" Here she who sung, to him that did inspire, " Sappho to Phoebus confecrates her Lyre; 215 "What suits with Sappho, Phoebus, suits with thee; "The gift, the giver, and the God agree." But why, alas, relentless youth, ah why To distant Seas must tender Sappho fly? Thy charms than those may far more pow'rful be, And Phoebus' felf is less a God to me.

221

Ah! canst thou doom me to the rocks and fea,
Oh far more faithless and more hard than they?
Ah! canst thou rather fee this tender breaft

Dafh'd on these rocks than to thy bosom prest? 225
This breast which once, in vain! you lik'd so well;
Where the Loves play'd, and where the Muses dwell.
Alas! the Muses now no more inspire,
Untun'd my lute, and filent is my lyre.
My languid numbers have forgot to flow,
And fancy finks beneath a weight of woe.

230

Lesbian Virgins, and ye Lesbian dames, Themes of my verse, and objects of my flames, No more your groves with my glad fongs shall ring, No more these hands shall touch the trembling string:

Lesbides aequoreae, nupturaque nuptaque proles;
Lesbides, Aeolia nomina dicta lyra;
Lefbides, infamem quae me feciftis amatae;

Definite ad citharas turba venire meas.
Abstulit omne Phaon, quod vobis ante placebat.
(Me miferam! dixi quam modo pene, meus!)

234

240

Efficite ut redeat: vates quoque veftra redibit.
Ingenio vires ille dat, ille rapit.
Ecquid ago precibus? pectusne agreste movetur ?
An riget? et Zephyri verba caduca ferunt ?
Qui mea verba ferunt, vellem tua vela referrent.
Hoc te, fi saperes, lente, decebat opus.
Sive redis, puppique tuae votiva parantur
Munera; quid laceras pectora nostra mora ?
Solve ratem: Venus orta mari, mare praestet eunti.
Aura dabit cursum; tu modo solve ratem,
Ipse gubernabit residens in puppe Cupido :
Ipfe dabit tenera vela legetque manu.
Sive juvat longe fugisse Pelafgida Sappho;
(Non tamen invenies, cur ego digna fuga.) 255
O faltem miferae, Crudelis, epistola dicat:
Ut mihi Leucadiae fata petantur aquae.]

My Phaon's fled, and I those arts resign
(Wretch that I am, to call that Phaon mine!)
Return, fair youth, return, and bring along
Joy to my foul, and vigour to my fong:

236

Absent from thee, the Poet's flame expires;
But ah! how fiercely burn the Lover's fires?

240

Gods! can no pray'rs, no fighs, no numbers move
One savage heart, or teach it how to love?
The winds my pray'rs, my fighs, my numbers bear,
The flying winds have lost them all in air!

245

Or when, alas! shall more auspicious gales
To these fond eyes restore thy welcome fails!
If you return-ah why these long delays ?
Poor Sappho dies while careless Phaon stays.
O launch the bark, nor fear the wat'ry plain; 250
Venus for thee shall smooth her native main.
O launch thy bark, secure of profp'rous gales;
Cupid for thee shall spread the swelling fails.
If you will fly-(yet ah! what cause can be,
Too cruel youth, that you should fly from me?)
If not from Phaon I must hope for eafe,
Ah let me feek it from the raging seas:
To raging feas unpity'd I'll remove,
And either cease to live or cease to love!

NOTES.

256

VER. 236. My Phaon] Fenton translated this epistle, but with a manifeft inferiority to Pope. He added an original poem of his own, an epistle of Phaon to Sappho; which appears to be one of the feebleft in the collection of his poems, among which fome are truly excellent.

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On the whole, the epistle before us is translated by Pope with faithfulness and with elegance, and much excels any Dryden tranflated in the volume he published; several of which were done by some " of the mob of gentlemen that wrote with ease;" that is, Sir C. Scroop, Caryl, Pooly, Wright, Tate, Buckingham, Cooper, and other careless rhymers. Lord Somers tranflated Dido to Æneas, and Ariadne to Theseus. A good tranflation of these epistles is as much wanted as one of Juvenal; for out of fixteen satires of that poet Dryden himfelf tranflated but fix. We can now boast of happy translations in verfe of almost all the great poets of antiquity, whilst the French have been poorly contented with only profe tranflations of Homer and Horace; which, fays Cervantes, can no more resemble the original than the wrong fide of tapestry can represent the right. The inability of the French tongue to express many Greek or Roman ideas with facility and grace is here visible; but the Italians have Horace translated by Pallavacini, Theocritus by Ricolotti and Salvini, Ovid by Anguillara, the Æneid, admirably well, in blank verse, by Annibal Caro, and the Georgics, in blank verse alfo, by Daniello, and Lucretius by Marchetti.

One of the most learned commentaries on any claffic is that of Mezeriac on the epistles of Ovid. It seems strange he should have employed fo much labour on such a writer. The very beft life of Æfop is also by Mezeriac; a book so scarce, that neither Bentley nor Bayle had seen it when they first wrote on Efop. It was reprinted in the Memoires de Literature of M. De Sattengre 1717, t. i. p. 87. This is the author whom Malherbe, with his ufual bluntness, asked, when he published his edition of Diophantus, " If it would lessen the price of bread?"

There was a very early tranflation of the epistles of Ovid ascribed to Shakespear, which error, like many others, has been rectified by that able and accurate enquirer, Dr Farmer, who has shewn that they were translated by Thomas Heywood, and inferted in his Britaine's Troy, 1609.

One of the best imitations of Ovid is a Latin epistle of the Count Balthafar Castiglione, author of the celebrated Courtier, addressed to his absent wife.

1

ELOISA TO ABELARD.