæus more sublimely sings, And strikes with bolder rage the sounding strings, 35 Tho' short my stature, yet my name extends And glossy jet is pair'd with shining white. NOTES. 40 45 50 55 Maguiron, the favourite of Henry the Third of France, and the beautiful "" Blande pure, lumen quod habes, concede sorori; |