Hear anew the voice! O hear and listen! Come, as in that island dawn thou camest, Billowing in thy yokèd car to Sappho Forth from thy father’s
Golden house in pity!... I remember: Fleet and fair thy sparrows drew thee, beating Fast their wings above the dusky harvests, Down the pale heavens,
Lighting anon! And thou, O blest and brightest, Smiling with immortal eyelids, asked me: ‘Maiden, what betideth thee? Or wherefore Callest upon me?
‘What is hers the longing more than others, Here in this mad heart? And who the lovely One belovèd thou wouldst lure to loving? Sappho, who wrongs thee?’
‘See, if now she flies, she soon must follow; Yes, if spurning gifts, she soon must offer; Yes, if loving not, she soon must love thee, Howso unwilling....’
Come again to me! O now! Release me! End the great pang! And all my heart desireth Now of fulfilment, fulfil! O Aphrodite, Fight by my shoulder!
Richly throned, O deathless one, Aphrodite, Child of Zeus, enchantress-queen, I beseech thee Let not grief nor harrowing anguish master, Lady, my spirit.
Ah! come hither. Erstwhile indeed thou heardest When afar my sorrowful cry of mourning Smote thine ears, and then from thy father’s mansions Golden thou camest,
Driving forth thy chariot, and fair birds bore thee Speeding onward over the earth’s dark shadows, Waving oft their shimmering plumes thro’ heaven’s Ether encircling.
Quickly drew they nigh me, and thou, blest presence, Sweetest smile divine on thy face immortal, Thou didst seek what sorrow was mine to suffer, Wherefore I called thee.
What my soul, too, craved with intensest yearning, Frenzy’s fire enkindling. ‘Now whom,’ thou criest, ‘Wouldst thou fain see led to thy love, or who, my Sappho, would wrong thee?’
‘Though she flees thee now, yet she soon shall woo thee, Though thy gifts she scorneth, she soon shall bring gifts; Though she loves thee not, yet she soon shall love thee, Yea, though unwilling.’
Come, ah! come again, and from bitter anguish Free thy servant. All that my heart is craving, That fulfil, O goddess. Thyself, my champion, Aid in this conflict.
The second ode, quoted in a mutilated condition by the treatise _On the Sublime_, is even more difficult to translate. As Wordsworth says, here