There is a legend that after the Thracian women's murder of Orpheus, the mythical singer of Hellas, his head and his lyre were thrown into the sea and were wafted upon its waves to the island of Lesbos. This legend is an allegory of the island's supremacy in song, and of the unbroken continuity of lyric poetry from its budding in prehistoric times up to its full flower among the Lesbian poets of the sixth century before the Christian era. Every condition existed in Lesbos for the fostering of the love of beauty and the cultivation of all the refinements of life. The land itself presented mountain and coast, hill and dale, in pleasing and harmonious variety, while about it billowed a brilliant sapphire sea. The island was renowned for the salubrity of its climate, the purity of its atmosphere, and the transparency of its skies. Its inhabitants, owing to the variety of the products of the soil and their attention to commerce, enjoyed unbounded prosperity. They gave themselves up to the enjoyments of life, and cultivated everything that contributed to luxury, elegance, and material well-being. The men devoted their energies to politics and war and the pursuits of pleasure. The women, who were remarkable for their beauty and grace, enjoyed a freedom and rank accorded them nowhere else in Greece. Symonds thus vividly describes the free and artistic life of AEolian women: "AEolian women were not confined to the harem, like Ionians, or subjected to the rigorous discipline of the Spartans. While mixing freely with male society, they were highly educated, and accustomed to express their sentiments to an extent unknown elsewhere in history--until, indeed, the present time. The Lesbian ladies applied themselves successfully to literature. They formed clubs for the cultivation of poetry and music. They studied the art of beauty, and sought to refine metrical form and diction. Nor did they confine themselves to the scientific side of art. Unrestrained by public opinion, and avid for the beautiful, they cultivated their senses and emotions, and developed their wildest passions. All the luxuries and elegancies of life which the climate and the rich valleys of Lesbos could afford were at their disposal; exquisite gardens in which the rose and hyacinth spread perfume; river beds ablaze with the oleander and wild pomegranate; olive groves and fountains, where the cyclamen and violet flowered with feathery maiden-hair; pine-shadowed coves, where they might bathe in the calm of a tideless sea; fruits such as only the southern sea and sea wind can mature; marble cliffs, starred with jonquil and anemone in spring, aromatic with myrtle and lentisk and samphire and wild rosemary through all the months; nightingales that sang in May; temples dim with dusky gold and bright with ivory; statues and frescoes of heroic forms. In such scenes as these, the Lesbian poets lived and thought of love. When we read their poems, we seem to have the perfumes, colors, sounds, and