This dust was Timas'; ere her bridal hourThese are only fragments; but of the single complete poem that remains to us from Sappho, I shall venture on a translation, which can claim only to be tolerably literal, and to keep, in some degree, to the Sapphic metre. Yet I am cheered by the remark of an old grammarian, Demetrius Phalereus, that “Sappho's whole poetry is so perfectly musical and harmonious, that even the harshest voice or most awkward recital can hardly render it unpleasing to the ear.” Let us hope that the Muses may extend some such grace, even to a translation.
She lies in Proserpina's gloomy bower;
Her virgin playmates from each lovely head
Cut with sharp steel their locks, the strewments for the dead.
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maiden, whom we may fancy lying robed for the grave, while her companions sever their tresses around her, that something of themselves may be entombed with her.
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