From the time of the _Schemata Musica_ printed in Volger’s edition of 1810, down to the music published by G. Cipollini in 1890 in his brother’s _Saffo_, many have put Sappho’s songs to music. Even in the last few years many have tried their hand at the task. Perhaps the most successful music, with a real touch of the old Greek flavor, is that which was composed by Professor Stanley for several of Sappho’s fragments in connection with Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske’s stage presentation of Percy Mackaye’s _Sappho and Phaon_. This has been reprinted this year in a general treatment of Greek music by Professor Stanley of the University of Michigan. The selections published include “Builders, Build the Roof-Beam High, Hymenaeon”; “Gath’rers, What Have We Forgot, Hymenaeon!”; “What shall we do, Cytherea?”; “Hollow Shell, Horny Shell”; “Akoue, Poseidon”; “Hesper, Eleleu”, etc. Miss Pearl C. Wilson, of Miss Chandor’s School in New York, a former student of Professor Perry of Columbia University, without making any pretense of reproducing the ancient music has composed musical accompaniments for several of the odes and also of the new fragments, which have been sung with much success. She tried to illustrate the metre of each fragment, but found it more satisfactory to write the music without the modern division into bars and rests, simply indicating the long and short syllables by notes of different values. This makes possible a lyric delivery of the poems, each line determined solely by the words and their meaning. In that way the simple melodies as expressions of the thought gain a great deal when sung. I can testify from my own public experiments in readings from Sappho that her fragments can be much better recited or chanted when accompanied by music, as I am convinced they were originally.
I venture to hope that out of all I have written in the preceding pages some fairly clear idea of Sappho may have emerged. Yet the discussion has had to wander widely through literature which has, indeed, been influenced strongly by her name but journeys far from the Lesbian lyrist herself. In closing this study it may be well, therefore, to return to the woman and the poet and add some final words.