Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-07-01
Maude Nina Eaton.

MISS Maude Nina Eaton of Medfor]
| MASS, read a delightful article on ;he
Lesbian. Poetess." She dealt with the
NE OF Sappho and treated the subiec:
| In an interesting way.
twenty-five centuries ago on the island
OF Lesbos, with its snowy cliffs, it's ex-
qulslte gardens, where roses and hya-
c'hths doomed, it's olive groves and
fountains, there lived and sang s.rGat
mighty songster whose unrivaled powers
weave for the MUSES. q crown of death
less flowers" Her name was Sannbo
Sne is so yelled in the mists of romance
that it is difficult to paint a clear picture
of her life, but all the more fascinatine
dces she seem to us because of the mvs-
terry which surrounds her
She was born on the island of T.esbos
SIX centuries b.. c., probably of noble
and wealthy parents Two brothers ara
spoken ozone held the honorable office
OF cup-bearer at Mittylene; the other a
trader, who married beautiful but dis
solute Egyptian woman, much to his sis
ters displeasure. Sappho was left a Wild
ow Still young, with a daughter named
Cleais, of whom she sweetly wrote: st
nave a little maid as fair as any golden
flower, my Cleais dear, for whom would
not take all Lydia or lovely Lesbos here !"
A century after her death, when the
1acts OF her life We're but dim memories
certain Athenian dramatists wrote I'M
pleasant things about Sappho and placed
hcr life in an altogether unfavorable
llsht, and it is not strange that the Athe-
mans who kept their women so securely
lii the seclusion of the harem, should
misunderstood the life of comparative
freedom which the women of Sapphos
time enjoyed in Lesbos But there is
nothing in her poems, or the regard in
which she was held by her contempora-
RES, to give evidence that she led any,
thing but pure and virtuous life.
The great men of Greece, poets and
philosophers, unite in paying homage to
the gifted Leshian poetess. Plato ex-
claimed: Some thoughtlessly proclaim
the MUSES. nine. \ tenth is Lesban Sap
Pho, mald dlVi1" Plutarch said that
her poems We're oh grace that they
acted upon thu lis! like an enchant
ment. She was cali, The Nursing of
the Graces and Persu...r'on. the pride of
Hellas, companion of Apollo" and rs
Homer was the Poet. so Sappho was the
Poetess. After her death she was hon
ored with affairs and temples and her
face was stamped upon coins
Out Of the nine volumes of her poems
which existed in Horace's time onlv about
200 lines have come down to us, and these
with the exception of her two immortal
.odes are broken fragments, Grains of
golden sand which the torrent of time has
Ac 70
n the Fathers of the early Christian
church Is owed the destruction of these
priceless poems, for they burned them to
make room for their own devotional
works. But from the fragments remain
ing to us we can judge what the loss of
Sappho's poems means to literature In
their artistic perfection and grace, in
their fire and pathos, in their intense
personality, they are unsurpassed ID. She
did not take lofty themes, she did not try
to moraliZe, she merely poured forth i'm
passioned strains full of her longings, her
joys. her sorrows, and love for the
beautiful about her.
1t does not seem strange to us that so
sweet songstress should address
Strings messenger the sweet voiced
nightingale, and listen eagerly for the
football of the flowery spring. She loves
fowers with a personal sympathy and
speaks. tenderly of the soft bloom of the
era So, laid fiat by the dancing feet of
the Cretan maidens and the purple hya-
cinths trampled by the shepherds rough
foot This sympathy with nature and the
Simple striking phrases in which she ex-
presses. 1t reminds us of Robert Burns.
Many of her songs are bridal hymns,
written for her friends on their marriage
lr one of her prettiest she compares the
bride to blushing sweet apple growing
on the very end of bough, out of reach
of all but the favored one, who was to
pluck it and enjoy it's ripe beauty An
other of her maidens she calls 1.-The play
mate of the rosy-ankled Graces and Gold
en- Aphrodite' The bridegroom comes
like Aries. towering above all other mon,
happy that he has won the maiden. fair
and lovely the maiden of his choice.
With her teaching of music and poetry
Sappho must have given wise criticism