The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-04-12

by the comic poets Sappho was mos. unjustly traduced. They speak of her being short in sta ture and swar,hy in complexion. which, if facts, would have deprived her of any claim to beauty in a Greeks eye.
 Sappho was a Greek, and she was an
 i-.olian Greek-the race that produced Cleonice and Myrhha. Born under . the sunny Yolurtucus skies oi an Asiatc ,sie, lspped and the warm breezes of the F ycan. Slopho was essentially ssn- s1ouS and luxurious She lived. too. ir an age when II was believed woman's sole de. tiny was to love. But Sappho was no Lais. no Messastnss- A sensualist she was. but at the same time a sensualist the most refined, the most elegant. the most gifted tha, ever breathed the air of southern cline. She gave 10 the mos, ardent of human passions the most delicate col oring of female sentiment. Of all that Greece has bequeaihed us. nothing is so perfect in it's concentration of real feel ing as those few fragments of the Les blan singer. Chaste she doubtless was. but she vas no less a volup,uary. for only a voluptuary would have chosen her themes. and only ferson of experience could have described so eloquently so pathetically, so subtly and yet so simply, the effect of love upon one who loves.
 The many and extraordinary honors that were paid her in her own and afier- times, offer satisfactory evidence of the greatness of her gifts. even if her own poets do not bear testimony to the fact She seems to have been regarded as a sort of female Homer by all the Greek and Roman writers, and she IS the only woman in all antiquity whose productions by universal consen, were allowed the same rank with the greatest poets of the other sex. h all history. too. hers IS the only instance of great poet whose fame was equally commanding in her lifetime and after her death. Her feiiow-towns- man. Aletus. praised her genius. Solon. another of her lllustrous contem porarieS. when he heard for the first time the re- cital of one of her poems. prayed that he might no, see death until he had commi ted II to his memory. Her felow-citiz ms honored her by stamping her image upon their coins. After death they cree ed statues to her, and. according 10 Aris,o le, cNCu pdiu nCt ulNinc DOHcfS. fferoQC IS, plutarch. and Longinus speak of her in terms of unqualified praise. Plato, in an extant epigram, calls her the Tenth Muse" S,rabo considered her "a kind of miracle and says that in poetic genius no woman was ever known 10 ap- proaeh her. DionysiEs. of Halicarnas- sus. ei:es her Hymn to enus as an illustration of the highest principles oi composition Demetrius Phalerus terms her The Divine To-day the Greeks of her native island regard her fame as their brightest ornament, and her poetry. her loves. and her adventures are fa- vori,e subjects of their songs and uadi- tons.
 When Sappho died no chronicle has told us. The last trustworthy record of her is by Herodo,us. who makes her satire her brother regarding his unfor- tunate connection with Rhodope This could not have been earlier than the year 565 E. (. She could not have been less than forty-five years old at that time If she lived to the ordinary age arrived at by women she migh. have heard of the birth of Artemisia. the second of our famous trio. The aged poetess and the infant princess lived no, so far apart, and the Carian Kingdom was m object of in- ! terest at that time to all the surrounding Greeks.