N° 229. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22. Spirat adhuc amor, Vivuntque commiffi calores Eolia fidibus puella. HOR. Od. ix. lib. 4. ver. 10. Sappho's charming lyre Preferves her foft defire, And tunes our ravifh'd fouls to Love. CREECH. AMONG the many famous pieces of antiquity which are ftill to be feen at Rome, there is the trunk of a ftatue which has loft the arms, legs, and head; but difcovers fuch an exquifite workmanfhip in what remains of it, that Michael Angelo declared he had learned his whole art from it. Indeed he studied it fo attentively, that he made most of his ftatues, and even his pictures in that Gufto, to make use of the Italian phrafe; for which reafon this maimed ftatue is ftill called Michael Angelo's fchool. A fragment of Sappho, which I design for the fubject of this paper, is in as great reputation among the poets and criticks, as the mutilated figure abovementioned is among the ftatuaries and painters. Several of our countrymen, and Mr. Dryden in particular, feem very often to have copied after it in their dramatick writings, and in their poems upon Love. Whatever might have been the occafion of this ode, the English reader will enter into the beauties of it, if he fuppofes it to have been written in the perfon of a lover fitting by his mistress. I fhall fet to view three different copies of this beautiful original: The first is a tranflation by Catullus, the fecond by Monfieur Boileau, and the laft by a gen tleman tleman whofe tranflation of the Hymn to Venus has been fo defervedly admired. Ad LESBIAM. Il'e mi par effe deo videtur, Spectat, et audit Quod loquar amens. Lingua fed torpet: tenuis fub artus My learned reader will know very well the reason why one of these verses is printed in Roman letter; and, if he compares this tranflation with the original, will find that the three first stanzas are rendered almoft word for word, and not only with the fame elegance, but with the fame fhort turn of expreffion which is fo remarkable in the Greek, and fo peculiar to the Sapphick ode. I cannot imagine for what reafon Madam Dacier has told us, that this ode of Sappho is preferved entire in Longinus, fince it is manifest to any one who looks into that author's quotation of it, that there must at least have been another stanza, which is not tranfinitted to us. The fecond tranflation of this fragment which I fhall here cite, is that of Monfieur Boileau. Heureux! qui prés de toi, pour toi feule foûpire: Je Je fens de veine en veine une fubtile flamme Je n'entens plus, je tombe en de douces langueurs; Un frifon me faifit, je tremble, je me meurs. In The reader will fee that this is rather an imitation than a translation. The circumftances do not lie fo thick together, and follow one another with that vehemence and emotion as in the original. fhort, Monfieur Boileau has given us all the poetry, but not all the paffion of this famous fragment. I fhall, in the laft place, prefent my reader with the English tranflation. I. Bleft as th' immortal gods is he, II. 'Twas this depriv'd my foul of reft, My bofom glow'd; the fubtle flame In dewy damps my limbs were chill'd; Inftead Inftead of giving any character of this laft tranflation, I fhall defire my learned reader to look into the criticisms which Longinus has made upon the original. By that means he will know to which of the tranflations he ought to give the preference. I fhall only add, that this tranflation is written in the very fpirit of Sappho, and as near the Greek as the genius of our language will poffibly fuffer. Longinus has obferved that this defcription of love in Sappho is an exact copy of nature, and that all the circumftances which follow one another in fuch an hurry of fentiments, notwithstanding they appear repugnant to each other, are really fuch as happen in the phrenzies of love. I wonder that not one of the criticks or editors, through whofe hands this ode has paffed, has taken occafion from it to mention a circumftance related by Plutarch. That author in the famous ftory of Antiochus, who fell in love with Stratonice, his mother-in-law, and (not daring to discover his paffion) pretended to be confined to his bed by fickness, tells us, that Erafiftratus, the phyfician, found out the nature of his diftemper by thofe symptoms of Love which he had learnt from Sappho's writings. Stratonice was in the room of the love-fick Prince, when these symptoms difcovered themselves to his phyfician; and it is probable that they were not very different from thofe which Sappho here defcribes in a lover fitting by his miftrefs. The ftory of Antiochus is fo well known, that I need not add the fequel of it, which has no relation to my prefent fubject. C VOL. II. Z FRIDAT No 230. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23. Homines ad Deos nulla re propius accedunt, quam falutem hominibus dando. TULL. Men resemble the Gods in nothing fo much as in doing good to their fellow-creatures. HUMA UMAN nature appears a very deformed, or a very beautiful object, according to the different lights in which it is viewed. When we fee men of inflamed paffions, or of wicked defigns, tearing one another to pieces by open violence, or undermining each other by fecret treachery; when we obferve bafe and narrow ends purfued by ignominious and difhoneft means; when we behold men mixed in fociety as if it were for the deftruction of it; we are even afhamed of our fpecies, and out of humour with our own being: But in another light, when we behold them mild, good, and benevolent, full of a generous regard for the publick profperity, compaffionating each other's diftreffes, and relieving each other's wants, we can hardly believe they are creatures of the fame kind. In this view they appear gods to each other, in the exercife of the nobleft power, that of doing good; and the greateft compliment we have ever been able to make to our own Being, has been by calling this difpofition of mind Humanity. We cannot but obferve a pleafure arifing in our own breaft upon the feeing or hearing of a generous action, even when we are wholly difinterested in it. I cannot give a more proper inftance of this, than by a letter from Pliny, in which he recommends a friend in the most handfome manner, and, methinks, it would be a great pleasure to know the fuccefs of this epiftle, though cach party concerned in it has been fo many hundred years in his grave. То |
