Henry Thornton Wharton
Sappho: Memoir, text, selected renderings, and a literal translation
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664619211
Table of Contents
IN MIXED GLYCONIC AND ALCAIC METRE
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
I would fain have enriched this edition of my Sappho with some new words of the poetess, if only even to the slight extent which I reached in 1887; but, to the world's sorrow, that pleasure has been denied me. Still, we need not yet give up all hope, after the unexpected discovery of the unknown Mimiambi of Herondas, on a papyrus-roll used to stuff an Egyptian mummy-case, so few years ago (cf. The Academy, Oct. 11, 1890).
Neverthless, I can now present to the lovers of Sappho a good deal more than was heretofore in my power; in a new form, it is true, but with the same beautiful Greek type. And with this third edition I am enabled to give a reproduction, in photogravure, of the charming picture of Mitylene by the late Mr. Clarkson Stanfield, R.A., for which I am primarily indebted to Dr. R. Garnett, of the British Museum.
Since it was my privilege, if I may say so without arrogance, to introduce Sappho to English readers in the year 1885, in a form which they could understand, whether they knew any Greek or none, and in the entirety of every known word of hers, there has arisen a mass of literature upon the subject of the greatest lyrist of all time. To enumerate the pictures that have been painted, the articles and books and plays that have been written, which have appealed to the public in the last ten years, would be an almost impossible task. In my Bibliography I have endeavoured to give a reference to all that is of prominent and permanent interest, ranging from 'the postman poet,' Mr. Hosken, to the felicitous paraphrases—some fractions of which I have taken the liberty to quote in the text—of 'Michael Field' in her Long Ago.
The translation of the Hymn to Aphrodite, which was made for me by the late J. Addington Symonds, now appears in the amended form in which he finally printed it. Professor Palgrave has kindly allowed me to include some versions of his, made many years ago. The late Sir R. F. Burton made a metrical translation of Catullus, which has recently been published, and I am grateful to Lady Burton for allowing me to reprint his version of the Roman poet's Ode to Lesbia.
The only critical edition of the text of Sappho since that of Bergk—the text which I adopt—has been made by Mr. G. S. Farnell, headmaster of the Victoria College, Jersey; from which I have had considerable assistance.
As regards erudite scholarship, the investigations of Professor Luniak, of the Kazan University, deserve more attention than it is within the scope of my book to give them. I reviewed his essay in some detail in The Academy for July 19, 1890, p. 53. The criticisms upon it by Professor Naguiewski, in his disputation for the doctorate two years later, go far to prove that my appreciation of Sappho's character cannot be easily shaken. That rapturous fragment of Sophocles—
Ὦ θεοί, τίς ἆρα Κύπρις, ἢ τίς ἵμερος,
τοῦδε ξυνήψατο;
(O gods, what love, what yearning, contributed to this?) still remains to me the keynote of what Sappho has been through all the ages.
HENRY T. WHARTON.
'MADRESFIELD,' ACOL ROAD,
WEST HAMPSTEAD, LONDON, N.W.,
April 1895.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
The cordial reception which the first edition of my little book met with has encouraged me to make many improvements in this re-issue. Unforeseen delays in its production have also helped me to advance upon my first essay. Among other changes, I have been able to obtain a new fount of Greek type, which has to me a peculiar beauty. Unfamiliar though some of the letters may appear at first sight, they reproduce the calligraphy of the manuscripts of the most artistic period of the Middle Ages. This type has been specially cast in Berlin, by favour of the Imperial Government. In a larger size it is not unknown to English scholars, but such as I am now enabled to present has never been used before.
Last spring a telegram from the Vienna correspondent of the Times announced that some new verses of Sappho had been found among the Fayum papyri in the possession of the Archduke Rénier. When the paper on his Imperial Highness' papyri was read before the Imperial Academy of Science by Dr. Wilhelm Ritter von Hartel on the 10th of March, it became evident that the remark was made, not in allusion to the Archduke's possessions, but to that portion of the Fayum manuscripts which had been acquired by the Imperial Museum in Berlin. The verses referred to were indeed no other than the two fragments which had been deciphered and criticised by the celebrated scholar, Dr. F. Blass, of Kiel, in the Rheinisches Museum for 1880; and further edited by Bergk in the posthumous edition of his Poetae Lyrici